Maggie's Farm

Left-wing billionaire's own experts dominate quiet push for 'a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.'  The report begins:

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start - and no one seems to have noticed.

On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order."

Squaw Valley got 76 inches of new powder snow in the past seven days and snow is expected to continue all week.  190 inch base; 570 cumulative inches for the season.

"Another 14-18" overnight is going to make for an amazing day on the mountain.  The season snowfall total has already surpassed 500" [now 570"] guaranteeing spectacular spring conditions and powder for this week. 

Weather experts are predicting more snow for a Miracle March and abundant coverage into May." Current report here.  

Sugar Bowl to the immediate north has a 287" base.

What's the catch?  Interstate 80 is closed from Applegate (on the Western slope) to the Nevada state line due to zero visibility, and most of the lifts are closed due to wind and snow!

This morning the Muslim Brotherhood warned the United States that if it does not stop meddling in Egypt they intend to cut off America's supply of 7-11 and Motel 6 managers.

If this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be next, followed by Dell, AT&T and AOL customer service reps.

Finally, if all else fails, they have threatened not to send us any more presidents either.

It's gonna get ugly, people.

- Song of Songs 2:12

From a bare patch nearby:

The Fashion Cops are on the prowl:

As fashionistas and celebrities pile into New York City this week for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, they might want to do a look over of their outfits before heading out. The reason? The fashion police just got themselves a brand new patrol car. Black and white, with sirens and yellow flashing lights, the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Force will be paroling the streets of New York City in their 2012 CLS63 AMG. Serious powerplant built and modified by AMG, the 518-horsepower engine about to do 0 to 62 mph in 4.4 seconds. Fast enough to stop anyone in the middle of a styling faux pas and nip any fashion disaster in the bud. Look for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Force CLS63 AMG around your block this week.

Over the transom:

The Washington Post

"The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

"Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelt which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable."

I apologize, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922. As reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post……… 88 years ago!

A Great Story (1973)

It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand is a bucket of shrimp.

Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts....and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Soon, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, "Thank you. Thank you."

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away and old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like "a funny old duck," as my dad used to say. Or, "a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic," as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida.

That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were. They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued. (after 24 days at sea...)

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped saying, "Thank you." That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

 (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)

According to Rickenbacker, each person on the rafts converted to Christianity after the experience.

PS: By 1910, Rickenbacker was racing cars. Touted as the first man to drive a mile a minute, he received the sobriquet "Fast Eddie" (giving rise to a nickname borne by many men named Edward since his time).  Eddie raced in the 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916 Indianapolis 500. His only finish in the race was in 1914 when he finished 10th. In the other three races, he did not finish due to car failure. Notably, in the 1916 race, he started on the front row in 2nd place.  Eddie was also an Ace in WW I with 22 enemy planes to his credit and started Eastern Airlines back in the 30's.  Eddie left us back in 1973, but he was a pilot in two wars, an Ace, and received the Medal of Honor.  He was also on the overseas air mail stamp some years ago.  And he never forgot his debt.....

I forget who this came from, but it this feels like today:

December 8 - 6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9 - We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.

December 12 - The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. l don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14 – Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so.  The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks.  This is the life!  The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again.  I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way.  I wish l wouldn't huff and puff so.

December 15 - 20 inches forecast.  Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer.  The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

December 16 - Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt.  Hurt like hell.  The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

I made it into Manhattan this weekend. Vermeer and Central Park.

I forget where this fine recipe came from (maybe Mr. Free Market. No, it was The Englishman), but I'd think it would work fine for any game bird except duck, and certainly for chicken:

A Country Squire’s Own Recipe for Roast Red Grouse

Peel the potatoes first thing in the morning as the second cup of tea and Aspirin take effect.  Put in a pan with lots of cold water and handful of salt, bring to the boil on the Aga as your bacon and eggs cook.  Finish breakfast, ablute and then pour the boiling water out of the pan over your breakfast plate in the sink to clean the eggy stains off.  Leave pan lid off for the potatoes to steam dry as you walk the dogs.

On your return, sniff the grouse hanging in the woodshed and pick a couple, or more, of the ripe ones.  Do the dirty deeds and return indoors with your fresh plucked grouse.

Rummage in the larder and pull out all the root vegetables you can find.  Cut off the grotty bits, put in the hen food bucket (it's legal as long as you don't take them into the kitchen first).

Open up the Sunday paper on the kitchen table and put the vegetables on it; read, cut, slice and swear all at the same time.  When finished screw up the soiled paper and use in the bottom of the fire grate.

Open a bottle of red.

Heat a large knob of dripping [fat from roasted meat] in your largest roasting pan until it is smoking, drop in the potatoes, swirl about and sprinkle with lots of salt.  A sprig of rosemary can be added on top.  Bung in the oven.  Pour a glass of wine.

Second roasting tray, butter and oil and put to heat.  When you have finished the wine, take out of oven and put the veg in, shake and return.

Your frying pan that you cooked your bacon in this morning should be returned to the hot plate and all that lovely bacony grease heated up.  Pour another glass of wine.

Take birds and roll around in hot pan until they are brown and your fingers hurt.

As Agas only fit two roasting trays you will probably now need to add them to the potato tray.

Drink the glass and check how laying the table in the dining room is going.

Your guests should now arrive, have a sherry with them; make your excuse as soon as he mentions his work at the bank, retreat to the kitchen, open another bottle of really meaty red, get all the stuff out of the oven, birds on the carving plate on the table to breathe, veggies in the bowls that were warming in the bottom oven.  Splash some wine in a glass to check it and then into the meat roasting pan, pinch of this, spoon of that and your gravy is made.

Take through and carve and let the guests help themselves to vegetables.

At Stratfor, China's Military Comes Into Its Own. Baker begins:

Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States, perhaps his last state visit as president before China begins its generational leadership transition in 2012. Hu’s visit is being shaped by the ongoing China-U.S. economic dialogue, by concerns surrounding stability on the Korean Peninsula and by rising attention to Chinese defense activity in recent months. For example, China carried out the first reported test flight of its fifth-generation combat fighter prototype, dubbed the J-20, during U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to China the previous week.

The development and test flight of China’s J-20 is not insignificant, but it is also by no means a game changer in the U.S.-China defense balance. More intriguingly, the test highlights how China’s military increasingly is making its interests heard.

Pic from last January, in CT -

I call this a Harry Reid-Tailed Hawk because his head seems to be screwed on backwards:

Whoever forgot his wife or girlfriend at my place after the party is asked to please come and get her ASAP.

Beth insists she's got to go!

(Sorta but not quite SFW)

Port Ellen, Islay

After the ratification of the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919 and passage of the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, Prohibition began on January 16, 1920. Alcohol smuggling began immediately. Rum-runner Captain William S. McCoy began bringing rum from Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas into south Florida. The Coast Guard soon caught up with him, so he began to bring the illegal goods to just outside of the U.S. territorial waters and let smaller boats and other captains such as “Habana Joe” take the risk of bringing it into shore.

McCoy soon bought a sea-going fishing schooner named Arethusa for the purpose and renamed her Tomoka.  He installed a powerful engine, mounted a concealed machine gun on her deck and configured the hold to carry all the liquor she could hold mostly Irish and Canadian whiskey.

Rum runners usually added water to the bottles or change labels for more famous ones to stretch their profits.  McCoy became famous for never watering his bottles, and this reputation earned his goods as "The Real McCoy."

On November 15, 1923, McCoy and Tomoka encountered the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca.  Tomoka’s machine gun repelled the boarding party, but was less successful against the Seneca’s cannon, and Tomoka was finished, along with McCoy’s career as a rum runner. 

Most speakeasy customers got used to the watered whisky, however, and many still drink the “milder” brands like J&B, Cutty Sark, Black & White, and Dewar’s White Label.

For a great chart showing a matrix of Light vs, Rich, plotted against Smoky vs. Delicate, see this site.

He was near a pond.