Maggie's Farm

We hold contradictory views of dogs.

One is the old-fashioned view: to regard them as work animals, trained for service, from which high levels of obedience and performance are expected, and ideally kenneled outdoors. Guard dogs, hunting dogs, fox-hunting dogs, sled dogs, rescuer dogs, tracking dogs, police dogs, seeing-eye dogs, race dogs, Saint Bernards carrying cheap brandy, and so forth. Servants, not friends, who are to be put down if they cannot handle their task.

But that view is more from our hard head than from the heart, because we love dogs and they love us, if they are allowed to, in mysterious ways which go far beyond the provision of kibbles: dear pals, providers of unconditional love, nightime foot-warmers, front-of-fireplace curlers, boisterous walking companions, food stealers, and cave-protectors.

Passionate Conservative talk show host and Constitutional Law expert Mark Levin is whole-heartedly in the latter camp. He only owns dogs rescued from shelters. Of his latest book Rescuing Sprite, he comments:

There’s a special connection or bond between humans and dogs. It’s as if dogs exist to bring people happiness. They teach us about life, loyalty, joy, trust, responsibility, and laughter. They help us clear out all the clutter that surrounds our busy lives and focus on what’s really important. They tell us it’s okay to take time to play sock-pull or have a catch, make silly noises, and enjoy yourself despite all the pressures we adult humans have deal with. Let me put it this way: Dogs are not pets. Dogs are family.

Well, he slips into the anthropomorphic, or pathetic, fallacy here, but I know what he means. Country folk are not so sentimental about dogs.

I aim for a compromise, but all of us at Maggie's Farm are suckers for a puppy.

Convicted of poetry, in part. Daily Mail

Great public restrooms of the world

Christmas ideas: Animatronic Elvis. Every home needs at least one.

Reconstructing America. No Pasaran likes Ceasar's book.

Why bother with those old tales? And other similar questions. Dr. Bob on scripture

"Creepy and witless" indoctrination. Dino

Quickies: What can be learned from speed-dating?

Randall Hoven on "Inordinate Fear" at American Thinker. h/t, RWN

Protein on Moslem science

Why I never hire brilliant men. From 1924. h/t, Links at Flares

FL company prohibits smoking off the job. That would be an interesting legal case, on either side. Makes you want to be a lawyer. The guy also doesn't want to hire fat people.

Global warming "greatest scam in history," says founder of The Weather Channel

Cramer: Cuomo's a communist. Probably true.

If anyone thinks that the Islamists are focused on the West only, think again. It truly is a movement of hatred for "the other."

Women too fragile for politics. Hatemonger

Adding to our blogroll: Contentions at Commentary

From a piece at Dino:

Photo: That is not Dr. Bliss. That's a Theo girl.

Winslow Homer, 1892

Richistan: A journey through the American wealth boom and the lives of the new rich.  A new book by WSJ writer Robert Frank, reviewed in The American. One quote:

It’s not the existence of these well-heeled, free-spending Americans that’s remarkable, Frank writes, but their sheer abundance. In 1995, there were 230,000 U.S. households worth at least $10 million and 50,000 households worth at least $25 million (in inflation-adjusted terms). In 2004, there were 530,000 and 110,000 such households, respectively. The accumulated wealth of America’s top one percent of earners—about $1.35 trillion—equals more than the total national incomes of Canada, France, and Italy. Perhaps most striking, roughly half of all American wealth has been created in the past ten years.

What a wonderful thing it is that, if you want big money, you have the chance to make it.

The reclamation of LA's Skid Row. Heather MacDonald in City Journal. A quote

For 25 years, the advocates used lawsuits and antipolice propaganda to beat back every effort to restore sanity to Skid Row. They concealed the real causes of homelessness under a false narrative about a callous, profit-mad society that abused the less fortunate. The result: a level of squalor that had no counterpart in the United States. Smith’s policing initiatives—grounded in the Broken Windows theory of order maintenance—ended that experiment in engineered anarchy, saving more lives in ten months than most homeless advocates have helped over their careers. The forces of lawlessness are regrouping, however, and Smith’s successes may wind up reversed in a renewed attack on the police.

and

An Urban Land Institute study warned in 1987 that the “invasion of the homeless” was threatening the older SRO population and local businesses; stronger police protection was essential, argued the institute. The recommendation failed to take into account a second new population invading Skid Row: homeless advocates. Some of the same groups that had challenged public-order laws and pushed for the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill now seized on the resulting homeless for a host of ends, including a right to housing and further restrictions on the police. A made-for-the-media “tent city” erected by sundry homeless advocates outside City Hall in December 2004, for example, sought to end workfare and job-search requirements for welfare recipients—measures that had nothing to do with why people were on the streets.

Read the whole thing.

Climate skepticism on the rise in Europe

Fred fading? The guy is good, but does he really have his heart in this?

Sarkozy in Washington: "We want to win your hearts back."

Prude: How our sex-obsessed culture damages girls. A book, at Powerline

Fred McDarrah died. An archive of his photos here. His photo on right - the wonderful Franz Kline in his studio, 1961.

Business news you might have missed. Wizbang. Incomes rising faster than inflation.

Princeton's Robert George: The Moral Purposes of Law and Government. h/t, MouseNaround

Outstanding pencil sharpener. FMFT

More on my "invisible knapsack" of privilege. Moonbattery

Finally - Brit pubs rebel against smoking ban

Sowell:

Among the many mindless mantras of our time, "making a difference" and "giving back" irritate me like chalk screeching across a blackboard.

Whole thing at Town Hall

More on the Dems' problems with illegal immigration. Barone. 

What the press must do to regain some trust, Part 1, at Powerline. Related: Top newspapers take big hits.

Dick Morris on Bill Clinton on Hillary

The history of the victim card in Dem politics. Taranto

Palestinian Jerusalemites want nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority. So much for "oppression".

Dems are the party of the mega-rich. Ace

Election Day: Do not vote today - unless you understand the issues, and have thought it all through. When uninformed and foolish people vote, everyone loses. As we have noted, it's all about whores Stooges pandering for a sinecure desiring to serve you.

Looking behind those health care stats. Mankiw in the NYT. (h/t, Viking). He pokes a hole in all of the scare tactics. What people want is portablility, I think. Of course, everybody wants cheaper too - but not if it means less freedom of choice. Medical treatment is not a commodity, and a physician is not a factory worker.

A good point on the supposed "problem" of income disparity. Cafe Hayek. The numbers are deceptive because women are working more these days, and the stats are based on household income, not individual income.

The micro-celebrity and the world of image: Stumbling. Heather Mills? Should I care?

Race, marriage, and poverty. Econlog. What he said.

Turn-around in Baghdad. Jules. The battle is over, except for some mopping up, and some mopping up of the tears of the Dems - and of Al Qaida.

Just like olden times: US Navy beats the pirates.

We are richer today than ever in history. Cafe Hayek. No doubt: I can't fit my hunting gear in my closet, and I am far from rich.

NBC - "We'll leave the lights off for you." Driscoll. What a joke.

Perspective in war stats: Patterico and Korea

Real life in Russia today. via Siberian Light

The Perils of Petrocracy. Something good from the Sunday NYT. It begins:

Who holds the world’s oil? You might assume it’s in the hands of big private oil companies like ExxonMobil. But in fact, 77 percent of the world’s oil reserves are held by national oil companies with no private equity, and there are 13 state-owned oil companies with more reserves than Exxon-Mobil.

Read the whole thing.

Tony afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted - like us. More on Tony Snow's speech, at SDA. Another quote from Tony:

Political rhetoric has turned nasty, childish, and very personal, especially on Capitol Hill, and Americans are sick of it. Hotheads seem to be enjoying a false spring of fame. And members of the mainstream press are scratching their heads and asking, “What's going on here? Why are the nation´s newspapers hemorrhaging readers? Why are the television networks losing viewers? Why has cable news suddenly hit still water? What is going on? Don't Americans care about the news?"

Well, of course they do: The problem is, they don't think they´re getting news — and they´re right.

Adding to blogroll: Official News Agency - good humor. Also, MouseNAround, which is miscellaneous like us but mainly a Christian-oriented site. Also, An Englishman's Castle.

From today's Carnival of the Insanities:

7. Leave Hillary alone! Because she'll either get really pissed and play the gender card; or develop a case of the "vapors"!

Since when do Bill and Hillary live together? Not since the White House, I'd wager. Doesn't she have her own townhouse in DC? Why do people talk as if they were actually ever together these days? Anyway, Althouse on Krauthammer on father-son vs. husband-wife connections.

Will work for whirled peas. Idealism doesn't pay the bills.

Can anybody stop the Indians from pooping outdoors? Mod. Voice

Free Oscar Biscet. The silence is deafening.

What's an activist? Coyote. A quote:

A person who believes so strongly that a problem needs to be remedied that she dedicates substantial time to ... getting other people to fix the problem. 

Dems seek younger, safer donors. Haha. h/t, Wizbang

Cinnamon feels the love. It's the consuming love of the all-caring totalitarian Left.

All we need is a paper fence. I agree.

Dr. Helen: Should men get married? Good comments on that piece.

Trinidad and Tobago must be stopped, before we all die!

Driscoll's Quote of the Day, from Tony Snow:

"It’s time for the press to declare themselves either free guardians of the public trust or owned members of a political movement. They can’t be both."

Photo: Bird Dog's Sugar Maple, on fire today

I, the Maggie's Farm News Junkie, am heading off to northern NH for a two-day hunt, but I wanted to get these good links on the board before I leave tonight. The team will fill in, as always.

More on the U of Delaware ideological reeducation at FIRE. h/t, Never Yet

Al Qaida is defeated in Iraq. That's big news, isn't it? And at American Thinker, Al Qaida's downward spiral

The State Department: Who do they think they are serving?

Did those Israeli jets prevent WW 3? Surber

Cradle to grave:  poll says people want free "long-term care." All I want is free beer...and a free new F-150, 4-door with 4WD.

LL Bean opens new Hunting and Fishing store in Freeport. Wonder if they were hearing Cabelas' footsteps.

Give the market a chance: Driscoll/Betsy/Sowell

Why we need 527s. Dem. Project

Strange indeed. Second Life. But CNN will cover it.

Great example of the MSM spinning good news as bad news, lest you have an optimistic emotion. Jules

Kahlil Gibran spoof. Damn good. h/t, Assistant Village Idiot

Parents in Utah want to take the power back, in their schools.

VDH bites back. Works and Days

Kid with matches started one of the Calif fires.

A big tent Repub party? Definitely. Both parties should be big tent. It's a party's job to win elections, not to be pure. And yes, I like Rudy as a candidate. He is tough, scrappy and quick.

I like Putin's election strategy. It sure beats promising new entitlements.

No sex on Singapore Air, please. But then why the comfy beds?

From "Beware of Conservative speakers on campus - they might actually change a mind or two", at neoneo - a quote from Prager:

….ad hominem labels are the left’s primary rhetorical weapons. So when leftist students are actually confronted with even one articulate conservative, many enter a world of cognitive dissonance. That is one reason why universities rarely invite conservatives to speak: they might change some students’ minds.

I read the Cato Institute regularly. Good stuff.

Who says foreign aid gets no results? Graph of aid to Palestinians, from here (h/t, SDA):

How AIDS got to the US. Reuters

The Illustrated Road to Serfdom

Dogs and the moral confusion of animal rights. Classical

Demon Corn. Corn?

Iraq's endangered Christians.

Arrogantly titled "The Board," the NYT's new blog by its editorial staff is predictably condescending, and the entries are anonymous. It ain't Opinion Journal.

The Globe believes that the Moonbats won the Cold War.

Edwards: Full snake mode. He wants a New Deal.

A report from the Dem debate, by Riehl. A quote:

So I watched the Democrat debate tonight in its entirety, just taking it in. Is there an industry they wouldn't attack? From Hedge Funds, Defense, the Airlines, Insurance companies and, of course, the Oil Companies, it seems they all have investigations, regulations, or some restrictions in mind, assuming they flat out don't just want to do away with it completely?

Not once did I hear anything even remotely referencing the individual and certainly nothing that might challenge one. Apparently people can't become Doctors ... unless the government pays their tuition - and the trend discussed was free college for all at the government's expense. I mean, why should people be expected to invest in such a thing themselves? And they seem to be advocating having the State take charge of children as early as from two - four years-old. It's as if parenting should be relegated to a two-year proposition. Okay, you birthed the thing, we'll take it from here.

Medical research? We don't need the Pharma's, just turn it over to the NIH, while increasing governmental education-based grants for research across the board. There seemed to be no room for a market-based dynamic in such things at all.

A California doc with some good proposals for medical insurance, at Pajamas. Practical, and not scary for the poor. Got to listen to the docs in the trenches, not the pandering pols.

Five years for one manly punch? Something wrong there.

Rudy: Hillarycare would have killed me. Surber

NYS: A driver's license that labels you as illegal

The world's oldest clam. Blue Crab. Yum - vintage clam.

The new Cardinal of Baghdad.

If global warming causes more rainfall, why try to blame droughts on it? Flopping. And yes, I am still waiting for more hurricanes. I love stormy weather.

Mukesh's new billion dollar home.

Gender and Science: Globe

You're a good man, Brian Lamb

American kids are dumber than dirt.

Record numbers of Brits travelling abroad for medical treatment.

Is the battle for Iraq over? Yes, says Reason

El Baradai: "We are the eyes and the ears of the international community." No, they are a joke.

Why Eleanor Roosevelt declined the invitation to run for President after FDR died. RTLC

Get health care or we'll kill you. Viking. (Odd how it is that nowadays they say "health care" when they mean "insurance.") What if you're a Christian Scientist?

Nationally, eight percent of all consumers are blog (readers or contributors)....

Details at Dr. X

8% who read a blog at least once a month is higher than I might have guessed. Who knows - maybe this blog thing will be more than a passing fad. Personally, I have always loved newspapers and magazines, and I don't see any difference with online content, other than the amateurism (in the best sense of the word) - and the alternative to the arrogant, monotonous and socialist (socialist except when it comes to salary negotiations and stock price) MSM. 

More on blogs, and the supposed "Top 100", at Gates. (No, we are not on that list: we haven't been fully "found" yet by all of the folks in the world who might find us life-enriching. But Tim Blair gave us a hand this weekend. Thanks, Tim.)

Racial hatred does not arise spontaneously.  It is cultivated by political leaders seeking to use it for their own purposes.  The divorce of white Southerners from the political leaders who kept them dependent on Democrats to continue segregation has changed an ugly socio-political dynamic dating back to the foundations of the United States.  This does not mean that racism has been eliminated-far from it.  But Bobby Jindal's election is the latest evidence of the transformation -- in a single generation -- of what had been the voting block of reaction and racism through all preceding American history. The Republican southern strategy has produced one of the greatest victories ever won for the cause of civil rights in America.    

From Protein, on a piece by Robert Reich:

Certainly, this isn’t about fairness in the tax code. Reich, Rangel, et al have no interest in “fairness”. What this is about is property rights and who ultimately gets to control them. What we have here are not “liberals” but statists who cover their envy of others’ success with sanctimonious socialism. Reich believes that people have no right to own more than 50% of their earnings and they must pay yearly rental to the government of their property.

“Reich only wants to do this to ‘the rich’” you say? I don’t buy it. For one he disengenuously cites Eisenhower and JFK tax rates and skips Ronald Reagan. Facts about the tax code and tax rates of those eras and increased federal revenues as they changed and rates fell would belie his jealous hissy-fit. And that’s what this boils down to — envy, jealousy … the coveting of your neighbors success. It’s the excuse offered by the people who shoplift “hey, they’re rich, they won’t miss it and I wanted it.”

Reich has the “morals” of a petty thief.

Read the whole thing.

Hillary knew all about Bill's affairs. Duh. Jerry Ford had some thoughts about all that. I think Bill is an ordinary sociopath.

Meanwhile, terrorists say "Vote for Hillary."

"Bled white" by 171 casualties, Brits pack it in.

Buddy says this is the web's best business site. h/t, Flares. It is surely a fine news site.

Bobby Jindal is too white? Or are his politics the wrong color?

Why cities like Buffalo can never be what they once were. City Journal

Courting natural disasters. Betsy. I believe that homeowner's insurance should cover the costs - including governmental costs.

15 people I do not wish to hear another word about. Kim

How cold weather spreads the flu. h/t Flares

How Che met God. Classical

Everybody has occasional lapses in judgement, but FEMA made a dumb one.

Fred videos

Megan McArdle's rant about school vouchers. h/t, Right Wing Prof

Bush's inspiring speech about Cuba

Putin saber-rattling. What for? Isn't it obvious at this point that we mean them no harm?

Photo: Poodles can hunt. It isn't widely known that the breed originated in Germany, for duck hunting. They love marshes. The only problem with Poodles is that they are smarter than humans.

New architects design without ego. It's about time.

Hate speech and dumb speech, and plain dumb, at Thompson

Summary of Al Qaida weakness. CSM

San Diego fires vs. New Orleans floods: Protein

I hope this is not true: We did not kill Bin Laden

Funny: NYT bashes Commentary for nepotism. Also, is the NYT for sale? I doubt it.

Food price controls in Russia

Joe Klein negative about Bush Iraq leadership, despite progress. Similar despair at Moderate Voice. Related: Hollywood's war on the war on terror. Driscoll

Opinion Journal on Charlie Rangel's Trillion Dollar Baby. More at Blue Crab

The gap between rich and poor - very small, in Cuba

Moral dilemmas and counterinsurgency in Israel. TigerHawk

Is Mark Zuckerberg the next Bill Gates?

The Italian government uneasy about the internet. Why? And how many other governments want to control the flow of ideas and facts? In my opinion, any government that wants to do that is illegitimate, by definition.

The Al Qaida video game. Meanwhile, Bin Laden declares war against the UN "occupation" of Darfur. And amusingly, terrorists turn angry with Bin Laden. Such things happen when people are losing.

Sir Piers at Agincourt, plus some other tough Brits

The obesity crisis in squirrels. A Government program is needed.

Who are the arsonists? Flopping

Rude leftists shut down Horowitz speech at Emory. Thus are their intolerant and totalitarian impulses revealed.

Jules says "The Army is at war, and Tom Friedman goes to Neiman Marcus." "Double reverse chicken hawk"?

Photo: It's finally hunting season again. Long-time readers of Maggie's know that she is the famous Maid of the Marsh, a lovely and elusive mythical creature known only to duck hunters, and seen only on foggy days by hunters with serious hangovers combined with mental instability. We were fortunate to catch this photo, which is clearer than most photos of Bigfoot.

The myth of middle class job loss. Lib. Leanings

Carl Hiassen (one of our favorite authors) on stinking campaign cash

It's good to see that Canberra has its law enforcement priorities in the right place.

The 52 Senators who want you to pay for other peoples' abortions. Corner. May I mention that an elective abortion is not a medical treatment?

Million dollar painting found in NYC trash. Moral of the story: Always look through other people's trash. I admire the honesty of this lady, too.

Knife fight: Bateman at Media Matters goes after VDH.

Bush and Cheney lit the forest fires. Everybody knows that.

Dems propose 4% surcharge on incomes over 150,000. Why? I suppose just on general Marxist principles. The rich? A cop married to a supervisory nurse make that much around here. It isn't "soak the rich" - it's "soak hard-working families."  To soak the rich, go after Ted Kennedy's and George Soros' offshore investments. Anyway, a tax increase won't happen, now.