Maggie's Farm

 Handle every stressful situation like a dog.  
 

The well-known piece below was written by Lewis Napper in 1993.

"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other Liberal bed-wetters.

We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a

Bill of NON-Rights
ARTICLE I
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but No one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is Based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; But the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool Manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the Creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is my pet peeve...get an education and go to work .. don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)

ARTICLE V
You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII
You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)

ARTICLE IX
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X
This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

ARTICLE XI
You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!"

Over the transom:

As a young minister in  Kentucky, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a graveside service for a homeless man, who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a new cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be buried there.

I was not familiar with the backwoods area, and I soon became lost. Being a typical man, I did not stop to ask for directions. I finally arrived an hour late.

I saw the backhoe and the open grave, but the hearse was nowhere in sight. The digging crew was eating lunch. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and I stepped to the side of the open grave. There I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, as I told them that this was the proper thing to do.

The workers gathered around the grave and stood silently, as I began to pour out my heart and soul.

As I preached about "looking forward to a brighter tomorrow" and "the glory that is to come," the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord," and "Glory!" The fervor of these men truly inspired me. So, I preached and I preached like I had never preached before, all the way from Genesis to Revelations.

I finally closed the lengthy service with a prayer, thanked the men, and walked to my car. As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I heard one of the workers say to another, "I ain't NEVER seen nothin' like that before, and I've been puttin' in septic tanks for 30 years!"

From the NZ Herald:

Japan started the war with six million tonnes of shipping and of course built more as the war went on. US submarines sank 1314 of their ships of more than 1000 tons each, plus 700,000 tons of naval ships including eight aircraft carriers, a battleship and 11 cruisers.

They did 416 patrols and fired 14,500 torpedoes. Out of a total of 52 subs lost, 48 were lost operating from the Fremantle base. American submariners made up only 1.6 per cent of the US naval manpower but they had the highest loss rate of US Armed Forces with 22 per cent killed.

Read the whole thing.

Photo: USS Swordfish, sunk off Okinawa in January 1945

From Manly. It begins:

Dear Barack Obama:

I grew to like you over the last year.

I've always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best.

I couldn't vote for you -- but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn't vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I'm convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I'm convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don't respect the Second Amendment (which I'm convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).

Still, I've liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I've hunted, quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.)

And I've long said if you beat Hillary Clinton, you will have done your country a tremendous service. But anymore I'm having a harder and harder time rooting for you.

Read the whole thing.

Peacetime Generals: Too Fearful of Losing to Risk Winning

Peacetime generals have never been able to fight wars.  President Abraham Lincoln’s peacetime general was George Brinton McClellan.  According to Wikipedia,

 “Although he understood that the Confederacy had to be defeated, McClellan, a member of the Democrat Party, advocated military conduct under “the highest principles known to Christian civilization” and was generally conservative on slavery. Hence, he was never in favor with Radical Republicans, who demanded the immediate abolition of slavery and regarded McClellan as “soft” on military measures. McClellan's supposed moderation became a central issue when he ran for president in 1864. Although he strongly advocated continuing the war until victory was achieved, some historians have suggested that if McClellan had defeated the Republican Lincoln, the peace faction within the Democratic Party would have insisted that the war effort be suspended, and the Confederacy would thereby have achieved independence.”

The Reader's Companion to American History adds:

“A month into the Civil War McClellan was appointed major general in the Regular Army and commander of the Department of the Ohio. After efficiently managing a campaign in western Virginia, he was summoned to Washington late in July 1861, following the Bull Run debacle, to take command of the main Union army in the East. Over the next eight months he trained and organized the Army of the Potomac, serving for four of those months as general-in-chief of all the Union armies.

“In April 1862 McClellan took the field to direct the largest campaign of the war, an advance against Richmond via the Virginia peninsula. For three months he inched his way cautiously toward the Confederate capital, but in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1) he was driven into retreat by Robert E. Lee's smaller Army of Northern Virginia. Ordered to evacuate the peninsula in August, McClellan was slow to send reinforcements to the embattled Union forces at Second Bull Run, and Lee was again victorious. When the Confederate army invaded Maryland early in September, President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly turned once again to McClellan, a general stained by defeat but the only general capable of restoring shattered Union morale. On September 17, along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, McClellan finally brought Lee to battle. Despite his greatly superior force, McClellan's cautious generalship gained only a draw in the bloodiest single day's fighting of the war. He refused to pursue Lee back into Virginia and was reluctant to renew the campaign in the weeks that followed. On November 5, 1862, Lincoln ordered him relieved of command. . . . He was a general afflicted with "the slows" (as Lincoln put it), too fearful of losing to risk winning.”

 Every president since Lincoln has had serious problems with peacetime generals in the opening years of a war.  It is not hard to understand.  The peacetime military is civil service with dazzling uniforms, and the skill-set needed and used to get that all-important promotion from Colonel to General, or Captain to Admiral, is the antithesis of the skill-set needed to win battles.  The warfighter must be a risk-taker, an innovator, and a swift decision-maker.  The “Perfumed Pentagon Prince” to succeed in the Pentagon must be compliant, doctrinaire, and collaborative. Generals Colin Powell, the media Saint, and Norman Schwarzkopf in the first Iraq war were pushed by SECDEF Cheney to listen to Colonel John Boyd (see “BOYD, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War”) who devised the famous “Left Hook” that cut off and isolated the Republican Guard.  Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf wanted to follow the “Powell Doctrine” which called for a deliberate massive push “up the center” with overwhelming force, the tactic developed for opposing Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe, but they were overruled by Cheney, and Stormin’ Norman was gracefully given credit for the wildly successful “Hail Mary” attack.

President Clinton had similar problems.  Pentagon brass refused to attack Al Qaeda on the grounds that it was not a “country” and they couldn’t attack private individuals. Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke in his book “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror”, quotes Mike Sheehan, a State Department official, saying in frustration, “What’s it going to take, Dick? Who the shit do they think attacked the [USS] Cole, fuckin’ Martians? The Pentagon brass won’t let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell they won’t even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?”  We know they did, and it did, but that came later.  Further, according to Dana Priest's book “The Mission”, the Clinton White House wanted U.S. pilots in the no-fly zone to provoke the Iraqis into attacking American planes. The then-CENTCOM commander, General Anthony Zinni, believed that this could lead to war with Iraq and insisted that the White House issue him a direct order to undertake such an action. Faced with leaving a paper trail, the White House changed its mind.

Gwynnie thinks that Maggie’s readers in the northeastern United States must without hesitation get themselves to the New Britain Museum of American Art before June 29 to see the current exhibit “All Things Bright and Beautiful: California Impressionist Paintings from the Irvine Museum”. 

The New Britain’s brilliant director, Douglas Hyland, has put together yet another fabulous show at this gem of a museum.

I will blame Bird Dog for not including a fish photo in our Connecticut post this morning. He thought it would be corny.

Here's a Brookie from yesterday's outing, on its way to becoming dinner.

Yes, we did fish with bamboo fly rods, consistent with the old-fashioned sporting ethic of Maggie's Farm. 

Albert Einstein: The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

Cicero: The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.

H. L. Mencken: It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

Hannah Arendt: The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

Helen Keller: Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.

Henry David Thoreau: There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Leonardo da Vinci: He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.

Mae West: When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

Martin Luther King, jr.: I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Mary Wollstonecraft: No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Pearl S. Buck: When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.

Raisa Gorbachev: Hypocrisy, the lie, is the true sister of evil, intolerance, and cruelty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects.

Robert Heinlein: But goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil.

With photos, here. For one example:

This came in over the transom:

CBS is developing a "Texas Version" of the popular TV show "Survivor."

The rules are so simple that even a non-Texan can follow them.  

Each of the contestants must drive from Amarillo to Wichita Falls then Abilene, Fort Worth, Dallas, Waxahachie, Waco, Tyler, Lufkin, Vidor, Houston, skip Austin, on to San Antonio, Burnet, San Angelo, Midland, El Paso, then back to Amarillo through Monahans.

Each contestant must do this while driving a Prius with a prominent bumper sticker which reads, "I Voted for John Kerry, I’m voting for Barry Hussein Obama, I Think I'm Transgender, and I'm Here to Take Your Guns."

The first one back intact wins.

This note came in over the transom:

re Hillary's lies, from Hitchins at Slate (I like that distinction between the two kinds of lies), a quote:

The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. There are two kinds of deliberate and premeditated deceit, commonly known as suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. (Neither of them is covered by the additionally lying claim of having "misspoken.") The first involves what seems to be most obvious in the present case: the putting forward of a bogus or misleading account of events. But the second, and often the more serious, means that the liar in question has also attempted to bury or to obscure something that actually is true. Let us examine how Sen. Clinton has managed to commit both of these offenses to veracity and decency and how in doing so she has rivaled, if not indeed surpassed, the disbarred and perjured hack who is her husband and tutor.

Saturday was Opening Day of the 2008 Trout Fishing Season (private waters) on the Eightmile River in Connecticut.

As you can tell from the size of the trees, the land along this stretch was probably farmed 50-60 years ago. Dairy, most likely, with sun on the stream, cattle wading though it, and surely no trout.

Now it is an excellent habitat for Wood Turtles. And for trout-eating Otters and Mink - fortunately or unfortunately. Beaver too.

Even if you are faking it for a photo op, you might have the presence of mind to get the phone right. On the other hand, maybe the younger generation doesn't know how to use a land line. (OK, maybe it's photoshopped. The truth, these days, is getting harder and harder to discern...not that it was ever easy.)

E-mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress or any other municipality. To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address. Almost all e-mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. 

All it was, and all this type of e-mail is, is to get names and "cookie" tracking info for telemarketers and spammers to validate active e-mail accounts for their own purposes. Any time you see an e-mail that says forward this on to "10" of your friends, sign this petition, or you'll get good luck, or what ever, it has either an e-mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and e-mails of those folks you forward to, or the host sender is getting a copy. Each time it gets forwarded, then the origination is able to get lists of "active" e-mails to use in spam e-mails, or sell to others that do. (If you have been sending out the above kinds of email, now you know why you get so much spam!)

More on E-petitions at Snopes.

Quote from Icecap:

Last year when Antarctica set a new record for ice extent, it got no media attention. They focused on the north polar regions where the ice set record low levels. This summer when unprecedented anomalous cover continued in the Southern Hemisphere again no coverage. Then this report in the news today. You probably saw it on your favorite network or internet news site (pick one, anyone).

Read the whole thing.