Maggie's Farm

Get off the internet, for once. Get in the kitchen and help - or turn on the TV, fix a drink, start getting numb, and watch the moronic Macy's parade like a normal person! Gee, will there be a problem with the balloons? (I swear that the parade coverage is targeted to Alzheimers patients tied into wheelchairs.) But first...relax and spend a few peaceful and intelligent minutes of serenity with us:

Orson Card discusses divorce and the useful and important Between Two Worlds by Marquardt

Iran executes more gays: Classical Values

Dating website fraud? Phin. Yes, very bad.

Understanding the terrorists. Ace:

"We took Chris Matthews' advice, and really endeavored to understand these people," a Pentagon spokeman said. "And then, once we sufficiently understood them, we atomized them with high-explosive precision munitions. I think this is a compromise approach both the left and right can agree."

Chavez exporting revolution. TCS

Oh no! Not innovative math again. Education Matters.

From neoneocon's archives: Leaving the Fold

"Someone who leaves the fold is much worse than someone who was never in it. There's a special rage reserved for those who have rejected the ideas that others hold dear. "

A retrospective review of Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism:

"Lasch subtitled his book, “American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations,” and it is useful to question just how far the diminishing of expectations he first identified has gone. Looking back on The Culture of Narcissism more than 25 years later, what did Lasch get right and what did he get wrong? What developments did he presciently identify and which ones did he miss? In the interim decades, has Lasch’s narcissist given way to a new type of American character and, if so, what are that character’s defining traits? A descriptive tour revisiting some of Lasch’s themes — especially the transformation of the family — suggests that the narcissism Lasch described has not disappeared. It has simply taken on a different and in some ways more exaggerated form."

More Drucker: Interview at Claremont Inst.

The "Katrina Experiment." Star Parker

Coveney on the state of theater cricitism: Prospect

US can be free of oil dependence? Without a single mention of nuclear power? Doubt it. And the writer doesn't seem to know that it requires more energy to produce ethanol than ethanol contains. IndyStar. Ethanol is alcohol: would you pour Grey Goose into the tank of your F-150? Even if Grey Goose were cheaper per gallon than gas? Heck no. Economics isn't everything, because things have meaning to people.

What's wrong with this essay on French riots in Jurist? I have my ideas.

The priest shortage. The Week

Foxman discovers conspiracy to Christianize America. Or, could you say, Front Page discovers conspiracy to de-Christianize American culture?

Vonnegut on Iraq: SDA

Socializing medicine: Cafe Hayek

The cost of freedom: Confed. Yank

Chris Matthews in denial: LGF. Would he have said the same of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot? To deny the human potential for evil is dangerously foolish, not virtuous.

A quote from Dinocrat, re the Iraq vote:

"The Left is in a profound crisis, a crisis which they have as yet failed to recognize. They are living in a country in which they are outnumbered 3 to 2 by conservatives, and they refuse to consciously recognize that the liberal position is no longer the default position in American public opinion, even as they are forced to cast humiliating votes. The religion of the Left has failed to capture the hearts of America. Their religion has failed, but it’s all they have. Imagine a young man at a madrassa in Pakistan who wakes up one day to discover that he no longer believes the Koran to be literally true. He still carries on with lessons and prayers, perhaps all the louder and more fervently. The Left too has its playbook; it is all they have. So one should expect more of the same, perhaps louder and more fervently."

Manners and civility: Geo. Will

Katrina money still unspent: Drudge

Clinton's change of mind re Iraq? Op. Journal

Organic vs. non-organic: The Milk Wars. Intell Cons.

Chinese New Yorkers sending their kids back to China. NYSun

Is Zarquawi dead? Inquiring minds want to know.

Internet use in China.

Bird flu vaccine and the trial lawyers. How about a blog named "No Vaccine for Trial Lawyers" - like No OIl for Pacifists.

Welfare and the aborigines. They call it "sit down money".

Al Quaida caught on Mexican border.

$100 laptop for the third world. Synthstuff. Wonderful.

Three Votes

Exactly three votes for surrender to a handful of ignorant terrorist lunatics. That's a little more like it, America. Powerline.

Has everyone seen this?

If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the
Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112
deaths, that gives a combat death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol (which happens to have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation) than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion:  We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

Vegetarian eats grasshopper, wants compensation. Here. Hey - I'd say it's the grasshopper's family that deserves compensation. A widow, and God knows how many fatherless children with crime, and possibly even gun ownership, in their futures. Where is PETA when you need them?

An up or down vote on Iraq? Ace

Where are the WMD's? Atlas and Anchoress

Dead people as art. WTF? AOL news. Hilarious, especially with Bird Dog writing about "art cemeteries." This is a true art cemetery.

The mind of a terrorist: Gay and right

Decaf unhealthy? Always knew there was something fishy about the concept.

One Christian view of sex (not necessarily endorsing this view, but it's interesting). Natural Family Planning Outreach

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

A piece by Brian on Community of the Desperate. Real Meal.

What good is a GOP majority? Ankle Biter

Stavins on climate change remedies, recommending economic incentives. Env. Economics. Am I an idiot not to stay awake at night worrying about this? Climate does change, for whatever reasons. It has never been static. Heck, we were just covered under a mile of ice in New England a short ten thousand years ago, and will be again. The enviro-nuts are short-term thinkers. They need to think more Progressively: Change is Good - right? And if things warm up, we'll need less evil oil! And nature will take its course. What? Me worry? Hey, Al Gore - chill - or should I say, take a Prozac and a scotch and warm up and enjoy life. Che bella vita, as Bird Dog sometimes says.

The collected works of Bin Ladin, LGF

Iraqi bloggers: No Oil

"Mr. President, Build that Wall". Gates of Vienna on Immigration. Are we ever lucky to need a wall to keep interlopers out, instead of to keep people in?

I doubt that even most liberals want govt experts taking over a family function like this. MassRight. However, a true socialist would be happy, as more power accrues to the Almighty and Omniscient State.

It is the dawning of the Age of Eurabia, etc. Iowahawk

Two Books

Two books that I have heard people mentioning lately:

1. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Bernstein

2. The R. Crumb Handbook, by R. Crumb

Cheney and RNC Push Back

About time. New England Repub

And Mehlman - the RNC's video here.

Pajamas Media has changed to OSM - Open Source Media. Synthstuff has details. Wonder whether we should join. We could not understand the contract when it first came out.

Story of the UN's effort to take over the internet: Paxety

Al Gore deeply, deeply concerned about warming. Reasoned Audacity

Limp Weenies and Phased Deployment

Yankee Doodle, keep it up. Some Repubs and many Dems, for whatever reasons, want to run away from Iraq, at a point at which it is well on its way to becoming a functioning democracy in the center of the midde east. Except for a few thousand suicidal lunatics, we, with the millions of normal Iraquis, may be on the verge of an historic accomplishment which would serve the people of the medieval and benighted middle east, the interests of the US, and the security and stability of the world.

I know the Dems mainly want to embarass the Repubs - sometimes at the cost of the US's best interest, it seems - but all these folks need to realize that some things are just plain difficult. That doesn't mean that they are not worth doing. It just means you dig down deep into your persistence and courage, and press on. It's not the American way to run away from tough things, especially when the tough things are just a bunch of raggedy, ignorant nutjobs. We're not exactly facing the German Army, which was truly scary and from which we never ran.

And still I wonder whether the Dems are simply afraid of a Bush success in Iraq, and hope to subvert it. Shame on me for having such a suspicious thought.

From Tony Blankley:

"Monday, for the first time, the foul odor of the Vietnam War denouement wafted through the Senate Chamber during the debate on Iraq. The Democrats called for "estimated dates for the phased redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq … " Phased redeployment was the maneuver the French executed in June 1940, in the days preceding the German occupation of Paris. Phased redeployment is what the Vietnamese boat people did as they swam for their lives away from their homeland."

Read entire.

Holding Hands

When Bill and Hillary show up holding hands, you know a campaign is on. Sensible Mom

Tough Love at the Olin Foundation: Town Hall

A quote:

"Pound for pound, the largest left-leaning foundations outspent the top conservative foundations last year by more than 10 to 1 in a market where grants worth $32 billion were made by foundations managing combined assets of more than $475 billion. The Ford Foundation, for example, sits atop roughly $11 billion worth of assets, while the conservative John M. Olin Foundation - which just spent down its portfolio and closed its doors - never reached so much as $120 million worth of assets under management in a given year. And yet, John J. Miller recently published a book entitled A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America. "

Animal Farm at Dartmouth: Powerline

Greatest threat to our kids: Pens. FMFT

"Repub Nervous Nellies" on Iraq: RWNH

A blogger we have just discovered, or who just discovered Maggie's: Musafir's Musings. Mostly moderate-sounding rational politics (if "rational politics" is not an oxymoron), but I can see that his interests go beyond politics.

Krauthammer on France:

"As the French seem to learn every 70 years, appeasement does not work. It merely whets the appetite. And the angry alien young were already hungry."  Read entire.

Pension Crisis: A dull subject, but one of critical importance to millions of people. AOL News.

PBS distorts history of Crusades. Big surprise there. View from 1776

Interview with Murdoch, via Drudge:

"The Internet is certainly ... you know, it's ... I was operating -- we've all been operating -- during a changing model of communications: television, moving pictures and so on. But the Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, "It's the biggest thing since Gutenberg," and then someone else said, "No, it's the biggest thing since the invention of writing." With the technology that goes with it, the fact is that everybody now is empowered: Anyone can buy what they want, shop where they want, talk to anybody in the world that they want (and) state their own opinions. There's no mystery to a blog: Put up your thoughts (and) find friends. And the younger people are, the more time they're spending on it -- it's extraordinary. We bought (MySpace.com) a few weeks ago and just closed the deal last night, legally. There are 32 million people already registered on that, and there are 125,000 a day being added to it. They're finding common interests: When they're 17 or 18, they go on looking for dates; if they're 25, there are 3 (million) or 4 million young mothers out there talking about things. Within that, there are lots and lots of communities, and they can all blog -- they can all write in a personal diary every week, or whatever they want."

Read entire interview.

Preventing Apophis from colliding with earth: CSM. Please don't let it fall on my house - it was just painted.

Humorless, fun-deficient person acts offended by "Pick a bale of cotton"- Newsmax

Moonbats galore, via LGF

European Riot update: Gateway

Edwardian standards for youth: Miriam

GOP's improving hopes: RWN

Ezmerai speaks: Cao

Affirmative Action in France? CSM

How Sen. Lieberman is harming CT: Daily News

Frankenstein Wines, Globalization, and the Wine "Industry": The War on Terroir

California wine makers have learned to construct wines to meet popular tastes. Purists, for whom the idea of terroir is sacred, are fit to be tied. It's a great example of the effects of globalization.

From Der Spiegel:

For Löwenstein, there are real wines and there are Frankenstein wines, and it looks as though the Frankenstein camp is currently gaining ground. Löwenstein has old fashioned ideas, and he wants to return to the past. And he doesn't shy away from controversy.

And controversy is something he has had plenty of lately. Specifically, a controversy over what some -- especially those in North America -- call progress. It involves procedures like adding wood chips, tannin and water to the wine, breaking it down into its basic components with a machine called a spinning cone column, and then putting it back together as needed.

Read entire.

Two Must- Reads for today

1. Baehr on Riots and the MSM in Am. Thinker

2. Scrapple Face on the French Moslem Riots

Very Old Light

From Science Daily:

"Scientists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope say they have detected light that may be from the earliest objects in the universe. If confirmed, the observation provides a glimpse of an era more than 13 billion years ago when, after the fading embers of the theorized Big Bang gave way to millions of years of pervasive darkness, the universe came alive."

Read entire.

Another sad tale of academic Maoism: Protein

Terror a la carte: from Travel Wire News

Canadians ban Halloween, Miriam via RWNH

News refuses to characterize the French "youths": Ankle-Biter

A hybrid update from Glenn, here.

Newspaper circulation continues to decline, via Drudge, here.

Living in Eurabia: Atlas (We like to call it Euristan)

IRS hassles anti-war church. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

More on tuition discounts for illegals: Imm. Blog

Douthat reviews Dowd's book:

"AS WITH MUCH of what Dowd writes, it's hard to know how seriously to take her mix of cheap shots and caricature. Still, it's worth at least suggesting, by way of counterpoint, that the world we inhabit isn't one in which the feminists have been backlashed into retreat for the last 40 years--it's a world where feminism won, at least insofar as it could, and the sexual confusion that so dismays Dowd is the unexpected consequence of its victory."

Read entire.

Immigration legislation update. Barone.

Istanbul Update. Eurozine

From Gates of Vienna: "The european union is so busy building houses of cards they don’t even notice that half the place is on fire and the other half is muslim."

The American right to Cheap Oil: PoliPundit

Liberal politics: RWN: "But, when will they have their big "awakening" and finally figure out liberalism is a political killer? Who knows? Given that the Democratic Party has been going downhill at least since Nixon slaughtered McGovern in 1972, you'd think the Dems would have figured this out long ago."

"While Europe Slept": Neo-neocon

Sambo in Maryland: good comments from Ragged Thots

"Some things shouldn't be for sale." Ain't that the truth. Classical Values on Art, etc.

The California elections - a run-down on the Propositions by Ankle Biter

Tuition breaks for illegals in Massachusetts - but not for legals, of course. MassRight

If I burn a car, can I get a free villa in Provence?

A case study in how not to deal with Jihad. NY Sun. I guess now it's all about "occupied territories" - Sensible Mom. And how did it happen that France is now Jihad's "Enemy Number One"?

French Tolerance, etc. 

With the Moslems setting France on fire, let's see what these condescending politicians will do now.

The HT has an opinion article:

"The suburbs of Paris, whether the faubourgs of the French Revolution or the banlieues of today, have a long history of violent uprisings by enraged citizens. But the nightly clashes in the grimy northeastern environs of the city over the past week were dismally contemporary: The rioters torching the cars and pelting police around the low-rent apartment blocks that abut the City of Light were the sons of African and Arab immigrants, most of them Muslims, who have never been integrated into French society, who work for the lowest wages, who live in ghettos rife with crime."

Read entire at Int. Herald Tribune