Monday, December 21. 2009
 We have posted in the past about one of my favorite birds, the Peregrine Falcon. They are "peregrine" because they breed in the north, summer in South America.
They are partial to cliffs and mountains, which is why they are comfortable living in cities with their abundant source of pigeons and sparrows, and nesting on tall buildings and urban bridges.
The recovery of their populations east of the Mississippi is a wonder to conservationists and a tribute to what man can do to renew wildlife populations.
Photo is from an update on New York City's Peregrine Falcons at Smithsonian.
Walker Percy fans, of whom I am one, recall the protagonist in The Last Gentleman setting up his fancy telescope in Central Park to watch the falcons. (I am also a Dickens fan, a Wallace Stegner fan, a Mark Helprin fan... ok, I am not going to keep going down this track.)
Sunday, December 20. 2009
The bulk of the snow fell south of New England, but I think we have enough here to last through Christmas.
Lots more Christmas weekend random photos below the fold -
A tree late last night -
More below -
Continue reading "First half-decent snowfall, plus random New England snow photos"
Author David Foster Wallace (whose books I have never read) talked about Life and Work to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Mr. Wallace, 46, committed suicide in the fall, 2008.
One quote from his speech:
The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.
The speech, it seems to me, is more the cry of a haunted midlife soul than something that eager and freshly-scrubbed college grads could use or even hear. In addition to a shrink, it sounds like the guy lacked God in his life. That quote reminded me of Zevon's Detox Mansion:
...it's tough to be somebody
And it's hard not to fall apart
Up here on Rehab Mountain
We gonna learn these things by heart.
Saturday, December 19. 2009
 A piece via Memorandum launched my brief rant about the noisy, Leftist segment of the women's movement.
Regardless of the moral issues around abortion, I have no interest in paying for your abortion. None. Nor for your IVF, your tummy tuck, your massages, aromatherapy, chiropractic adjustments, your birth control pills, or your nose jobs. If an insurance plan doesn't cover such things, too bad. The claim that insurance which does not pay for non-therapeutic abortions "harms women" is insane.
Grow up and pay for your own damn abortions, ladies - and for anything else medically-related that you elect to do which is therefore "elective."
Equating "liberation from oppression" with "wanting free stuff" is pathetic and retrogressive, replacing the good husband ideal of the past with a new sort of husband in government. Next thing you know, these women will be demanding that we buy them cars so they can drive to work.
That's not pride and confidence. That is infantile, and consistent with the worst stereotype of the weak, ditzy, incompetent female.
I believe that a man needs his good woman just as a woman needs her good man.
The moral of the story is that "movements," like non-profits - having acomplished their major goals, need to keep finding new things to do to maintain and justify their existence - and their paychecks. It is not grown-up for women - or anyone of any of the 5 or 10 or whatever "genders" - to want things on my nickel.
My apologies for bothering our readers with this on a cheery and snowy Christmas weekend. Now that I have that off my chest, we are getting ready to dress up fancy to head off to make the rounds of some Christmas parties and open houses.
Bring on the mountains of snow and the gallons of eggnog and the groaning boards! Modern women enjoy trying to meet life's challenges of all sorts, including those of excess snow and excess eggnog and excess calorie-filled goodies, as did the women of my Mom's generation. Strong women, never victimized, oppressed, or asking for pity.
And God bless our lonely military wives and Moms during Christmas. A tough job, but they can do it and need no pity and ask for none. Same thing goes for the guys whose wives are in the service.
Friday, December 18. 2009
From Warner in The Telegraph:
When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?
and
This week has been truly historic. It has marked the beginning of the landslide that is collapsing the whole AGW imposture. The pseudo-science of global warming is a global laughing stock and Copenhagen is a farce. In the warmist camp the Main Man is a railway engineer with huge investments in the carbon industry. That says it all. The world’s boiler being heroically damped down by the Fat Controller. Al Gore, occupant of the only private house that can be seen from space, so huge is its energy consumption, wanted to charge punters $1,200 to be photographed with him at Copenhagen. There is a man who is really worried about the planet’s future.
From Hoven in Who Needs Data?, which begins:
The scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), and the people who funded them, did not know how utterly useless CRU was. All the research done at CRU made no difference whatsoever to the "science" of global warming . Just ask other scientists and global warming alarmists. Heck, ask CRU.
What do the EVIL WARMISTS want? Global domination! It's called the Belgrade Process. Ya can't make this stuff up.
Update: Is this for real? Give China and India a pass, and give away more of our $. Just to get a piece of paper signed. What a joke.
Photo is Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, during the summer. Nice place to drink some beer.
A Bird Dog pup took an oath today. He took a vow this past summer, so he is now up to his ears in oaths and vows.
I looked up the etymology of "oath," which I rightly suspected to be of Scandinavian origin:
OATH, a solemn vow. (E.) M. E. ooth, oth; Chaucer, C. T. 120.—A. S. áð, Grein, i. 17; the change from á to oa being regular, as in ác, oak, ár, oar. + Du. eed. + Icel. eiðr. + Dan. and Swed. ed. + Goth. aiths. + G. eid; O. H. G. eit. ?. The Teut. type is AITHA; Fick, iii. 4; allied to O. Irish oeth, oath (Rhys); cf. W. an-ud-on, a false oath, perjury.
Here's "vow:"
The word vow (oath, assure) comes from the Latin voveo (I vow), which derives from the Greek verb ?????? (to assure, to promise with certainty; veveo).
I wonder how much our culture takes oaths and vows seriously in modern times. I like to think that I take all of my promises with the greatest seriousness - but don't we all?
When I think about it, the person to whom I have broken the most promises is myself.
Thursday, December 17. 2009
Except for a supply for starter logs under the eaves, I like to keep my firewood wet and out in the weather. I go through around 4-5 cords each season (which isn't much), but it's enough to keep my home fires burning.
Dry wood makes for a dramatic, short-lived blaze, but it will not smolder and produce the slow heat and the slow burn, the popping, and the flickering flames I want.
I like to see a little steam and wet ooze from my wood, not a flash in the pan.
The Canadian version has the old tune, good pics:
Tuesday, December 15. 2009
Does that, or should that, exist as a medical diagnosis?
I doubt it, although the idea of diagnosis nowadays is rather arbitrary and designed mainly to complete insurance forms.
In light of Tiger's family problems, I have been hearing the term "sex addiction" used a lot by non-professionals and by some quasi-professionals. Rock star-types have endless temptations and opportunities for recreational sex. And so does any guy who doesn't mind going to massage parlors or titty bars.
It seems to me that pathologizing hedonistic behavior of any sort tends to diminish the fact of human choice - and moral choice. We primates are wired for sexual adventurism, but also wired for restraint and for considerate behavior.
What do you think? How many of our guy readers could resist lovely young women constantly throwing themselves at them, and licking their ear?
Monday, December 14. 2009
A practical Christmas.
Around here, the son and heir needs a new business suit or two from J. Press, and some new dress work shoes like these from Nordstroms. He is supposed to look professional at work. Suits only, it seems. J. Press or Brooks are always ok unless you work at Goldman. Those oxford shoes from Nordstrom's are great, very comfortable shoes for the price. I have a pair of em in brown which had been hiding in the back of the closet, but there are plenty of custom hand-made Italian- or Brit-shoe snobs around here who would only wear such things on rainy days. Not me. They are plenty good enough for me.
Decent shoes, if you have a few of them, last at least half a lifetime (or until gravity broadens your footsies and the old shoes don't fit). The lad could also use a pair of classic Brooks' tassel loafers too, but Santa is on a budget. Santa will try to help a little bit, but a fellow's permanent professional wardrobe is built over time. Fortunately for most guys, fashion doesn't play a role in it. What was appropriate from Brooks Brothers in 1960 is about right today in most work settings.
Me? I should dress well for work, but I can't be bothered anymore. A character flaw maybe, but I just got tired of it.
Who among our readers knows what "Shoes for Industry" refers to? Or, I should say, "to what 'Shoes for Industry' refers." And, in passing, where the heck do those " s belong? Inside or outside the . s?
Saturday, December 12. 2009
I’ve stayed away from the subject of global warming before. The primary reason is that I’m somewhat of an agnostic. It is in defense of reasonable agnosticism, or the scientific method, that I finally speak.
A thinking person will see the subject as so vast and so ultimately unknowable or predictable and the costs of global warming advocates’ proposed actions so apparently unsettling – even disastrous -- to human progress as we know it (particularly in the West where technology’s benefits are manifest compared to any prior or current alternative) that a thinking person cannot blithely go forth with global warming warnings.
Yet the possible (versus what advocates say is probable) consequences of rejection are presented as so dire that I hesitate at taking a position that may doom us to climate purgatory or worse. That’s why the scientific method, the thinking person’s agnosticism, is most needed.
A hypothesis is disproven by failure to predict, replicate, and be simpler than alternatives. The scientific bases of global warming advocates’ forecasts is now largely exposed as severely lacking in scientific rigor and reeking of manipulative deception. Global warming advocates’ “proofs” are invented vapors.
But, this is not per se a definitive disproof of the hypothesis. It is a clarion call for any of the hypothesis’ advocates who have any integrity or deserve repute to come clean and propose new, transparent, tested and testable scientific work. Otherwise, and until, none of their severe remedies can be tolerated.
At the same time, it is a repeat lesson in exposure of the destructive consequences of the past 100+ years of anti-modernist, anti-Western utopianism pursued by leftists who seek power over the rest of us. Their prior “gods” – socialism, communism, fascism, for example – failed in every way. Their fears of an inability to compete, and their seeking of power and position, impels them to new utopian schemes that again reek of self-aggrandizement, now with global warming mania, regardless of the prices and burdens imposed on the masses yearning for improved living conditions and more freedoms of choice. This, as usual, fits neatly with the self-preserving enrichment and entrenchment of faux populists in the underdeveloped countries.
We do know that reasonable emission controls on engines, smokestacks and chemical discharges are beneficial to the quality of life we require in the US. Still, the costs, the loss of jobs and manufacturing, and the dislocations of adjustments have been tremendous. We now know that when taken to minute-reduction excess, the benefits are outweighed by the penalties.
We, also, know that domestic substitutes for producing energy – whether wind or geothermal or shale or nuclear, along with conservation efficiencies -- are preferable to imports of oil that fund foes and deplete our wealth.
As with more honest scientists, we need more honest politicians. They must be willing to take strong stands, lead, and persuade based on the highest empiricism – instead of sneakily impose -- in pursuit of reasonable environmental and self-sufficiency goals rather than in pursuit of personal profiteering and election contributions. Otherwise, as with those who fail to live up to scientific standards, politicians who fail to live up to democracy’s standards should be rejected. The established measures are clear.
Thursday, December 10. 2009
 People ask me why we seem so predictably and boringly preoccupied with the health care and climate change issues.
There is a simple answer: Those are the two topics which are currently being exploited to the max by Leftist totalitarian-minded folks, who believe themselves to be our moral and intellectual superiors, in their endless efforts to control our lives and to chip away at our freedom and our dignity as sturdy, intelligent, competent, free-thinking adults and families in a free nation with (semi-) free markets.
In history, the battles against central powers were fought on different fronts and, in the future, they will be fought on new fronts that have not been concocted yet in the Gramscian and Alinskian laboratories. It will never end. If Stalin's holocausts didn't end it, if the fall of the Berlin Wall didn't end it, if the evidence of Cuba and North Korea didn't end it, if Pol Pot didn't end it, if the turn of China and Russia to Capitalism didn't end it, if the countless failures of centralized control economies didn't end it, if the attempts to turn Euroland back to free markets and greater freedom didn't end it, if the pathetic return of Euroland to an imperial EU doesn't end it, if the countless failures of hugely-expensive but failed yet immortal government programs didn't end it, then nothing will ever end this battle.
Power, unlike wealth, is a zero-sum game. It is in the nature of governments, which we fully accept as necessary evils, to accumulate power and funds from the citizens - and to regard citizens as children or as subjects. This seems to be something that occurs regardless of the form of government. Some people seem born to seek power over others, some wish to be security-minded subjects, and others simply seek mastery of their own lives. We prefer the latter pursuit, with God's grace, while fully aware that this mortal life we hold so dear may be often full of sound and fury, but signifying little in the end beyond our relationships with the Deity, our family, and our friends.
Without wanting to sound or to be grandiose, people like us at Maggie's and similar sites aim to be perpetual revolutionaries, freedom-fighters, Tea Party Indians, Tom Paines; the minor heirs of our heroic forefathers, attempting to stay true to their ideals of the dominion of individuals seeking their own goals without the oppressive weight of an intrusive government. At least, that is what we aspire to be in our small way.
Individual freedom in relation to the State is close to sacred to us. We pay the State dues to protect us from external enemies and from internal criminals, for justice under law, plus for just a few other minor things. Otherwise, we want to be left alone and to take care of ourselves as best we can in a culture in which every person exercises their morals, their integrity, and their concern for their neighbor by the Golden Rule.
Live and let live, but don't tread on me.
We demand that individual freedom and liberty be part of every political equation - a Constant, like Avogadro's Number. The Constitutional Amendments lX and X remain real and valid to us - delusional though we may be.
We at Maggie's do not even feel entirely comfortable with the notion of "rights." We dislike and distrust the use of the word "rights" in America. In our view, the worthy subject of discussion is that of government powers and their prescribed limits. We the people need no "rights," as the US was conceived. We are free human beings. Free to fail, free to speak, free to do stupid things, free to take risks, free to succeed in our goals - if we have any- free to do almost any damn thing we want to. Yes, maybe we are crazy idealists and maybe we are foolish rubes who produce nothing but superficial cant and pointless rant.
However unheard a voice we at Maggie's may be in the big world, we will use it to resist insidious political maneuvers and manipulations until we turn senile or die - or run out of things to say.
If the latter comes first, we'll cheerfully turn our focus purely on things like shotguns and recipes and wildlife and fishing and salt marshes and architecture and history and philosophy and art and pretty girls and boats and travelogues and God and all of the other joyful, interesting, and delightful things in life.
By the way, if you have friends who might like Maggie's, email our link around. We do not like to be cybersluts (hmm - maybe we do), but we do not want people who might enjoy our eclectic offerings to be deprived of our humble efforts. Let people know that we exist, because our readership is our only reward for our enjoyable efforts here on ye olde Farm.
Doing so would be the finest Christmas present for us.
Another in Captain Tom's photo series on his home town -
The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry was established in 1860 for the purpose of encouraging the local and national agricultural community to organize to protect their interests. The Grange was originally modeled along the lines of Freemasonry with ritual, degrees of advancement, secret words and handshakes and closed membership meetings. It wasn't unusual for granges and lodges to have interlocking leadership. Where The Grange differed was that it had open membership - women, men and children over the age of 14 were encouraged to join.
The Senexet Grange #40, Woodstock, CT was established in 1901. Built entirely of fieldstone, it sits on its original location. The membership is still active (a lot of granges have since been disbanded) organizing holiday pie sales (absolutely the best apple pies and peach cobbler I have ever had - sorry Mrs. Francis, but it's true), an annual bluegrass festival which attracts musicians and performers from around New England, tag sales, and has a booth at the local Woodstock Fair. The proceeds go to various projects, the most interesting is the annual dictionary donation to the Elementary School third grade.
Wednesday, December 9. 2009
The Annunciation. Fra Angelico, c. 1430
Matthew 1:18-25
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: When, as His mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for He shall save His people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son; and he called His name JESUS."
I wonder how many practicing Christians accept the biological accuracy (rather than the mystical meaning) of the virgin birth.
(The Roman Catholic dogma of Immaculate Conception - an RC dogma as of 1854 - is a separate topic.)
The Isaiah prophecy was that an "alma" or "almah" (Hebrew) will bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel. What's an "alma"?
It sounds like a word that we might translate as a "maiden" or a "maid," because Hebrew has a word for a virgin - "betula." Some view our current take on Isaiah's prophecy as a simple translation error - or even as a deliberate error on the part of translators.
Interestingly,
When the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was issued in 1952, the words "young woman," not the word "Virgin, were used for alma in its translation of Isaiah 7:14. This upset the Fundamentalist Christian community, which maintains that alma in Isaiah refers to the mother of Jesus, who conceived miraculously, without cohabitation with a man. These Fundamentalists expressed their vehement opposition to the new translation by holding burnings of the Revised Edition of the Bible.
Is it a tempest in a teapot? Is it of deepest significance? If interested, one can Google these topics and read about them endlessly. As an ignorant, relatively unschooled, ordinary Christian, I am not sure that the subject of the virgin birth is all that important but, seeing as it is part of the Apostle's Creed and that there is much mystery and miraculous in Christianity, I guess wiser, deeper people than I am have decided that it is. (To me, all of creation and existence itself is a miracle, and I remind myself daily to remember that.)
The Apostle's Creed goes something like this, with some minor variation:
- 1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
- 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
- 3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
- 4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
- 5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
- 6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
- 7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
- 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
- 9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
- 10. the forgiveness of sins,
- 11. the resurrection of the body,
- 12. and life everlasting.
- Amen.
Tuesday, December 8. 2009
At brunch on Sunday after church, a friend's wife told me how she managed to find a breeder with a fresh litter of prize Clumber Spaniel pups. She sent my pal off to bring one home two weeks ago.
He came home with two.
"I figured the pup would need a playmate." Liar. I know what happened: he couldn't decide which of the ones rushing to lick his hand, so he took both. She told me his little dog-buying trip cost them close to $6000.
Last time I went to look at a litter of pups, I would have bought the whole darn litter of 8 unless wife and daughter had been present to lend some sanity to my puppy-weakened condition and limited me to one. Note to self: Stay away from puppies. Lead me not into temptation.
Here's a Clumber Spaniel site. Yes, they do hunt, but I've never seen one in the field.
Monday, December 7. 2009
The 111 new bureaucracies and agencies in the Dem health care bill, via Never Yet Melted:
1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3. Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)
4. Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)
5. Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)
6. Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131)
7. Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138)
8. Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
9. Technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
10. Insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
11. Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
12. State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
13. Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)
14. “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321, p. 211)
15. Ombudsman for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321(d), p. 213)
16. Account for receipts and disbursements for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 322(b), p. 215)
17. Tele health Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589)
18. Demonstration program providing for “culturally and linguistically appropriate services” (Sec 1222, p. 617)
19. Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648)
20. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653)
21. Independent patient-centered medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302, p. 672)
22. Community-based medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302(d), p. 681)
23. Independence at home demonstration program (Section 1312, p. 718)
24. Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (Section 1401(a), p. 734)
25. Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission (Section 1401(a), p. 738)
26. Patient ombudsman for comparative effectiveness research (Section 1401(a), p. 753)
27. Q/A and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(1), p. 784)
28. Q/A and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786)
29. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796)
30. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804)
31. Independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859)
32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers for Medicare GME (Section 1502(d), p. 933)
33. Pilot program to develop anti-fraud compliance systems for Medicare providers (Section 1635, p. 978)
34. Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 1647, p. 1000)
35. Medical home pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1722, p. 1058)
36. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1730A, p. 1073)
37. Nursing facility supplemental payment program (Section 1745, p. 1106)
38. Demonstration program for Medicaid medical conditions for mental diseases (Sec 1787, p. 1149)
39. Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (Section 1802, p. 1162)
40. “Identifiable office or program” for “coordination between Medicare and Medicaid” (Section 1905, p. 1191)
41. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 1907, p. 1198)
42. Public Health Investment Fund (Section 2002, p. 1214)
43. Scholarships for service in health professional needs areas (Section 2211, p. 1224)
44. Program for training medical residents in community-based settings (Section 2214, p. 1236)
45. Grant program for training in dentistry programs (Section 2215, p. 1240)
46. Public Health Workforce Corps (Section 2231, p. 1253)
47. Public health workforce scholarship program (Section 2231, p. 1254)
48. Public health workforce loan forgiveness program (Section 2231, p. 1258)
49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272)
50. Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment (Section 2261, p. 1275)
51. Prevention and Wellness Trust (Section 2301, p. 1286)
52. Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1295)
53. Community Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1301)
54. Grant program for community prevention and wellness research (Section 2301, p. 1305)
55. Grant program for research and demonstration projects for wellness incentives (Section 2301, p. 1305)
56. Grant program for community prevention and wellness services (Section 2301, p. 1308)
57. Grant program for public health infrastructure (Section 2301, p. 1313)
58. Center for Quality Improvement (Section 2401, p. 1322)
59. Assistant Secretary for Health Information (Section 2402, p. 1330)
60. Grant program to support the operation of school-based health clinics (Section 2511, p. 1352)
61. Grant program for nurse-managed health centers (Section 2512, p. 1361)
62. Grants for labor-management programs for nursing training (Section 2521, p. 1372)
63. Grant program for interdisciplinary mental and behavioral health training (Section 2522, p. 1382)
64. “No Child Left Unimmunized Against Influenza” demonstration grant program (Section 2524, p. 1391)
65. Healthy Teen Initiative grant program regarding teen pregnancy (Section 2526, p. 1398)
66. Grant program for interdisciplinary training, education, and services for autism (Section 2527(a), p. 1402)
67. University centers for excellence in developmental disabilities education (Section 2527(b), p. 1410)
68. Grant program to implement medication therapy management services (Section 2528, p. 1412)
69. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors in underserved communities (Section 2530, p. 1422)
70. Grant program for State alternative medical liability laws (Section 2531, p. 1431)
71. Grant program to develop infant mortality programs (Section 2532, p. 1433)
72. Grant program to prepare secondary school students for health care training (Section 2533, p. 1437)
73. Grant program for community-based collaborative care (Section 2534, p. 1440)
74. Grant program for community-based overweight and obesity prevention (Section 2535, p. 1457)
75. Grant program for reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio (Section 2536, p. 1462)
76. Demonstration project of grants to medical-legal partnerships (Section 2537, p. 1464)
77. Center for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p. 1478)
78. Council for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p 1479)
79. Grant program to support demonstration programs for regionalized emergency care (Section 2553, p. 1480)
80. Grant program to assist veterans who wish to become EMT’s (Section 2554, p. 1487)
81. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 2562, p. 1494)
82. National Medical Device Registry (Section 2571, p. 1501)
83. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 2581, p. 1597)
84. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 2581, p. 1598)
85. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 2581, p. 1602)
86. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1610)
87. National Women’s Health Information Center (Section 2588, p. 1611)
88. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1614)
89. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women’s Health Research (Section 2588, p. 1617)
90. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1618)
91. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1621)
92. Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 2589(a)(2), p. 1624)
93. Grant program for national health workforce online training (Section 2591, p. 1629)
94. Grant program to disseminate best practices on implementing health workforce (Section 2591, p. 1632)
95. Demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (Section 3101, p. 1717)
96. Demonstration program for substance abuse counselor educational curricula (Section 3101, p. 1719)
97. Program of Indian community education on mental illness (Section 3101, p. 1722)
98. Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards (Section 3101, p. 1754)
99. Office of Indian Men’s Health (Section 3101, p. 1765)
100. Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board (Section 3101, p. 1774)
101. Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup (Section 3101, p. 1775)
102. Indian Health Service tribal facilities joint venture demonstration projects (Section 3101, p. 1809)
103. Urban youth treatment center demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1873)
104. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for diabetes prevention (Section 3101, p. 1874)
105. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for health IT adoption (Section 3101, p. 1877)
106. Mental health technician training program (Section 3101, p. 1898)
107. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1909)
108. Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators (Section 3101, p. 1925)
109. Program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (Section 3101, p. 1927)
110. Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1966)
111. Committee for the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1968)
The Bird Dog pup and his bride have just returned from a friend's wedding in Murcia. The pup was best man, and his friend's lovely Spanish bride did indeed wear a lace mantilla.
They emailed me a few photos of Murcia. View from the cathedral:
The clockworks of the cathedral:
A tapas menu, of course (yum):
Street scene:
Sunday, December 6. 2009
Another offering from Capt. Tom, from his home town.
The East Woodstock, Ct, Congregational Church
Founded in 1760 and built in 1801, the North Woodstock Congregational Church is a prime example of the "barn" style church found in rural New England (there are two other churches in Woodstock that are clones).
This church is particularly interesting in that, other than the addition of electricity and new roof, it has not been modified at all since it was first built. It still has the gated seating areas for those more affluent parishioners where families would sit together the more important sitting closer to the front.
The interior is original plaster with dark oak trim - the kind of varnished oak that becomes deep and rich color that only time can provide. Just looking at this church, one feels the weight of history and time.
Side note: One of the social/historical features of Woodstock that has always fascinated me is the variety of the ways its citizens worship. Three Congregational, one Baptist, one combination Unitarian/Congregational hybrid, one Baptist/Congregational hybrid and two Fundamentalist Evangelical.
Kind of makes us Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans the odd ones out.
Ed: Thanks for these posts, Captain. We'll take more whenever you are ready.
Saturday, December 5. 2009
 
Some people like to crate their dogs at home, and some do not. Furthermore, some dogs love their crates and some hate to feel confined. We tended to crate our previous dog, but not our current pup. I never minded the look of a dog crate or two in a family room, but Orvis has some that are more functional for people - and which look more like furniture.
Info for the one on the left, and on the right. Each comes in three sizes.
Friday, December 4. 2009
House votes to make death tax permanent.
I recently posted on the subject of Death, taxes, and death taxes in view of upcoming legislative considerations of current death taxes, and I see a post by Patten at NRO which echoes my views. He explains:
Often referred to as the death tax, the estate tax was established under the guise of ensuring “fairness.” Progressive reformers of the early 20th century thought a tax on lifetime earnings and savings would prevent “gross inequalities of wealth.” Instead, the estate tax destroys capital, the fuel that keeps the economy growing. When capital is difficult to acquire, some people are unable to start businesses, and some of those who already have businesses can’t expand them — resulting in fewer jobs for others.
Read his whole brief and to-the-point post. Estate taxes are wealth and asset destroyers. I want more wealthy people and wealthy families, not fewer.
 How about Florist's Transworld Delivery - FTD? Isn't that a sort of business that was waiting a long time for the internet to appear?
(Wiki says: FTD was founded as Florists' Telegraph Delivery in 1910, to help customers send flowers remotely on the same day by using florists in the FTD network who are near the intended recipient. It originated as a retailers' cooperative and began a process of demutualization in 1994.)
FTD was recently bought by an internet company, United Online.
While many if not most businesses have benefited in one way or another by the internet, some businesses like FTD seem to have been made for it - just born too early.
Post your examples/ideas about pre-internet businesses, which in retrospect seem to have been designed for the internet, in our comments.
Thursday, December 3. 2009
 Authors can be judged in many ways. The timelessness of one's book. Its readability. The deep, underlying truths contained therein.
But those aren't the only ways to judge an author.
What about ingenuity? Originality? The brilliance of an idea never thought of before? A correlation; a conjunction of ideas that few others, if any, have made?
Some guy chases a big whale all over the place. Moby-Dick. A lawyer defends an innocent black man. To Kill A Mockingbird. A bunch of Okies migrate to California. The Grapes of Wrath. Architect makes it big. The Fountainhead.
These are original ideas? They might read well, and there are certainly some deep, underlying truths running around the place, but, by my definition?
Pretty boring, really.
Below the fold I present the case that the late Michael Crichton was perhaps the greatest original author of all time.
I'll present the argument. You answer the challenge.
Continue reading "The Michael Crichton Challenge"
Wednesday, December 2. 2009
 The Sam Adams Winter Classic selection is interesting and very tasty this year. The Cranberry Lambic is unique, but whether it is a true Lambic or not I cannot say.
Here's a review of the selection at Fermentedly Challenged.
(Disclosure: The Boston Beer Co. was kind enough to ship 1000 cartons of Winter Classics to Maggie's Farm as a neighborly thank you. That should get us through December, anyway.)
Sunday, November 29. 2009
 Bright red berries produced in the fall close along the stems of a deciduous shrub, most often in damp areas in the Eastern US, is Winterberry - Ilex verticillata.
Yes some ilex, ie hollies, are deciduous.
Many cultivars with larger and more abundant berries are now available of this native shrub. They are commonly used in weaths and Christmas plant arrangements. Still, the plant looks best in the woods and swamps.
Modern anti-Semitism has developed a seductive and deceptive newspeak etiquette to mask its linkages to discredited precursors and to disreputable objectives. To penetrate the smokescreens put up by modern anti-Semitism, it is necessary to blow away the semantic clouds it hides behind.
A fair-minded person, especially if not well-informed, may get tangled up in a web of confusing definitions when trying to identify some speech, someone or some organization as anti-Semitic.
It is easy to refer to actual Nazis, a settled matter. However, there is a carefully sown confusion today when deliberating distinctions about hard to sift through criticisms made of Israel or of Jews in the US or elsewhere in the world.
This blurring of the lines owes itself to the detachment of most, Jew and non-Jew, from the actual scenes of anti-Semitic behaviors and from actually feeling oneself at risk. This detachment from harsh realities is eased by the moral relativism that pervades much of Western intellectual culture, where the existence of right and wrong is increasingly a mere notion to be dismissed in almost all cases. Common-sense morality is replaced with a casualness toward insult and attack when perpetrated by some group favored due to its purported grievances. Minor factoids are blown into generalizations, while more important information is ignored, in order to fabricate misleading and erroneous condemnations.
In effect, modern anti-Semitism is a construct built upon and a part of modern moral effeteness. Those with ulterior ambitions exploit Westerners’ moral relativism by creating an etiquette to deceive them and shield themselves from exposure. Perhaps most dangerously, modern anti-Semitism is a primary front and tool of today’s dedicated left, to weaken and isolate the US via Israel.
Those of firmer minds and character, although sympathetic to the left or antagonistic toward fascism, avoided or exited from the communist fronts of the 1930’s. So should those today with actual empathy for transcendent justice be careful not to be drawn into the gingerbread house built by current enemies of the West. It is unnecessary to allow ones ideals to be contaminated, manipulated or perverted, particularly when that serves the ends of those most dangerous to those ideals.
Here are the Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism:
1. Generalize: Treat Jews as a race engaged in racial behavior. Treat the behavior of all Jews as innate, common and similarly driven. The behaviors exhibited by any or attributed to any (whether the specific instance is true or not) can then be ascribed to all Jews. It ignores that Jews come from many differing bloodstock heritages, nations and cultures, exhibiting all the variations of most others in the world (except for a few isolated small tribes in jungles). The purpose of anti-Semitic etiquette is to clothe the critic in anti-racism while, indeed, being a racist in practice or trying to hide it.
2. Empathize: Claim universalist empathy for purported victims of Jews. Credit with credence all the claims of those deemed downtrodden (again regardless of facts). Those deemed downtrodden are, inevitably, hostile to the West and to modernity. Others, for example, like the Montagnards or Hmong who are persecuted worse, are virtually ignored, because they are contaminated by their history of alignment with the US. Just assert, despite evidence, that one cares about all equally. The hypocrisy is ignored that similar criticisms are not levied against others’ far worse actions. The hypocrisy is evident in the feeble defense, if any, that is mounted of those suffering ethnic cleansing by states or ideologies that are part of the alliance against the West.
3. Hyperbolize: Use rhetorical exaggerations to cloud actual meaning and facts. By repetition and osmosis, flaming misrepresentations transit into common discourse. One can, then, feel better about the rightness of claims and delegitimize the target. Take words, like “apartheid”, “fascism”, “racism”, “atrocity”, and such, entirely out of context and reality to manufacture a new reality in the minds of the gullible or ignorant. One needn’t even use the old libels and gross lies (e.g., “Christ-killer,” “Shylock,” “Kike,” “Devil race,” "Jews haven't been in Jerusalem for milleniums and are alien colonizers," "the Holocaust is a fiction") to accomplish the same characterizations of heartless, manipulative, invasive evils by Jews. It is too easily recognized for what it is.
4. Patriotize: Claim to have the national interests of the US at heart. Use the natural isolationism of some, or old-fashioned religious anti-Semitism of some (raised on Christ-killer theology), to cause loyal Americans, or Europeans, to ally with those on the radical fringes and left in denying aid to Israel and to undermining it.
5. Camouflage: Use some Jews to front for the anti-Semitism. Among any people, there are a few who will seek notoriety, position or payment to provide cover for others with more malignant ambitions. The miniscule but vocal “peace” movement within Israel is largely funded from European leftists and from speaking tours and book sales among Western leftists. The Arab financed Middle East centers in US universities provide plump stipends to those who criticize Israel. Secular Jews who haven’t been affiliated in decades clothe their religion of extreme liberalism by trotting out their parents or grandparents’ affiliation.
6. Idolize: Treat all heads of states with respect. No matter how outrageous their statements or actions, or how hostile toward Israel their appointments to high positions, give deference to high government leaders and give credence and respectable platforms to their excuses and mendacious rationales. Their associates, who would be ordinarily be ostracized as extremists, are also given protective coloration. Excuses usually take the approaches of “he really couldn’t mean that,” “it’s too outrageous to take seriously,” “there’s really a secret plan for nirvana hidden somewhere that no one else can find, it’s so clever,” or “…but there’s another appointee or action that somehow counterbalances or restrains the sheer nuttery or malevolence” although there’s no real evidence of that. When such a state leader excuses himself by saying “I wasn’t listening closely although I chose his church and sat there for 20-years,” he is playing that same duplicitous card.
7.Enoble: Claim that the focus is expanding justice. The fruits of the labor, education and courage of those who accomplish are seen as proper targets for redistribution or expropriation to feed the demands of those whose own failures to advance themselves is really at fault. Leveling in this way is presented as justice. Rather, it is another front of anti-capitalism/anti-Western civilization, focusing on gaps in possession of life’s comforts instead of focusing on who creates them and how they earned them, or focusing on how some lack due to their own choices. It eliminates the talents that create wealth for more, and holds down those whose efforts would lift themselves. It entrenches the despot, while suppressing popular challenges and aspirations for freedoms.
The modern anti-Semitism is as pernicious and widespread as the older varieties, the older varieties finding comfort within its fuzzier facades. Due to its purposely confusing “newspeak” of demonization and excuses, it is even more dangerous. It wraps up old canards in purposely cute circumlocutions, to deceive and forward its deadly goal, the death of the civilized West so that backwardness, tyranny and barbarities can continue or prevail in greater safety from exposure, comparison or challenge.
P.S.: Related, you might read "Trapped By The Axis Of Anti-Semitism: Left, Right And Islam"
Friday, November 27. 2009
When your computer models don't fit the data, trash the data: Via Watts:
As a commenter here quoted:
‘AGW is in fact now an industry (as well as a religion) and your insistence upon peer-reviewed papers makes me smile because there seems to be a preponderance of reviewers from within the AGW industry. Why do I think of the expression “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”?"
Money managers do this sort of thing all the time for marketing purposes. To make their performance look good, they pick their start point and their end point based on what the chart looks like. Then they decide whether to include or exclude new money or new accounts from the data, depending on what looks best. Etc.
Tinkering with data is easy. Pols and activists do it every day to manipulate. See How to Lie with Charts and Graphs, one of my favorite data books - after the classic How to Lie with Statistics. Nether require advanced math to understand.
It's a shame journalists aren't required to read those two books.
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