Sunday, May 21. 2006
 Lab rescues child from drowning. Not hysterical enviros: Can the world's marine fishery be saved? Sisu tells us about Garlic Mustard - yes, I have that weed all over the place. Fortunately, it is easy to yank out. Will show you my invasive weed soon - much more evil than Garlic Mustard. Another good one from our friend Sisu: Time Magazine admits its "advocacy." Is journalism dead? Going home: Mexico has the world's 9th largest economy, and it is a tropical paradise. Why not go home, asks VDARE "If Cheney were a Dem, he'd be a folk hero to gays and lesbians." That's what Gay Patriot says, and he is right. Republophobia is a disease. Evangelical Christians: numbers at Harvard on the increase. Probably everywhere else, too. It's about time - and Harvard did have its beginnings as a Congregational divinity school, after all. Moslem gang rape growing rapidly in Europe. They like white girls, for this purpose. If they tried it on Moslem girls, they'd be killed by the families the next day. But, with white girls, they know they can get away with it. If you don't wear a burkha, you're a ho, in multicultural Euristan. At Atlas. DaVinci Code Again: Michael Novak quote, from here: I think I have never for two-and-a-half hours felt so surrounded by decadence and hostility toward Christ. Yet I must admit that the film was glitzy with the art of the makers of thrillers. One could never be sure when one scene, then another, then another, then another, would be cut short by a murderous lunge, a shot ricocheting around a closed space, a door slamming, a car screeching. From one shock to another, one's stomach absorbed punch after punch.
Afterwards, I sure felt like a strong double bourbon. And I felt eager to forget as soon as I can the sheer malicious hatred that swirls up from this film.
I am thinking "Do I need this stuff in my head?" Which is how I felt after ten minutes of "Goodfellas." The wrold provides so much ugliness, we always have to wonder, and decide, how much we chose to add to the net ugliness stored in our brains. I guess I tend towards the "truth and beauty" end of the spectrum, but like everyone I am not immune to the siren call of ugliness, evil, and depravity. I decided to take a pass: the rest of the family can go today - they love movies and they love Ron Howard. Image: The family church in Alford, MA
Saturday, May 20. 2006
May 20 - a good day for yard work. Everyone needs a nice wheelbarrow like this one. Read our piece on how wheelbarrows work, here. Fake but accurate? This story turns out to be apocryphal, but it sure was believable: Iran will require that Jews be identifiable by their clothing. Illegal immigrants - good slide show from the border. Becoming a Legal citizen - it's a big deal. NYT Tom Friedman's 6-month time frame. I guess many of us have seen it the same way. FAIR Ned Lamont - Connecticut's own John Murtha. Funny piece on his Kos commercial at RWN. Ned is a great guy, but he's way wrong on this one. Those darn basic Christian tenements. We listen to actors? From Cannes, via My Vast ...: “If we have offended any Christians I would ask them to forgive us, which seems to be one of the main tenements in the New Testament,” actor Paul Bettany, who plays Silas in the film, said with a smile during an interview with CNN’s Brooke Anderson at Cannes Tuesday.
Why doesn't the RC Church demand that Mexico improve conditions for its people? All they do is demand things for illegals, and ignore Mexico. Any reason? Sensible Mom has an opinion. Phin welcomes a permanent underclass of manual laborers. Well...., Round-up is good stuff, safe, and useful. So says Synthstuff. Glad to hear it. The University of New Jersey at Durham. Never knew it was called that. Talking out of school, and the next "Prep"? A new book, based on Horace Mann. Whole piece at NY Sun: As a graduate of the Deerfield Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, Mr. Trees is no stranger to the world of the wealthy. He also received a degree from Princeton and a doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. The onslaught of tell-all books about the children who reside in the city's wealthiest zip codes and the people who educate them has some schools now talking about asking teachers to sign nondisclosure forms.
Milberg Weiss gets hit, hard. Couldn't happen to nicer people. Cap'n Ed. More on the Big Airplane: From the final edition of Airline News Weekly, an article on the first A380 landing at London Heathrow: “Although modifications are required at airports for handling the A380, Airbus believes that by 2010, 66 airports worldwide will be ready for the aircraft. “At Heathrow, around £450m ($845m) was spent in upgrading existing facilities to accommodate the A380, with £105m ($197m) spent on the new Pier 6 which can handle up to four A380s and 2,200 passengers simultaneously. The current runways and taxiways have also been modified including the construction of new taxiways and upgraded runway lighting.”
Does anyone want to guess how much money the US might want to spend to help Airbus succeed? Boeing projects that long-term airline passenger demand will grow at a compound rate of 4.8% through 2024, and air cargo to grow at a 6.2% rate. Airbus substantially agrees, and concluded that a much larger airplane must be built to serve that growth, and thus the A380, which they hope that 66 airports will each spend the necessary $850 million to support. At a conference Boeing sponsored in New York on May 9, Boeing stated that since 1985, the air travel growth rate has been 5.8% a year, but that the average seats per airplane has grown only 2% over the entire period. Since 1990, the average airplane size has actually decreased. As Boeing says, “Airlines have met air travel growth with higher frequencies and more nonstops.” [linking more city pairs]. For example, Boeing points out that in 2004, US-China air travel linked 17 city pairs with 313 flights per week. Their forecast is that by 2024, 58 city pairs will have nonstop service with 860 flights a week. Even inside China itself, there were 170 city pairs linked in 1990, growing to 605 in 2000 and to 706 in 2005, and during that period the average airplane size dropped from 157 seats in 1990 to 154 seats in 2005. Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner series with 242-280 seats and a 8,000 nautical mile range will be able to link any US or EU city with any Chinese city. To get to Atlanta from Wuhan, you will be able to fly nonstop; it will not be necessary to fly to Beijing and be shoveled into an A380 with 554 other passengers and then clear customs and immigration in LA with those same 554 travelers before staggering onto the final leg to Atlanta. This is a multi-billion dollar bet by each manufacturer – which side would you bet on?
Friday, May 19. 2006
See the clip of the new Airbus A380? World's largest plane. How the heck does this thing take off? Norm, on how the Left needs to straighten itself out. Russia tries to deal with declining birth rate. Frankencotton. NYT Science Times Japan will fingerprint all entering foreigners. Remember: Japan permits NO immigration. Period. Senate determines English to be our national language. Aw, man - now I have to learn English? I hate languages.
Thursday, May 18. 2006
Quote from a piece on Britain from Atlas: There has been over the past 20 to 30 years an evisceration of British National identity and values which has created a cultural and moral vaccum being exploited by Radical Islamism which has come to fill that vacuum.
Wednesday, May 17. 2006
A little simple truth-telling from the Newt-man: Nobody who's not involved in terrorism should be at risk. Nobody who's making normal phone calls should be at risk. But the idea that we're going to say to the United States government, for libertarian reasons, "We'd rather lose a city than have you gather data," I think is totally out of touch with the danger of the modern world.
Extended comments on the subject from Gingrich at American Future.
 Tony Snow: I saw a clip of his first day with the press yesterday. Tears welled up in his eyes when asked about his colon cancer for which he was treated last year, and he could not speak. Finally he said "It was the best thing that ever happened to me." After composing himself, he quipped "I guess that was my Ed Muskie moment." Tony is one hell of a fine gent. Gen. Pace's commencement address at The Citadel: Wow. Makes you want to enlist right now. Laura's site - for the audio, scroll down on "Need to know." 2 1/2-hour long Da Vinci Code leaves critics cold: Reuters. They say it drags, and lacks both suspense and romance. London color-blind traffic camera-computers accused of racism. Those computers need a racial sensitivity training program, preferably beginning in nursery school. From Jay Leno (via Laura on the radio last nite): "Who says we can't deport 12 million people?... Mexico did." World's largest archive of Nazi files to be opened to historians. Video. Conspiracy nuts and paranoid schizophrenics love this stuff. The Annual Get-together for the Roswell UFO MYSTERY. Unequal justice at Duke: VDARE points out the similarities with Tom Wolfe's novels in the Duke fiasco, and notes the following Just in the last week, three prominent minority football players have been arrested on felony charges.  | Defensive back Ricky Manning Jr. celebrated his new $21 million contract from the Chicago Bears by getting nabbed for assault with a deadly weapon in a Denny's on a laptop computer-using stranger whose nerdishness seems to have offended him. |
| Utah St. quarterback Jerod Walker was arrested on charges of raping a coed. |
| So was USC quarterback Mark Sanchez. (Playing quarterback for the USC Trojans, this decade's top team, is perhaps the most glamorous position in all of college sports—two of the last four Heisman Trophy winners have been USC quarterbacks, Matt Leinart in 2004 and Carson Palmer in 2002.) |
Yet none of these cases have received a fraction of the attention that the Duke Lacrosse team has garnered—even though football is the most popular sport in America and lacrosse is close to the most unpopular.
Read the whole piece (h/t, LaShawn)
Tuesday, May 16. 2006
 The speech? What speech?
Outsourcing tutoring to India: Naturally, the unions are going bonkers. Too bad - it's a global economy. And a good idea too. WaPo The Comfy Chair: This is a good day to link to the Spanish Inquisition and the Comfy Chair torture.
Am I the last person to find out that you can get XM satellite radio free on AOL?
Monday, May 15. 2006
Everyone on the radio, TV, and on the blogs are concerned - or, in some cases, pleased - by the prospect of Bush falling on his face tonite with his immigration speech. The whole issue is a no-win for him, whatever he does. Like HH, most of us at Maggie's want a fence. And want people to get in line for their legal immigration status. NYC up to its ears in cash: Highest tax receipts ever. Want to bet they find some way to spend it all? NY Sun Joke of the Day: Last night, my wife and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."
She got up, unplugged the TV and threw out my beer.
Bitch...
Sunday, May 14. 2006
 Pimm's #1 is IN. Who knew? It has been around since the Celts, I think. My Life in Stockholm. Plus a recipe. Perfect for a wedding - punch! - in a carved-ice bowl. Cheap, Anglo-Saxon, delicious, and not overly-intoxicating. A sort of Brit Mint Julip.
Dems join suit to quit terrorist surveillance. Good for them. What a genius idea! Osama and pals salute your dhimmitude. A Hornet at 30 feet. Nice photos. We are deploying aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Damn - is anything finer than an aircraft carrier? Tammy. Passenger dies. Tour bus continues on schedule. Hilarity ensues. What's the big deal? A dead person is just a person who quit breathing. People do that all the time, on a daily basis. At a certain point, it just becomes too tiring, and people say "what the heck." Fewer Americans go to church weekly than has been thought. Of course - there are so many more worthwhile things to do, like, ummmm. (h/t, News for Christians) How to endear yourself to Philly fans. Some catch. Some bruises, too. Nude fencing? There's an idea whose time has come. I'd prefer they wear the standard helmet, though, in case they aren't attractive enough in the face. For their eyes, too. Still, this could be a boon to the fencing world. A list of books Uncle Norm likes to read to kids, and grandkids. The complicated politics of illegal immigration. Rick covers it, with reference to Podhoretz's piece. It is a maze. Just do what is right, and boldly cut through the tangle. Antidepressants cause suicide? Great - a new trumped-up hysteria. Trial lawyers - take note. And they will. Guess what? Depression can be a serious problem. If you frighten folks from treatment, you are doing them a serious disservice.
Saturday, May 13. 2006
 It becomes clearer that this sad, feckless, larcenous gal got caught up in something bigger than she could handle, and then it became too late to back down. But it is never too late to tell the truth. She could be facing some serious civil suits, but she has no money, so she is "insulated." Latest news.
By the way, note that she is referred to as a "dancer." Martha Graham was a dancer; Baryshnikov is a dancer. This lady is a stripper: I believe the liberals refer to that as a "sex worker," not a "dancer." Check your manual, AP writers. Yes - there is definitely racism at Duke: black racism against whites. Sexism too: Women against men. That is proven, now, by all of the loud noises emanating from Durham. Also, for a small minority, envious hatred of the athletes with their puny SATs. Who wants to address those "issues"? What is with this assumption that white guys are always guilty, just for "happening to be" white and male? How about a federal "program" to deal with that "crisis"? God knows, for college admission and job application purposes, we would all be black females. I would happily be black - I don't care. Or maybe, to be fully up-to-date and totally cool, an illegal Mexican. No "race or gender" has a monopoly on wrong-doing or stupid-doing or lying. We are all prone to it, which is why we all need to be careful about what we do and say. If I am wrong in my instinct about this, I promise to drink a 6-pack of Ballantine Ale in one hour, without enjoyment. But, by the way, where are our fave race-pimps, Jesse and Al? Running away? Hmmm. Show some courage; come back, fellas! Jump into the fray and get your pretty faces on the news again. Hey! Where did they go? Hit and run? What? Oh...I heard that they are all in their black-tinted window SUVs, heading out of North Carolina, leaving smokin' tire marks in the parking lot. Must be nice to have professional drivers, just in case you'd like to have a few roadies on the way home, with an "intern" or two in the back seat. Image: Note to the Associated Press - That is a "dancer": Suzanne Farrell in Serenade. "My Stradivarius", as Balanchine referred to her. Your reporters need to get out of the Bada Bing Club and see the world.
Friday, May 12. 2006
I am shocked - shocked! The sudden phony shock and alar m about NSA phone data-mining is a nice bit of acting, but congress has known about it for years, and the whole story was reported earlier by the NYT, as seen here. Is it constitutional to data-mine phone records in search of suspicious international calling patterns? I don't know, but the laws are on the books - Calif Conservative lists them. I can easily see its potential usefulness: it's like taking a CAT scan of the nation, to find a tumor. There really is no other way to try to do it, and our phone records are not secret or confidential - but their content is, so wiretapping is another matter. However, effectiveness is no justification for unconstitutional acts: only in love and war can the ends possibly justify the means. (It's a shame that the Supreme Court forgot that principle over the past 30 years.) So I suspect that how people feel about all this depends on whether they view us as being in a war or not - a war against Jihad, but an unconventional war with a pre-industrial people, which requires that Jihad plant organizations within the US. Is this crime, or war? You tell me. It might be a matter of semantics, but to me, it's a kind of war. If anyone wants the NSA to stop doing this, they should speak up and say so. I trust the NSA not to mis-use their data, but I still do not like the idea. My plan: let no-one into the US unless properly vetted and checked, and find and kill the terrorists, and then quit this operation.
The "white guy" won! Booker won in Newark, despite being a lighter-skinned black than his opponent. Talk about playing the race card. The good news? Democrat Booker is pro school choice. Moonbattery Enviros are anti-illegal immigration, but they won't admit it because they do not want to alienate their liberal donor base. CSM Half of US kids under 5 are minorities. Related chart below from the CSM story above: 
Thursday, May 11. 2006
Call the Chianti Squad: Haha. It must smell like my kitchen. Blair Won't you be my neighbor? (h/t, Allah) 
The whole mess summarized by  Michelle.
Sowell takes a look at the politics of illegal immigration. Honestly, I have no idea where either party really stands on this. Buy American? A Ford Mustang is 65% American, and a Toyoto Sienna is 90% American. Cafe Hayek All too true-About sex, from Ace: Hold the phone, you're saying heterosexual women are attracted to men? In my personal experience, I have not found that to be the case. What did Ahmadinejab's letter mean? Was it a heart-felt reaching out, or war talk? Dino says that there is no doubt - it was a last chance to convert to Islam. I'd tend to agree with that. Melanie Phillips on the EU: It is astounding that Europe is not merely systematically unravelling the moral settlement at the heart of western civilisation but is using such coercion to do so, riding roughshod over the democratic rights of individual countries to pass laws in accordance with their own religious and moral beliefs and values. It is a clear illustration of the totalitarian impulse at the heart of not just the EU project but the ‘progressive’ universalism which the EU project embodies: the belief that individual nations have no right to express their known particular values through their own laws, because laws and values rooted in the particular are by nature exclusive and discriminatory; that the only legitimate laws and values must be universal and supranational; and that because these are universal, they are by definition unchallengeable and therefore any person or state who defies them must be guilty of prejudice and punished accordingly. This is cultural totalitarianism: a supranational religion of nihilism that is now to be ruthlessly enforced by the Savonarolas of secularism.
Brit High Court requires armed hijackers be given refugee status. Unbelievable. I never owned a slave (altho I could use a few), nor did my ancestors, at least in the past 400 years. I am guilt-free, and if this is what the Dems offer, then I am agin it. The Caliphate is becoming a serious goal of Islam. How much denial can the West tolerate? Quite a lot, I guess. CSM What women can see in men's faces. Live Science Via Instapundit, on Europe: LES JONES: "The consequence of Europeans not having children is that their elaborate social welfare system and free healthcare are liable to collapse in a generation or two as a consequence of their birth rate being below replacement level. They obviously know where babies come from, but it's less clear they know where adults come from."
Wednesday, May 10. 2006
At Maggie's Farm, we link things we would like to discuss, had we the time to do so. But what with milkin' the cows, feedin' the chickens, chasin' the bunnies out of the lettuce, poachin' deer, paintin' the shed, bakin' bread, teachin' the goats to speak English, practicin' juggling, shootin' rats at the dump, trainin' the dogs for fall, replacin' the geronificator on the old Ford, arguin' with the neighbor, beatin' the dog, greasin' the snake, and plowin' and plantin', we jes' cannot do it all. Country life. Leatherback sea turtles stage a comeback. That is happy news. All credit to Bush, of course. 
Date Rape. The very notion of date rape seems to be an invitation to injustice - although I am sure it occurs. Here's one guy who really got screwed, at RCP. The un-sayable dirty secret is that gals can get just as out of hand, and excited, as guys. The radical feminists deny that - probably because they don't: they are as sex-less as they are humor-less. What's Wrong with Harvard? Plenty, and the college alums should get on the job and fix the mess. A new book. Newark and School vouchers. Slowly but surely, it's an idea that is coming. The insane rage of the Left. It will not help their case, but it energizes their base. Am. Thinker
The safest cars. Talent vs. Hard Work: A new book proclaims hard work to be the winner. Piece at Marginal Rev - read the comments, too/ Ayaan at Harvard. LGF. "What are they learning here?", she asked someone. Do you doubt the tilt of the LA Times? Patterico Barry Bonds is no Babe Ruth. Here are the numbers. A simple solution to illegal immigration. PoliPundit. Sensible, too. From Country to Heavy Metal: The Telecaster. Driscoll A Google Manual: Part-time Pundit. Google can do lots more for us than most of us realize. More on Jane Jacobs. It's great to see the outpouring of essays about her. This from View from 1776: Jane Jacobs and Adam Smith Land of Oz. California judge proclaims a legal right to a dlploma. I Are Educated, at RTLC
Tuesday, May 9. 2006
This is the Second Annual Riesling Week. This reminds me - I need to drink more Riesling. Behave yourself, and leave your arrogance at home. Travel tips for Americans. I might add - leave your expectations of efficiency, politeness, and energy at home, too. Bush's best day in office - the day he caught a 7 1/2 lb. bass As the waters warm, it's kite-tubing season. Video. Polish Joke of the Day: A Polish immigrant goes to the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles in Milwaukee to apply for a driver's license and is told he has to take an eye
test. The examiner shows him a card with the letters:
C Z J W I X N O S T A C Z
"Can you read this?" the examiner asks.
"Read it?" the Polish guy replies, "I know the guy."
A way with words: Who came up with these phrases? “Let there be light,” “Eat, drink, and be merry,” “The powers that be,” “A prophet has no honor in his own country,” “Ye of little faith,” “Fight the good fight,” “Am I my brother’s keeper,” “The spirit is willing,” “The salt of the earth,” “A law unto themselves,” “Filthy lucre,” “A man after his own heart,” “Signs of the times.”
It was William Tyndale. Read about him at Auster's. Fag weekends? That's what the Brits are coming to. First they came for the cigarettes, then they came for the ice-cream..."Smoked Haggis" at Tangled Web. How can proud Celts and Saxons permit themselves to be ruled by nags and cranks?
And it is possibly the best-assimilated illegal alien in the entire country, a white, Anglophile American expatriate speaking perfect British English and living as a faux-English Lord, and who was guilty only of possessing a false passport. Meanwhile, immigrant rapists, terrorists, thieves, murderers and violent offenders of all stripes walk out of British jails and back onto the streets of London, secure from the threat of deportation and free to repeat offend (or just live off public benefits if they prefer). Such is the sad state of affairs in 21st century Britain, where the government hastens to limit personal freedoms while failing to uphold its basic duty to protect the lives of its law-abiding citizens.
Monday, May 8. 2006
 Brits want to ban ice cream trucks! Is there anyone as totalitarian as someone who wants to do you good?
Orlando Patterson of Harvard wants to know why black males fail to learn, and he is not afraid to explain that it is cultural. Augean Stables. How come this is obvious to everyone except academics? Adios, police. 200 mph on a motorcyle. Video here. (h/t, RRWH) Hugh Hewitt has this right, I think: I can't seem to find Eleanor Clift's age on the web, or Rutten's, but I suspect both began their media careers in the Vietnam/Watergate era, a time in which media folk became convinced --no matter their particular distribution of talents-- of their collective moral superiority, their obvious intelligence, and the divine right of columnists/pundits.
Gaia will blow her stack - because of Bush, of course. Maxed-Out Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome. Guess what, honey - now you know what it feels like to be a guy. via Mens'News Daily An appreciation of Jane Jacobs, by Husock at City Journal. We are all in her debt, today. She, single-handedly, saved our cities from becoming soul-less Soviet-style mass housing projects. Just look at thriving "Alphabet City" in NYC today: the Lyndon Johnson era planners would have torn the whole place down as a slum, and now one-bedroom apartments there are going for over a quarter million bucks - in that old slum. The Vatican roughs up the DaVinci Code. Definitely the wrong approach. I do not like to see the Vatican learning from the Jihadists. They should either ignore it, or use it as a teaching opportunity. RTLC The renovation of the Met: And, one hopes, no more banners. Nice job, Board of Directors.
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