Maggie's Farm

Video: wisdom from Conan O'Brien, at Stuyvesant, 2006 graduation. h/t, Mankiw. For those unfamiliar with NYC, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science are NYC's premier and highly-competitive (to get into, and to stay in) public high schools. 

What is missing, and what is wrong on this agenda? A prominent Brit leftist on what a nation is for.  The Left is totalitarian at its core, regardless of what our friend Uncle Norm says. He is surely not, as an individual - but the movement is.

Federer beats Roddick, and other US Open updates from the NY Sun

Re Madeleine L'Engle: Our brief post did not mention to what extent she was a Christ-inspired author and a long-time presence at St. John the Divine in NYC. I heard an interview with her recently. Very impressive lady.

Brit mosques are becoming a metastatic cancer in Brit society. More on the Deobandi sect at Dino.

Psychologists are overwhelmingly Dems. Driscoll. I have no idea what that means.

Osama and the Dems: Perfect Together. Ace. Bin Laden can tell useful idiots when he sees them, and, despite his apparently minimal knowledge of the Vietnam era, he picked up one useful fact: get the surrenderist Left as allies by humoring and flattering them.

Photo Editor note: We were recently introduced to this old-time Italian summer squash, (which goes by many names including Zucchetta and Serpent of Sicily) which I am told grows like crazy and resists bugs. There is an old joke: If you park your car in a suburban neighborhood in August, be sure to lock it. If you don't, someone will put zucchini in it. Same goes for this squash.

Regarding the CNN series "God's Warriors," Christiane Amanpour said this:

"In the Western and in the developed world, perhaps here in the 21st century we would have expected secularism and governance and politics to be what governs our daily lives," Amanpour told the bloggers. "We would not have expected, and perhaps we still don’t expect, religion to play such a real, present role in our daily lives, politics, and culture."

Who is "we"? What governs my daily life is family, having friends, making a living and juggling bills, being a Christian with a relationship with God, reading books, playing tennis, maintaining the homestead, planning this Fall's hunts, and riding and caring for the horses - not necessarily in that order. Oh - and trying to toss a half-decent post on the blog when I have a spare moment. I only care about politics and governance to be a good informed citizen - and because it is so screwed up these days: I wish I didn't have to think about it. 

Ms. Amanpour is a fruitcake.

Whole story at Evangelical Outpost.

Is France rejecting arrogance? Lifson at Am. Thinker

Almost everybody knows that Dartmouth College offers the best undergraduate education in the world. If Dartmouth is a bit of a cult, it is for good reason.

Alumni do not wear Dartmouth as a badge - they just care and stay involved and give money, and stop by whenever they can. Some of them decide to run for the elected alum trustee spots, and that is where the excitement began.

The excitement began because the folks who have been winning these trustee elections (voted for by the entire body of Dartmouth alumni) have been more independent-minded, more tradition-minded, and generally if not entirely more conservative than in the past.

The administration and the non-elected board aren't happy with that. Like any organization, they want support from the board, not trouble and intrusiveness. It's an Indian uprising. The administration and its allies are fighting back by trying to eliminate alumni voting.

Interestingly, a number of major-league bloggers are Dartmouth folks. They keep the campus political issues in the public eye, which is good for the future of the school. Most schools are run as fiefdoms, shutting out the views of the alums who support them. When alums have a voice, they use it. It's a shame more schools don't have a powerful alumni presence among their trustees.

Opinion Journal has a good summary of the history of Dartmouth's governance.

Trustee T. J. Rogers wants to stay involved, and finds himself up against a totalitarian mentality.  The alums won't put up with that.

Joe's Dartblog is always on the story.

Image: The now officially banned (God knows why) Dartmouth Indian. That image derives from Dartmouth's 1769 founding as a mission school to Indians, hence the school's motto "Vox clematis in deserto."

NYT claims Bush went to Iraq to divert attention...from Iraq. So why didn't he go to Pango-Pango instead? Or Pago-Pago, for that matter?

If the real problem with Mother Earth is people, and if global warming will kill us all off, then why aren't the Greenies in favor of some global warming for a while to effect that worthy goal?

Michelle. It's a damn shame that labor became so corrupt, but politics is about power and money, isn't it? Is there a union left in America that isn't connected to some racket?

I will now celebrate our American labor movement by going for a long, easy ride with She Who Must Be Obeyed, over the usual hills and dales and through the usual streams, on one of the finest days of this summer. A quick sherry or two first, for courage with the dang horse she wants me to "exercise": it is me who ends up getting exercised in both senses of the word.

But first, and finally for the day for me, let me link Sippican on Labor. He's been there, and I have not. I don't do bosses, either union ones or the other kind,

And now, Pip Pip, Old Bean, and Tally Ho.

Photo above: That is not our Dr. Joy Bliss. That must be Theo's assistant, hard at work. I think he gets the photos and she does the thinking.

Death of a Phony: Arthur Miller. I never did quite get what was so great about him. Preachy, condescending - and humorless.

Chosing the right college. Another view, via Dr. Helen

When war was the answer. George Will at RCP. Unfortunately, war is often the answer.

Remembering 9-11. Captain Ed. No holiday, please. Official grieving is disgusting grandstanding, and a holiday would be just one more day when government employees do not work, and everybody else does. If anybody doesn't know who the enemy is by now, they never will.

How Shakespeare taught me to read financial news. Bowyer at TCS.

Poverty in America. This might be a re-post, but it makes it very clear. Nobody is going hungry, or lacking in the crap on TV.

Sweden: Truth about communism will confuse people. Moonbattery. At least they admit it.

Switzerland wants to keep their country Swiss. h/t, Insty via reader. Yes, it sure does sound racially-tinged, but is that what it is really about, or is it about preserving their culture?

From Leno (h/t, Conspiracy):

Speaking at a forum organized by Lance Armstrong on cancer research, Hillary Clinton told Chris Matthews if she is elected president, she will declare war on cancer, and then she will support the war on cancer for two years, and then she will be against it for a year, and then she will back out of it all together.

Porn on the web: Some data in our comments - scroll past those lawyer jokes to comment by Pat Jones

Calderon: "Mexico does not end at our borders." What? Is he demanding Lebensraum?

Every once in a while, the totalitarian impulse, the grandiosity, and the contempt for people which underlies nanny-statism and socialism is spoken out loud. Was it Bill or Hillary who commented "What if people don't spend their money the right way?" John Edwards proposes telling people when to go to the doctor. 

Arthur St. Germaine: A Maine kid and his Guadalcanal memories. Scroll down to the final comment by Buddy

Grover Cleveland reluctantly supported the concept of a Labor Day during his re-election campaign. He lost anyway. It was meant to be a day off from work for union organizers to organize.

I guess now it means the official end of summer, time to get engaged with work again, and hot dogs and watermelon. To me, it means two things: our peak tomato season, and time to start pulling out the hunting gear. I suppose it also means the official start date of the national campaign, but I am already bored with that.

Brief history of the holiday here. (If your eyes are failing, that's Teddy Roosevelt somewhere in the photo.)

We did a piece last year about the skilled trades.

Done with Mirrors has some thoughts about America's love-hate relationship with work.

And one more: Americans are the most productive workers in the world. Blue Crab. It's called the Protestant Work Ethic.

Is Volokh more influential than legal journals? Prof. B.

A few stats at Surber. He correctly notes that it is hunters who have done the most for American conservation.

Bush looks back. NYT

I see in our comments that I have a fan, or someone who claims to be. This could go to my head. Maybe a Fan Club will be next, with t-shirts and coffee mugs with my mug shot on them. I owe it all to my blessed Mother, to my wife who has always supported my efforts with never one word of criticism, to God, to my agent and, above all, to my fabulous publicist Bernie.

NASCAR, at Tigerhawk. Remember Kerry's ungrammatical quote during the campaign: "Whom among us does not enjoy NASCAR?" What a putz.

I alert myself from my extended long-weekend holiday stupor to help with the blog and to note these items:

Al-sadr suspends Mahdi Army activities. About time. They are just killing each other and creating anarchy. Other than the fact that guns and bombs are fun, because they go boom, what's the damn point? Fight Club with live ammo? Get a life, morons... or get dead.

Colorado school bans tag. Maybe they should do needlepoint during recess. No, those needles could put an eye out. How about a nap time? Woops - that is really asking for a lawsuit. Well, how about time in class learning about the American Constitution? No, it's not PC. Well, then just send the brats home or put them to work.

Mr. Free Market is fed up with his homeland. That saddens me. He is who they need. Stand and fight - don't run. But if you want to leave, speak Spanish or wear a burkha or declare yourself a political refugee and you'll be welcome here. My advice is this: fly to Grand Cayman, deposit your life savings, then fly to Mexico (bring your Wellies and wife and laddie and gun collection), wade across the Rio Grande (remember to say "Muchas gracias, Senor border-policeman"), and hitchhike to Montana or New Hampshire. Or maybe Texas might suit you just fine. Or, if you can handle a John Deere, we might have a job of work for you on the Farm.

The Theo girl? She was in my dream, but she's too young for me. In my dream, I was young too. Back in reality, the wife wants me to join her for a rollicking ride over hill and dale, which I guess I am half-game for if she will let me ride Mickey today, but after that I want nothing but book and hammock and pool. What a great country I live in, where they let me keep half of what I earn.

Without changes, there will be one person paying in for every one person taking out of Social Security. How is that any different from everybody just helping out their own parents and relatives, like in the old days when people assumed responsibility for their families?

Our Yankee neighbor Viking Pundit is always attentive to the subject of Social Security's survival, but I am not sure he is right in the fundamentals. After all, there is no "trust fund." It all goes into, and comes out of, federal taxes. If Social Security really did consist of an actual fund of money, run by a government authority, you know darn well that they would invest it. Our payments to SS are, in reality, nothing more than another tax on income.

Viking wants the candidates to speak up on the subject. They would never dare do so. "Third rail," etc.

My opinion on "greedy geezer" entitlements like Medicare and Social Security? They should be means-tested. But that will never happen, because politics is nothing if not irrational - and the older folks vote. In some precincts, they even vote from their graves. 

Is there anything in life that can or cannot be improved by government intrusion or take-over? Are those the key questions which are answered differently by Conservatives vs. Leftist/Statists, depending on how highly they value autonomy, enterprise, and individual freedom and the hefty burdens that go with it?

I have often asked here what argument you can make for socialized medicine that you could not make for socialized food, or car insurance, or gas, or "legal care." I am pleased that Luskin sees it the same way. It reassures me that I am possibly not crazy.

Do dog-fighting laws raise the interesting issue of libertarian vs. conservative views of the law? How about laws regarding public indecency? I think they do, and Prof B. agrees.

I am going to lie in the sun by the pool this weekend with a gin and tonic or two and give the subject a deep think, with the working biases that the Constitution's intent is to limit the power of government over localities and over the people, and that "that government which governs least, governs best." I will, no doubt, fall happily asleep before finding the magic resolution of the issue which would be quoted in all the journals had I only remained awake. In the meantime, the Prof quotes another commentator:

Update from Alex Tabarrok: "After attending dogfights it's rumored that on some nights Michael Vick would continue his bloody activities by dining on cow's flesh. No word yet on whether prosecutors will be seeking additional prison time."

Living with ambiguity is part of maturity, I am told. I'm working on that.

Over the past several months, we have posted quite a bit on poverty in America, noting that government has little further power over it because it is usually the product of bad choices (eg drugs, no fathers, and the like), bad luck (catastrophe, mental illness), laziness, or immigration (1/4 of our poor are recent legal or illegal immigrants), and it has been more than adequately demonstrated that the average caring government program only damages people in the end.

Now we have new data on American "poverty". If you leave out the illegals (who are included), it looks like the American poor are doing pretty well. Better than I would have thought, and good news for America.

Furthermore, our census data on income do not include government benefits such as housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare and the like. We are doing well by our people, and we should recognize that.

A big h/t to Confederate Yank for finding this astonishing video by Hans Rosling about the "developing world." He animates the data in a cool way. I wish it were longer.

If you, like me, are not accustomed to pricing risk or pricing tail risk, then you will find this piece at Just One Minute an entertaining little math puzzle. Tom picks a nit with Michael Lewis, but I find this sort of thing fascinating. I'm sure it's just routine in the biz.

Why should we, if they don't? Driscoll