Maggie's Farm

Skiing again in the morning. Okemo this time, and I am about to head up there for the weekend. Not a particularly challenging mountain (a "family mountain" for sure), but closer, and with the loan of a friend's condo and today's snow, some good fun without expense. Sometimes I wish that fall, with hunting, and winter with skiing, could simply rotate all year. One more reason to welcome the coming global cooling.

Bad decision, I think. No weapons screening in Texas for Obama rally. Heck, we get searched at Dylan concerts, and these rallys are no different from rock concerts. 

The Great Cholesterol Con. Health Beat. How come nobody told us that cholesterol didn't matter? (h/t, Kevin MD)

Pours her heart out: Dr. Sanity on Ivy League Populism and the Path to Power. Preach it, Dr. S! What it is!

Reminder to LA Times: Illegal immigration is against the law. I think that is why it is called illegal, as in "a government of laws, not men."

Versatile. The always-chic Kim du Toit covers the fashion scene with flair.

Raise somebody else's taxes to help Chad. I want my iPod.

"And you want to run my country?" Althouse. No evidence of executive competence thus far.

"Reveling in their biases" in schools of social work. (h/t, Minding the Campus)

Still hiding their incomes. Who? The Clintons, of course.

PressThink takes a thoughtful look at the NYT and the McCain content-less story. Makes ya wonder. Yes, The NYT is looking bad, again. I'd be embarassed to bring that "story" to my City Editor. My instinct tells me that the story was "ordered" from the top, and did not come from the guys on the ground. However, here's a real story that the NYT has not followed.

Similarly, a high school study is censored. Nowadays, if you censor information, it's all over the internet in 24 hrs.

Is America ready for this dangerous left-winger? No, I don't mean McCain. Times Online. Also, the Messiah of the narcissistic Generation

More truth about Obama: His stance on gun rights. These lefties have absolutely no concept of the limits of government power which means, to me, no respect for the population. And what about this? Bernadette Dohrn?

America sucks and so does the military. That's really the story. It won't play in Peoria.

Did we mention this? The AP instructs on how to play the Fidel retirement story. OK, we all know that it's a happy country full of happy slaves, enjoying their "health care" while singing and dancing all day long, and never worrying their heads about politics at all. It probably is a paradise for the rulers, as long as they are sociopaths.

Back to Kindergarten. RW Prof advises Repubs to recognize that they are a coalition. Indeed. Otherwise we'd all be parties of one.

Feeling bad can be good for you. The miracle of melancholia. I guess I believe that the right amount of pain and heartache is good for us, but when do we get to say that we have had enough?

What happens when a Lefty wonders about global warming. Sheesh. Talk about Stalin.

Lots of snow in Yankeeland this year, including a good dump right now. Photo is Mad River Glen this week.

The state is not your friend. Does this sound like murder to you?

Blog friend Confederate Yank got a cool Valentine's Day present from his wife.

Israel has its own loonies: Quakes caused by gay tolerance. Why not blame them on global warming, like everybody else does?

Race and politics in Alabama: NYT. Things have changed.

Steve Fossett's obit

Are some suburbs becoming future slums?

Argument against the war on terror: Hirsch in Newsweek

Does Cuba need the US anymore? Maybe not. Chavez and China have filled the gap.

25 Dumbest college courses

Totten (at Insty):

RULES OF JOURNALISM: CNN tells its reporters how to write about Fidel Castro. “Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. [sic] in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.” Was he just criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech, or did he actually, you know, oppress human rights and freedom of speech?

John Derbyshire is right: “Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.”

England's Brain Drain is escalating. Do they wonder why?

What was the NYT up to with the McCain fact-free, unsourced innuendo? Rick Moran

Obama News and Comment

Obama running for Pres of what country? Protein (whence photo on left)

The CHANGE Obama is running on, quoted from Betsy:

..that's the change he's for - taxing young people more and more to pay to give more money to the elderly. I wonder if all those young adoring crowds tearing up at Obama speeches realize what he has in store for them.

If Obama wants to be post-partisan, how come he never has been?

Michelle Obama: Michelle Obama has problems, she says. Huh? Bainbridge. Also, What is she all about? Interestingly, her college thesis is locked up until after the election. (h/t, Jules)

Also via Jules, a hilarious Obama piece by Herald columnist Margery Egan - a quote re Michelle's accidental revelation of her contempt for the USA:

Barack now claims she didn’t mean it. Oh, yes she did. We all know the insufferable, holier-than-thou, Blame-America-First types who lecture the unwashed from the rarefied air of Cambridge and Brookline.

If I wanted lecturing, I’d be with Hillary.

Speaking of Obama lecturing, Mrs. O said this:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Nobody would dare talk that way to my face, except perhaps my mother.

$100 oil again. The Oil Drum says it's a whole new world for oil.

Brit NHS: You may not buy your own medications. How do proud Brits put up with that kind of Brave New World BS? Their freedoms and national autonomy are slipping through their fingers, yet only their bloggers seem to care or to notice.

Alarmist vs. alarming. Tiger

What do you want? A note to Environmentalists: Reisman

The Obama Fainting Syndrome. Says Evang. Outpost, "It is rather weird. Though, I have to say that the thought of Obama becoming President makes me a bit woozy too."

The NYT suddenly feeling positive about greedy capitalists. To be consistent with their views, they should change themselves to a not-for-profit...but that may be happening anyway.

Is it time to give the Cuban people a hand? Jewcy. Maybe, but not until after the election, because FL controls Cuba policy in the same way that Iowa controls ethanol policy.

How officers view the Iraq war. CNN

Photo: Stowe, Vermont's 1860 House in the summer.

Hillary tries using the line against Obama, but, as far as I know, neither of them have done anything significant in public life other than to get elected in elections they could not lose.

But does it even matter? Kudlow (h/t, Driscoll):

Hillary has suddenly become an incredibly steep inverted yield curve, with a rapidly declining credit rating and a complete drying up of liquidity.

Remove those polka dots at once.

"Yes we can": A stirring bit of Reagan video to begin the day right.

Funny, or wierd? Green wine?

That WI landslide must be painful at Hillary HQ. I think it's over for her: the Dems have tired of the Hill and Bill Show. Here's a real sign of desperation. Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, she slams the financial services industry claiming they don't really work. And politicians do?

So glad our Lords and Masters are worrying about stuff like this.

John, Paul, and George, 1958

Deep thought from Hollywood, re Obama:

So I think he definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

How Conservative is John McCain? Pete DuPont

The Fed's TAF. Learn about it.

Global cooling is striking everywhere, including Vietnam:

 Jerusalem:

 Greece:

 My opinion? Those carbon offsets are working all too well.

Meet the new boss...another low-life sociopathic scum. I see no freedom for Cuba in the near future.

Let's change the rules in the middle of the game.

SONY beats Toshiba. Like I care.

Political plagiarism, from Viking:

"Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert."

Does this help explain why Moslem countries are so backwards?

The wiretapping fiasco. I am all in favor of wiretapping suspicious foreigners, but not Americans - without a warrant.

Illegal fox hunting is thriving like never before. Englishman. Good on them.

Via Insty at Cato Unbound: Is Limited Government Possible?

Every day is Sorry Day!

A pastor challenges his congregation

Quoted from Prof. Deneen on messianic politics, a quote:

This is one great peril of the overestimation of the human capacity to "heal the world": the willingness to allow optimism to overcome good sense, and at its worse to permit ideology to trump our flawed human reality. But it is, I suspect, the other peril that we will face with an Obama presidency, namely the disappointment that will set in when, inevitably, such healing of the world proves elusive. Right now the expectations for transformation that will almost inevitably take place following the disastrous Presidency of G.W. Bush run so high as to exceed the capacity of any political leader to realize. And, as a number of commentators increasingly point out - none better than David Brooks in a recent column - the hard facts of reality, both internationally and domestically, will press in upon us starting on the first day of a new presidency, no less than they do so right now. Indeed, given the broader sets of limits that we face and increasingly confront, what is most needful is a leader who is prepared to tell us this hard truth, not promising transformation but acknowledging the hard facts of natural limits and the need for sacrifice that will be forced upon us in a far harder form unless we make some difficult choices and changes now. The prospects for disillusionment become ever more certain, the more we are tempted to convince ourselves, and are drawn to promises, that we await a future of "healing," "redemption," and paradisic contentment.

Speaking of paradisic contentment, Deer Creek wins. (Thanks, Dr. M.) Photo below:

I am posting this in advance because I am leaving tonight for a ski trip to good old Killington. Mass Pike to 91 north. We are in the mood for some gnarly, bone-jarring bump runs, and the natural snow in VT has been great this year, due to the global cooling crisis. Cold is good: I will be expecting some snow-chilled pepper vodka and some nickel poker when I arrive, and I hope to freeze my buns off. Yahoo. A great escape from reality. Give me your best shot, Mountain, and try to break me. I am ready for you.

Speaking of cooling, the Arctic ice is back.

Obama is a Leftist. Duh. More at American Power. Never, never tell me that there is anything Christian about giving other peoples' money away. Nevertheless, Mrs. Obama tries to tell me that my soul is broken. Do not take my inventory, Mrs. O... My soul is my problem, not yours.

Ardolino takes a look at the Iraq legislature. Sounds like normal politics to me, which I guess is a good thing.

Still waiting for my Brit cousins to pull up their trousers and tell their nanny state to go f- itself. Violent video games. And bottled water.

Pagan religions thrive in the USA.

Avenue K and the travel lobby. Dem Project.

I am glad that I am a minority. As a white Christian heterosexual male, they will never fire me from my newsroom... will they?

"I cannot process this kind of thinking." Neither can I.

McCain: No new taxes. Good. I do not pay much, but I hate government greed.

We are stupid. Jules. I am precisely as stupid as I chose to be.

The Newt: Repubs need to be Conservative.

The black voting bloc, and how the Clintons might have blown it. I detest the very notion of voting blocs, but I guess they are the reality.

The Islamic revival in Egypt.  Sad. A little bit of Jesus would do them good.

Bush is popular in Africa. Rightly so. But what Africa needs, if they want economic growth, is free markets.

Educational innovation! New! Improved! From Insty:

EMBRACE YOUR INNER MORON! "Requiring children to actually demonstrate knowledge of math, English and science in order to graduate may be the single greatest educational innovation of our time, forcing schools that had demonstrably not been teaching at all to at least teach for the test."

More re Dr. Rossiter's book on Liberalism (sounds like our Dr. Bliss):

Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave.".

Government fails at providing power in SA. Of course. A government couldn't run a candy shop without a subsidy.

Soros tentacles. The guy is a creeped-out crackpot.

Marxism is anti-statist, says S&M. OK, but when and where has that happened in the past 100 years? Please. Socialism is all about centralized power.

Did you read our link to You are what you spend? Worth reading, with two good charts. He makes the case that what matters is what people consume, not what they make. Of course, America has the richest "poor" people in the world because income does not include government and charity help.

Re Hillary (is she running in Texas, by any chance?)

"I've gone hunting," she said. "I know you may not believe it, but it's true. My father taught us to shoot."

Clinton told reporters later she had once shot a duck in Arkansas, along with "a lot of tin cans, targets and some skeet."

Tin cans? 

Not just totty. Theo has tons of good stuff up.

Americans have never had it so good. Surber

Trying to comprehend the Liberal mind. Never Yet melted

Academic deep thinking about soldiers and rape

Does Obama understand that there are wolves out there in the world?

Another victim of global cooling. And still nobody cares.

Poverty in Europe. (fixed)

Columbia University alumni: Who is remembered and who is forgotten?

Warren Buffett is insuring the insurors. Smart man. It's why I own Berkshire. First stock I ever bought.

From a piece by Donald Luskin:

The New York Times has never been especially vigorous about publishing letters from conservative readers complaining about the outpouring of hate, slander, innuendo and other species of satanic sputum from the mouth of Paul Krugman, as long as its target was George W. Bush and the Republican party. But when his column criticized Barack Obama's campaign for being a "cult of personality" based on "Nixonland" tactics -- in other words, when Krugman focused his hate on a liberal Democrat -- the Times has room for letter after letter after letter.

Two climate-related blogs we check regularly:

Climate Debate

Real Climate

Photo: Another theft from S,C & A

Photo on right from S,C&A

How not to measure temperature. Doesn't everyone agree that the only useful and meaningful numbers are troposphere numbers?

Retainers for primary medical care. Makes sense to me. Why would it be illegal in Ilinois?

Tennessee has a good idea for dealing with campus maniacs.

If you were President, would you want this guy waterboarded?

Obama weaves a spell: Krauthammer. Related: "Hope" reminds Squaring the Boston Globe of a Robert Frost poem. Related: Obama "weak and sensitive", "androgynous," like Trudeau. David Warren

Dems have no energy policy. Powerline

Legal vote-buying? Surber

Brit men would give up sex for a new TV. (h/t, Dr. Bob)

Need a driver's license? Try Maine. They will issue one to anybody, even if you don't live in Mooselandia.

Job cuts at The NYT and the LAT. So how come the WSJ is growing?

Are people sheep?

Saudi witch recondemned to die. It is definitely not multicultural to disapprove. (h/t, Jungle Trader)

Veganism = Genocide.

If they can do this with tobacco, why not with everything else? Cramer

Fun-loving Presbyterians won't stop burning stuff in Denmark. I'm sure they have excellent reasons for doing so, aren't you? I mean, besides the sheer primitive fun of wanton destruction.

Photo: Artist's image of the new Gerald Ford Class.

George Mason has a new first year Law course, and it looks like good fun.

Should a Catholic university host a Clinton campaign event? Bainbridge

Govt benefits for seniors: Now up to $27,000/yr average

Dick Morris (who is frequently wrong) Why Hillary can't win

Eloquent and full of it: Clinton on Obama

What's good for the goose: Exxon vs. Chavez (h/t, Gateway)

Munger for Governor. I'd vote for that guy.

Are Americans ignorant? NYT

A reporter writes a ranting screed against amateur journalism

Does global warming cause ice in Antarctica? CSM. I am getting the message that it causes everything.

Double super secret backward reverse psychology.

The history of the Evil Eye. h/t, Jonah

Youth Courage Awards. It's not your grandpa's courage award.

Did you already read Henninger's take on Obama's basic negativity and pessimism?

Does stare decisis apply to Constitutional rights? How could it?

Rush on Rush. Althouse.

Why do the Brits hate free speech? Roger

Bill Quick wants a political party which entirely agrees with him. Doesn't everybody?

GM on GW, quoted in full from Insty:

DON'T MINCE WORDS, BOB: GM Vice Chairman Calls Global Warming A "Total Crock of S**t". So what's with the Chevy Volt? And all that fuel-cell stuff?

UPDATE: Varifrank explains that it's the power of the market: "He doesn't care why you want zero emission cars, he just wants you to buy them from him. He's not making cars for you and your sense of well being. He's making them so the shareholders of General Motors can make a profit. If there's a profit in it, he would make cars that run on hamster pellets." But I thought consumers were at the mercy of the big auto companies, who just sold us whatever they wanted, without caring what we think -- isn't that why the proliferation of SUVs is all their fault?

From The presidential race at the cusp, by A Jacksonian:

...the Party that promised so much to its Conservatives is in the hard bind of having had control of Congress for over a decade and simultaneous control of the Executive for 8 of those years and accomplishing none of the goals it had set out to do in 1994 and, before that, with Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.  Welfare reform was only garnered by waging a public campaign to restrict it and demonstrate valid reason for it that appealed to a broad spectrum of Americans... and it was accomplished with a Democratic President.  Since then the Party has broken its agreement to work for those things it set out to do, leaving it, now, with much of its pre-Reagan base of a 45-55% John McCain.

Quote from No Looking Back:

A baseball bat kept in the home is 43 times more likely to be used to bludgeon a family member or acquaintance than it is to be used in a game of baseball.

I read it on the internet.

Thanks, Cuz

We'd like to show a little solidarity - hence the cartoon today.

Things are looking up. First Jim Wright, and now Gene Nichol.

Instant Historical Revisionism. Like Vietnam.

The First Amendment, Volokh's update. h/t, Viking. My question for the court is this: Why isn't it equally reasonable to protect the category of "obnoxious jerks"? They surely are an oppressed minority.

Speaking of jerks, What is wrong with Paul Krugman?

"Mommy, where are my legs?"

From Venus or from Uranus? Good rant from No Pasaran

Rules are quides, not constrictions. Sonnets, at neoneoneoneo

Sowell on Who is fascist?

Berkeley backs down. When the delivery of Thorazine to their water supply is delayed, anything can happen. They are feeling better, now. Still nuts, but a bit more reasonable.

Why the Clintons are failing: Chickens coming home to roost. As we have said, nobody ever liked them or trusted - they were just afraid of them because they knew there was nothing they would not do. Related: MoDo tries to bury Hillary.

For real, or satire?

Interesting politico-climate blog we found: Icecap. Meanwhile, apparently globalistical warmening has baked Nessie.

The sorcerer. Vanderleun

No No No No No. Not Lindsay Graham. How about Condi?

Scientist says the sun causes warming:

Baliunas said concerns for world energy poverty should be more significant than worrying about something 100 years from now.

"I'm all for saving energy resources and eradicating energy poverty around the world," she said. "One can be concerned by the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and come to it from the philosophical idea of caution. We just don't want to take the chance; still we can take a view of precaution."

She also said civilizations have always looked for the cause of climate changes.

In 16th and 17th century Europe, thousands were executed for what was called "weather cooking," where religious and political institutions blamed witches - mostly women - for poor growing periods or storms.

Many are posting these photos of the Che posters which hang in Obama HQs.

I am not alarmed, because these people have no idea what a murderous, raping, hate-filled, sociopathic thug Guevara was. To the youth and the ignorant, he is a romantic figure and little more. In truth, he was about as romantic as Robespierre.

They don't know because nobody told them.

Meanwhile, for Moonbats who know nothing, the peoples' paradise of Cuba remains a shining beacon. As Dr. Bliss notes, "beliefs often trump facts" in human beings.

People are moving all over the US. Why? WSJ

Holland terrified of angry Moslems. Culturally castrated. Related: The Wikipedia Jihad

The brightest people tend to be heaviest drinkers. Does that mean I should up my consumption?

Mayor Bloomberg: We're all going to die from global warming! I'm afraid he might actually believe it.

Pelosi "leaning towards Obama." I'd bet that hurts, over at Hillary HQ. Also, do you care? Inside the Clinton staff shake-up.

Hillary still refuses to release her tax returns. (Can't find the link.) What news story does she wish to prevent? 

Classical Values takes Bill Clinton seriously when he raises this idiotic issue, but I don't think Clinton means it. I think he is being cutely manipulative and dishonest.

One reason Obama should not be elected Pres: A Sunday School view of international affairs. Our adversaries and enemies did not attend Sunday School, Barry.

Yesterday's primaries: Isn't it clear yet that people neither like nor trust Hillary? It doesn't matter what she says. They just don't like the cut of her jib, as we say. Dems seem relieved to have an alternative. When Clinton supporters like Rendell spout stuff like this, they are making a mistake with this race-baiting: it's clearly their wishful thinking that people would vote against a black guy. Pollsters care a lot about gender, race, etc etc, but voters don't seem to care: Obama wins the white male Dem votes, proving to me that nobody cares about race anymore - except the race pimps, and the pollsters who keep sticking it in our faces. As Drudge reports this morning:

In the Chesapeake Rout, according to exit polls in Maryland, Obama won:
Latino Voters By Six Points: 53-47
All Religions (Including Catholics)
All Age Groups (Including Seniors)
All Regions
All Education Levels
And Women by TWENTY ONE POINTS...

Cartoon on loan from Siggie's

Another stripper and ho scandal at Duke. But hey - it's called "art" this time, and I doubt any lacrosse players attended.

More on Al Qaida's quagmire.

Saudis take a strong, principled stand against Valentine's Day!

Valentine's gifts that guys do not want

Video games and the male brain

Who is the Republican core, anyway?

Per capita beer consumption, by country (h/t, Club for Beer Growth)

Radical chic, frozen in amber

Clinton campaign: It's not slipping away (Cartoon via Moderate Voice)

Global cooling crisis: Mumbai,  Alaska, and International Falls

Venezuela after Chavez

Gilda's Club: The language they use

How McCain can win.

Big favors for trial lawyers

About "change", quoted from Newsweek at Betsy:

(Voters) know that presidential candidates have been promising to change the nation's capital as long as they can remember. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower swept to power promising to clean up the mess created by Harry Truman. Eight years later, in his speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination, John F. Kennedy made essentially the same promise to transform Eisenhower's Washington. "Dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America," he said. "It's time for a change." Jimmy Carter promised to sweep Washington clean after Nixon-Ford; Ronald Reagan promised to fix things after Jimmy Carter … and so it has gone in almost every election cycle before and since.

Voters are almost invariably disappointed by candidates promising to straighten out the mess in Washington. Presidents come and go; lobbyists and special-interest groups, it seems, are forever. That doesn't mean, of course, that the presidency is somehow inconsequential or that change does not happen. It's just that the change rarely has much to do with campaign promises, and everything to do with unexpected events, from Pearl Harbor to 9/11.

Only the young and/or naive believe that Washington will ever change.