Friday, March 16. 2007
 The bogeyman Christian is gonna getcha. A quote from Sam Harris in the LA Times piece, titled God's Dupes (h/t, Villainous):
Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.
Dang. That clever Sam Harris figured out that we Christians really want a theocracy, and want nothing more than to behead all those who will not kneel to Christ and his right-wing mission in America. It is astonishing how much he understands about the covert machinations of the Christian faith, and our intentions for America. Who spilled the beans? Who was the leaker? Armitage? Rove? Bush himself? We do indeed hide behind nominal Christians like wolves in sheep's clothing - that is how diabolically sneaky we are. And Bush is our secret Dear leader, but shhhh - don't tell anybody about our ultra, ultra Secret Plan to sneak sharia God's law into the US, like hanging all gays and banning abortion and stoning for adulterers and all that other cool stuff. Read Sam's brilliantly penetrating, earth-shaking, Pulitzer-worthy expose of the dastardly Christian plot against good, old-fashioned, pagan, communitarian America here. My questions: Why doesn't he wonder what we evil ones are waiting for to institute the theocracy we desire? And why haven't we done it already, since we already have Bush as a dictator? And, third, what planet does this dude live on? Is Pluto still a planet? No, I guess not anymore. Tell me, Dr. Sanity, or Dr. Bliss - does this guy qualify as paranoid? Or just plain ignorant? His lack of tolerance for others seems positively hostile...
 "Post-normal science" of climate change. Environmental scientist says: "Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking,..." Piece at Melanie Phillips
I'd call it "post-modern" science. This is creepy. Help me send her piece around, friends, because I think it exposes an important undercurrent of what is going on in the climate discussion: the idea that the ends justify the means (which Al Gore defended here). And what are those "ends"? As always (is it coincidence?) more government control of your behavior, your freedom, and your hard-earned cash - as if government were a fount of wisdom instead mostly a bunch of slippery, self-aggrandizing, smooth-talking sleazes who want easy jobs, with no heavy lifting, and with good pensions. (See "The government is endogenous" by Prof. B.) Yes, in the heart of true Yankees, government is seen as a necessary evil. Dr. Frankenstein's monster - created by us, but then difficult to control, because these folks just want to keep their easy jobs. A big mistake not to put term limits in the American Constitution. A quote from Melanie: So the true battleground has now been illuminated for us. The real fight is between scientists who believe in empirical observation and the truth, and ‘post-normal’ scientists who believe in ideology and lies. It’s a battle between Enlightenment values of rationality and those who wish to return us to a pre-rational era where thought was controlled and truth was a heresy. The stakes could not have been delineated more clearly.
Are some things too important for truth? I doubt it. Here is Galileo recanting his heresy. Image: Jacques Derrida, the now old-hat (and now dead from AIDS - or was that Foucault? Whatever) philospher who taught our young brains full of mush the fallacy that there is no truth but power. Sorry, Jacques, wherever you are, but that was high school bull session material before anyone ever heard of you. We moved past that rebellious fashion long ago.
Thursday, March 15. 2007
 I stepped outside to do some chores today, and a Killdeer flew over the house, calling his name loudly. It is the time of year when they are on the move north, but the snow and sleet we have coming today will slow the migrants down a bit.
Killdeer is found across the entire US and most of Canada. He is a large plover - technically a shorebird - but more often found in inland fields that at the shore. I have always enjoyed these birds, probably because they are so easy to identify. They are famous for their broken-wing deception - the original victimhood scam. Read about Killdeer at CLO here.
Wednesday, March 14. 2007
 Stumbling and Mumbling takes a look at Dalrymple's piece on The Proletarianization of Doctors.
Indeed, the de-professionalization of physicians is happening all over the US, and not just in countries with socialized medicine. I most recently became disturbed by this when I was told that docs in a certain charity clinic that I am familiar with have been asked to punch time clocks when they come on duty. Of course, it's all about money and power. When physicians become employees with no independent function as professionals, they can begin to lose their identity as professionals. It already happened to public school teachers when they unionized, but docs, being generally made of sterner stuff, do not fold so easily. Fact is, this charity clinic I refer to (which has family practice/general practice, OG/GYN, dental, and psychiatric staff) is staffed by docs who want to sacrifice some of their time to the poor, but they have been told that if they all were to quit, they would be replaced overnight with docs from India and Pakistan who would not view the job as charity at all, and who have a different view of medicine that the traditional American view. Money and power. It all began in the US when hospitals began to be run by managers instead of by doctors, in the 1970s. Hospital boards with an eye on the bottom line wanted compliant employees instead of cranky, demanding, patient-devoted docs running things. We should have seen it coming when insurance companies replaced the line for "physician" with a line for "provider." Provider? I am no provider. As a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, I am quite the opposite: I am a demander, if anything. A demanding friend, whose time is worth a lot. Not a caretaker or care-giver, most of the time. And that is why I am willing to be paid to teach, but am not willing to be paid to work by anyone other than my patients. Medicine is a fraternity/sorority, and a guild, and a priesthood with daunting responsibilities which extend far beyond the technicalities of medicine into the realms of friendship, love, the soul and the spirit. If that doesn't matter to people, they will live to regret it.
Tuesday, March 13. 2007
 I do not dislike Mexicans, or anyone else on this earth as a group, except perhaps the French, who are decadent Euro-weenies (but are soon to be a sharia state anyway). However, in general I have learned, over many years, from a long series of unfortunate experiences, to not automatically trust people from different cultures. Not to dislike them, because I tend to enjoy humans - but just to distrust them. I think this is an intelligent decision. (By "culture", I refer to religion, ethnicity, national origin, upbringing, education, and everything else relevant to behavior and world-view - except skin color, which I ignore as irrelevant.)
Why? Not because they are bad, evil, or inferior, but because they are not on my page, and are thinking about things differently and seeing a different picture. Thus they have often let me down when I have the expectations of others that I am heir to. That displeases me. Since I am capable of learning from experience, I am also able to learn to trust some from other backgrounds, but it takes time - and it takes enough data points to draw a graph. Trust is just as basic to relationships as is distrust. Both are worthy of respect and consideration. For me, trust is earned - never assumed. Learned that the hard way. It is the basis for natural, healthy "tribalism." I have no time for multicultural understanding (especially if all of the understanding is one-way) unless I am having fun in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, and, neither being nor wanting to be an anthropologist, I do not care to try to understand how people from other cultures think. Nor do I feel any compelling desire to adjust. Just not all that interested, really, although I am willing to listen for a minute or two. Got enough to do as it is, like pruning my own trees and planting the peas and splitting firewood and reading a ton of history and being a grandpa and working 60 hrs/wk. Plus regular unpaid appearances on Maggie's Farm - where my rewards exceed my input, and where I am rewarded by self-education by some of my input.
I think I am fairly normal in this regard. Understanding people with my own cultural assumptions - my dear wife, for example, who is of an alien "gender' - is challenge enough for me.
Sunday, March 11. 2007
 In Yankeeland, we are getting towards the end of the time for dormant pruning of fruit trees and grape vines - and anything else that appreciates dormant pruning. I was busy this afternoon, trying to catch up before it's too late. You have to do it yourself nowadays to do it right, because the Mexicans don't have a clue.
Forget fertilizer. Assertive pruning is the best thing that can be done for deciduous flowering shrubs and fruit-bearing plants. When you finish, the thing looks terrible, but it will thank you later with its production and vigor. I follow these guidelines, pretty much. For healthy, happy shrubs, I prune out, from the bottom, about a quarter to a third of the oldest growth every year. I prune or shape only ornamentals from the top. Deciduous shrubs, when pruned from the top, make you look like a gardening idiot, unless it's a hedge-type thing. (And hey, Dylanologist: That huge splendid Crepe Myrtle in your front yard - I'd thin the heck out of it about now - from the bottom. Too many small shoots. I'd leave only 6-10 of the big ones. Just my opinion, and unsolicited at that.)
Thursday, March 8. 2007
 When the President of the wonderful and venerable small university where Jefferson was educated decided that a cross in William and Mary's chapel was "offensive to some" - or whatever gibberish ACLU types typically use to erase signs of faith from daily life - I felt two things: sickened and angry.
Also, confused. What person, of any religion or lack thereof, would be offended by a symbol of God's sacrificial love for mankind? That is an odd concept by which to be offended but, in general, the notion of desecrating another person's place of worship would never even occur to me. And I wondered why it affected me so strongly, when I usually take such nonsense in stride. It didn't make me feel badly for Christ: He and His followers have encountered hostility and persecution since he began His ministry, and He does not need my comfort or pity. It didn't make me feel too badly for other Christians, especially those at W&M, because Christians have become accustomed to, if not resigned to, living with intolerance from the Left - and to resisting that intolerance when they can. I think I felt angry that an agenda-driven person would try to erase a piece of the College's history. It doesn't matter what the excuse is; it's still the same thing that the Commies did in Russia. It's like a lie. Nothing to do with religion, really. As a pattern, the dismissal of tradition is a foolish and dangerous thing with unknowable consequences. And I think I felt ill that a college president - presumably but not necessarily a high-minded person - would have the hubris to strike down a symbol of God's presence. We do not need a chapel in which to pray, nor do we need a cross to focus on Christ's sacrificial love, but these material things are tools, aids, to reverence and prayer, and as such are sacred - if anything is sacred anymore. Yes, that is what made me feel ill; it is a personal violation, like the time I was mugged with a gun in my stomach in NYC many years ago. Civilized folks do not do that to each other. It is that indifference to others - including to me - that sickens me and always takes me by surprise. (Hostility disguised as "tolerance"? That isn't very subtle.) Now the deal is that the Wren Cross will reside in a glass case with a plaque, like a museum artifact, or like Lenin in his glass coffin. Like a dead cross, buried in a tomb. But Easter is coming, when the glory of the Resurrection and the offer of salvation will no doubt touch even a college president in some small way. A glory that will shine forth through any attempted entombment or confinement to illuminate the world, and light a little lamp in any soul which is receptive to that light. No human can extinguish that Easter light. My pastor would advise us to pray for the president of W&M - to pray that his heart be softened. My friends would say "Stand up for Jesus" - and pray for the W&M prez too. Other thoughts: Protein Wisdom, Powerline, and Powerline again. Image: Botticelli's Mystic Crucifixion
Tuesday, March 6. 2007
Edwards channels Jesus, and concludes that Jesus would be "appalled" by American selfishness and American's ignoring the plight of those around them. I hear this as an insult - by a filthy-rich ("filthy" not because of his assets, but because of how he obtained them) ambulance-chasing lawyer who has just built an ostentatious and self-indulgent monument to himself - to the Americans, who are the most generous, most charitable people on earth by a long shot. Furthermore, one thing Christians do not do is to take eachother's inventory by making judgements about the condition of eachother's faith. Christians worry more about the beam in their own eye. If I want your opinion of me, I'll ask for it.
Monday, March 5. 2007
I just see Hillary Clinton sinking deeper and deeper. We read about her a couple of days ago at the Gay, Transgender and Lesbian group, pleading a partnership. A Partnership? And did she wear leather or try out the fem thing? But her fake black southern accent in Selma, and doing God-talk like she was MLK Jr, is just too much. I could hardly listen. But you can hear it here. If you can stand it, you can SEE IT here. Is this how she thinks people should talk to black folks? Or is she mocking them? Who expected the campaigns to become so amusing, so soon? Such questions already! Is Edwards gay? Is Hillary black? Does Romney have 6 wives and three heads? Is Giuliani a transvestite? Wizbang has a good idea: ally yourself to the person who most pisses off the right people. I am voting German Shorthair.
Sunday, March 4. 2007
Some of our readers enjoyed my trip to the Flower District a week ago, so I thought I might show some of the outcomes of the big flower show. After many years of helping out, us husbands learn to appreciate the artistry and thought that the wives put into their work. The Garden Club of America has no male members, nor will it ever have any. A bunch of radical, flower-growing feminists for sure. Have no fear: I'd hate to see the Lefty gals try to take over the GCA. They would all end up with flower clippers embedded in their unlovely bodies by the hands of these steel magnolias. I have winning samples from several of the competition classes. Forgive my poor photography - I will never get past the snapshot level. This creation is 8' tall. 
This one is also 8':  This one is about 30'': 
and this one is about 36": 
and here's another of the giant red ones. The gent obscures the red tropical flowers spilling out of the paint can: 
Saturday, March 3. 2007
Steven Spielberg had a stolen Norman Rockwell painting in his collection. What a bizarre story. "Russian Schoolroom," a Rockwell painting stolen from a gallery in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, Mo., more than three decades ago, was found in Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday. Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.
The painting was commissioned by Look Magazine in 1967. Spielberg is a longtime collector of Rockwell paintings, and helped to found the Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Good for him. Norman Rockwell was an artist and illustrator of great intuitive insight, famous for painting scenes from everyday life that encapsulate great themes. In 1967, the Soviet Union was still a going concern. Leonid Brezhnev was advancing Marxist insurgencies in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America. The point of the Soviet bayonet was prodding the United States through a proxy war in Vietnam. Being a closed society, the Soviet Union was able to sow the seeds of confusion about its aims and its depredations on the lives of its own people in the open western press.
Continue reading "Do Kulaks Love Their Children Too? The stolen Rockwell painting"
 Although I suspect that "climate change" is of no significance, and represents just little blips on an ever-changing graph, I have a question for everyone who discusses the subject: Why does it matter whether warming or cooling is made-made or not?
Isn't there an assumption in that question that if, say, periods of warming correlate with solar radiation, that is somehow better or different or less scary - like organic spinach or something? Why should it matter? Warmth is warmth. Besides everybody going out to plant a palm tree to make them feel better, I propose an international effort to send fleets of fire-engine rocket ships to the sun to cool it off a tad. Not so much as to put the fire out, though. This would be a good project for the UN. Well, gotta run. Need to complete the documents for my new carbon-offset company so I can cash in before the fad goes the way of the hula-hoop. (Image: Palm trees in Chatham, MA)
Friday, March 2. 2007
 The “carbon credits” scam actually increases pollution.
Simple example: let’s say companies are required to reduce their emissions to X parts per million (ppm). Now let’s say that Company A, or an underdeveloped agricultural nation without flatulent cows, already operates entirely on hydroelectric power and produces zero ppm. Similar-sized Company B operates on coal and produces an excessive 1.5X ppm. With carbon trading, dirty Company B pays A (who already doesn’t pollute) and gets the right to increase its pollution to 2X ppm through burning cheaper and dirtier coal, for example. If B couldn’t buy carbon credits it would have to reduce its emissions to 1X ppm (and B taken with A would average 0.5X ppm).
Carbon trading allows people to continue to pollute and the atmosphere to continue to degrade. Non-polluters make money, but my lungs see no change. Then they made it even dumber – funds that buy shares in green companies (like enterprises which plant trees) can sell carbon credits to polluters and allow them to keep polluting! Finally, if that’s not bad enough, now we have Al Gore buying his carbon credits from his own investment fund, Generation Investment Management LLP of which he is chairman and a founding partner. Generation is a boutique international investment firm that invests other peoples’ money, for a fee, into the stocks of ‘green’ companies. Al uses these credits to compensate for flying himself and his wife around in private jets, driving his SUVs and compensating for his famous $1,200/month electric bills. See http://www.ecotality.com/blog/?p=350 and http://neveryetmelted.com/?p=2237. What is clear is that Al himself doesn’t believe his own propaganda. Ecotality said it this way: Hypocrisy, after all, abounds. Even Gore’s huge electric power usage at his Nashville home isn’t the only example of how the prophet of environmental doom hasn’t always lived as if he believes his message. During the eight years Gore was vice president, he voted in four national elections. Every single time, he and his entourage and security detail and accompanying media flew to Nashville on a large government jet, burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuels and pumping huge amounts of carbon emissions directly into the earth’s atmosphere, and then rode in a caravan of fossil fuel-burning vehicles from Nashville International Airport about 40 miles east on I-40 to Carthage, Tennessee, so the local and national TV cameras could get video of him at the voting booth. And then the whole caravan headed back to Nashville for the plane ride back to DC. Traffic had to be halted on Nashville’s interstates and side streets every time - sometimes during rush hour - idling thousand of vehicles that just sat there, burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon pollution, just so Gore could create a media photo-op.
He could have instead voted by mailing in an absentee ballot - that would have been the “green” thing to do - and a skillful press aide could easily have turned that into a widely publicized pro-green photo-op. Image: Gwynnie's favorite location for, and method of, carbon pollution.
Wednesday, February 28. 2007
 In a stunning turnaround, The Right Reverend Al Gore announced today that he has abandoned his "Crusade to End Exhalation and Bovine Flatulence," and has turned his attention to a more pressing concern: The apostrophe.
"I was jetting all over the world, Davos, Vail, Rhiyad to pick up my check, and I got a good long look at all the people who have been masturbating furiously in the front row of An Inconvenient Truth and screaming at evil republicans on my beloved invention, the internet. It hit me like a metric tonne of greenhouse gases, I'm telling you. I saw my one, true calling. We must ration apostrophes! The use of apostrophe's ... oh, damn... See? They've got me doing it now. We're going to run out of apostrophes if we don't act globally now!" "I'd read my supporter's...that one belongs there, right? That's possessive, isn't it? Or does it go on the end? Damn, I've lost track...at any rate, I've read their fevered comments on the usual Republitards webpages, and weep for the clear-cutting of the apostrophe forests necessary to form just one paragraph. I mean, it's like I'm reading Klingon or Arabic or something. Can't they just photoshop a Hitler moustache on a previously photoshopped picture of Bush eating a kitten, like normal people do, instead of this unsustainable use of precious apostrophe's... Damn! See? I did it again." "Look at this," Reverend Al ushered me over to the hand cranked laptop he had installed in his indoor riding ring/jetpark, to lower his carbon footprint. "Look at this! Look at this and weep for the coming world. A world without apostrophes!"
Continue reading "The Apostrophe Crisis: Reverend Al Gore's New Crusade"
Tuesday, February 27. 2007
 "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs."
That was the famous marketing quote for the sale of Papal indulgences to which Martin Luther took strong exception in 1517. Ever wonder how Al Gore with his three houses and SUVs, and Suzuki with his mega-bus, and Hollywood, etc. claim to be "carbon neutral"? Exactly the same way indulgences worked. Here's how. One quote: Example: a mid-sized 30 mpg car driving 12,000 miles/year will create about 3.55 tons of CO2/year. Using Carbonfund.org's calculator we figured this would cost only about $19.50 or $1.63/month to be offset! This means that for a very small amount of money you can drive the equivalent of a zero-CO2-emission car!
As quoted by Gore's office yesterday: What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s (sic) do, to bring their footprint down to zero.
Another alternative for no footprints: Make yourself a helium-brained airhead and just float over the landscape without your feet touching. Instapundit found this Stalinist-sounding defence of Gore's hypocrisy, which truly gives me the creeps: Al Gore lives a life different from most folks. I'm not one to defend elitism, not as a matter of practice, but some elitism is inevitable. There must be a leadership class. There always has been and there always will be. Even societies organized around the principle of the equality and preeminence of the proletariat have had an elite class. It is the natural order of things. The key for a society is to create a responsible, responsive and fluid elite.
With him in it, no doubt. Would somebody remind this hideous un-American creep that, when searching for elites, the last place anyone would search is amongst politicians. They are the least-respected profession in America, and should be. You want an American Elite, Mr. Smarty-Pants who probably thinks he is elite himself? Try my plumbing, heating, and A/C guy Greg. He is honest, direct, gives sound advice; is smart, skilled, takes my calls, is overly-humble, and efficient - and has never overcharged me. More often, undercharges me, I think. Is God-fearing and God-loving, with a charming young family who understand that he needs to make house calls on Sunday night. And who quotes Shakespeare, and sometimes Milton. That is the American elite, my poor misguided friend: the people, and the government is our servant. Servant. Don't misunderestimate the wisdom of the regular folks, because being in real life can be worth a million-dollar education, especially if you have a curious mind and can learn from experience. Image: Al Gore owns three homes. This is a recent photo of his carbon-neutral home, in the Belle Mead neighborhood of Nashville.
Monday, February 26. 2007
West 28th street in Manhattan has been the flower district for 100 years. I have always enjoyed the way NYC retailers and wholesalers have clumped together for the convenience of their customers and for the convenience of the trucks that deliver to them. The Diamond District, the Fulton Fish Market, the Hunts Point vegetable market, and so on. Heck, there is even a Financial District. Who knew? Such districts have not been created by fiat or by planners, but have grown organically with the relentless logic of market capitalism. 
You can find any flower or plant material you want in the Flower District, in almost any reasonable volume. 300 Bell Song tulips? No problem. As the second largest flower market in the world (after Amsterdam), the market serves retailers from MA, NJ, CT, NYS - and further. The vans arrive to load up on their day's purchases at 5 AM. 
At 6 AM, you will also see a smattering of garden club ladies hunting out stuff for their next creation, which is what brought me and Mrs. Barrister and her pal down to the district from central CT in snow and sleet at o-dark-thirty this morning. I was chauffeur, but I do get a kick out of looking at all of the strange stuff. Some look like science fiction creations, especially some of the strange Protea which, it seems, have been all the rage in recent years. There is one Proteus that looks like eyeballs on a stem. The Greek sea-god was a shape-changer. Her friend wanted these and these, and found them. And some other stuff like the winter Buckeye branches Mrs. B was looking for, plus a ton of pussy willows just for home. As the city changes, the flower district is slowly fading, from over 60 establishments 20 years ago to around 40 right now. But it remains a bustling, thriving place in the early morning. Now I will get out the old plow and do the driveway and the front of the barn so we can let the horses out. Snow day! I'll "work from home" this afternoon by the fire with a few warming glasses of something nice.
Saturday, February 24. 2007
 The large Barred Owl, like our Great Horned Owl, is hooting, nesting, and laying eggs about now, up here. You can hear his deep "Who cooks for yoooo? Who cooks for you-all" across the frozen nighttime moon-lit marshes.
It's tough being on the bottom of the food chain. In the uplands, rodents have to deal with the Red-Tail during the day and with the Great Horned at night; in the lowlands with the Red Shouldered during the day and the Barred Owl at night. More about Barred Owl here at CLO. Also, somebody made a Barred Owl Cam. It seems that they will use large nest boxes, but I have only seen them using old hawk or crow nests. Their range and numbers are expanding. They are the same species as Spotted Owl, since they interbreed. Different races.
Friday, February 23. 2007
 FDR was an impressive politician, a true noblesse oblige aristocrat (who never knew a working man, and never had the chance to find out how wise they/we are), with a fine temperament (no doubt those 10 martinis/day helped with that).
He latched onto a fad pressed upon him by his advisors - the communalism fad of the world intelligentsia of the 30s - and almost broke the back of American freedom in the process. Not being particularly scholarly - or wise - himself, he bought into the notion that The Depression was due to Capitalism, requiring repair if not replacement by the geniuses in government. Good wartime leader? Yes. Moral: beware of fads, and stay away from cranks. A quote from a piece in View from 1776 on the subject: Mr. Chase said regarding the Depression, …the cycle is a direct product of that specialization which appeared with the industrial revolution. It is a product of laissez-faire, and the neglect to inquire what an economic system is for…There never has been control from the top, and that is the only point from which the cycle may be steadied.…I suspect it is the end of the economic system as we have known it – and suffered with it – in the past…a new deal is in order. What remedies did Mr. Stuart Chase propose? The drive of collectivism leads toward control from the top. … At bottom the conception of economic planning is science supervising a people’s housekeeping. … And so the final idea of a National Planning Board emerges; …a group which knows the past, can give capable advice as to the present, and sees into the future, especially the technological future. …The real work, the real thought, the real action must come from the technicians: that class most able, most clear-headed of all in American life, hitherto only half utilized in technical detail and in college class rooms. …This is a long-swing project we are starting, longer than the secular trend; longer than the industrial revolution itself. Errors will be made; methods will be tried out and discarded; but the principle of control from the top must go on.
Ah, control from the top. Of course. Isn't that always the solution for us foolish citizens? Hmmm, but isn't it "the top" that provides our basic education, too? Aw heck, never mind: Everybody knows that most of the smart people in America are too busy with life to get involved in politics. But that old FDR arrogant impulse, that views folks in government as being smarter than citizens, as knowing "what is best for us," persists. I know enough of them, and I can tell you that they are, on the whole, narcissistic idiots and sociopaths with a slick talk....with rare exceptions, who sooner or later get disgusted and quit. Have you ever known a politician who you would want in charge of your personal life? But the Stalinist impulse is still alive, still dangerous, and still wrong.
 It would solve the terrible AIDS problem, would it not? My Way News. Plus it would solve the entire transgender crisis, and the whole patriarchy problem too.
Let's Think Progressive, Think Feminist, Think Sitzpinkler, and Think Incrementalism: Circumcision Was Just a Start! You have to wonder what kind of wierd sadistic nut would have thought of it, and don't tell me that God really wanted that. Our God is into neither physical nor mental mutilation, I believe. But male castration at birth - meaning the whole package -sounds like a good issue for the Left. A natural issue for Hillary. And it is multiculturally sanctified: the Moslems already take the knife to their girls. Why don't they take out the old snippers, and do it to their men too? Fair is fair. Ed. note: That is Mr. King Cobra. A very fine animal.
This ill-tempered, violent, foul mouthed, hateful and abusive woman wants to be your president and have total control as commander-in-chief of a military that her party so openly and proudly admit they detest. I can see someone like this gaining the respect of other nations, and especially from their leaders, who refuse to do as she tells them ...or else. No thanks, my country deserves a better leader, not a dominatrix.
Here is our collection of quotes from Mrs. Clinton: "Where is the G-damn f**king flag? I want the G-damn f**king flag up every f**king morning at f**king sunrise."(From the book "Inside The White House" by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 - Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor's mansion on Labor Day, 1991)
"You sold out, you mother f**ker! You sold out!"From the book "Inside" by Joseph Califano, p. 213 - Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer."It's been said, and I think it's accurate, that my husband was obsessed by terrorism in general and al-qaida in particular."(Hillary telling a post-9/11 world what a 'great' commander in chief her husband was; Dateline, NBC 4/16/2004.)"I have to admit that a good deal of what my husband and I have learned [about Islam] has come from our daughter."(Tru thInMedia.org 8/8/1999 - Hillary at a White House function, proudly tells some Muslim groups she is gaining a greater appreciation of Islam because Chelsea was then taking a class on the "religion of peace")"F**k off! It's enough that I have to see you shit-kickers every day, I'm not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut."(From the book "American Evita" by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 - Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with "Good morning.""You f**king idiot."(From the book "Crossfire" p. 84 - Hillary to a State Trooper w ho was dr ivi ng her to an event.)"If you want to remain on this detail, get your f**king ass over here and grab those bags!"(From the book "The First Partner" p. 259 - Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)
"Get f**ked! Get the f**k out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!"(From the book "Hillary's Scheme" p. 89 - Hillary's various comments to her Secret Service d etail ag en ts.)"Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?"(From the book "Unlimited Access", by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 - Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)"Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for A merica to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."(Hillary grandstanding at a fund raising speech in San Francisco; SFGate.com 6/28/2004.)
"Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?!"(From the book "The Survivor," by John Harris, p. 382 - Hillary in her 2000 Senate campaign)"Where's the miserable c*ck sucker?"(From the book "The Truth About Hillary" by Edward Klein, p. 5 - Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer.
More charming quotes from the quotable Mrs. Clinton on continuation page below -
Continue reading "Ms. Potty Mouth runs for president"
Thursday, February 22. 2007
 I always thought that, too - that he was an abyss-gazer and a frightening metaphysician. From The Fear:
You understand that we have to be careful.
This is a very, very lonely place.
Joel!" She spoke as if she couldn't turn.
The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground,
It touched, it struck it, clattered and went out.
No fuzzy, avunclular, laconic Yankee he. In fact, a Californian transplant to NH via Dartmouth College. "Accessible"? I don't know: his imagery is familiar and country, but that's just imagery. From a New York Sun review of Frost's newly-published Diaries: Frost's popular Yankee image, which he assiduously cultivated through readings, lectures, and even some of his poems, helped him to win the immense popularity that he enjoyed in his lifetime: four Pulitzer Prizes, a spot on the dais at the Kennedy Inaugural. Yet Trilling recognized that the aged poet would not be helped in his passage to posterity by this Norman Rockwell carapace, which could only seem more fake and dated with the years. That is why Trilling insisted on calling Frost, to his face, "a terrifying poet." Really, he had less in common with Longfellow than with Sophocles, "who made plain ... the terrible things of human life." Trilling's remarks came in for what seems now like a surprising amount of criticism. When the New York Times reported on the speech, affronted readers wrote to suggest that Trilling should be taken "to the woodshed," while Frost consoled himself with "a nice plate of buckwheat pancakes and Vermont maple syrup." This anxious resort to the very clichés of Americana, which Trilling had decried, only proved how right he was. It was vital, for Frost's longterm artistic reputation, to separate the maple syrup from the poetry.
Wednesday, February 21. 2007
My blackbirds arrived up here today. They are my first sign of approaching Spring. Five days later than last year (yes, I write the date in pencil on my cabin wall, next to the window. Doesn't everybody?). Using basic math, that means we must be 1.36% colder this year than last year, and are entering an ominous cooling period. What is snow-cover, after all, but the big glacier - in kindergarten? Or in senescence? What are blackbirds? It's generic for grackles, red-wings, cowbirds, and their relatives, around here. They flock together and migrate together, as birds of a feather do. In breeding season, though, they stick with their own kind. Very wise to do so. I know exactly when they arrive, because they remember me, and empty my bird feeder in five minutes. Very hungry after their overnight flight, irritable, mentally ragged, noisily complaining, and jet-lagged. Like the Jet Blue customers.
Monday, February 19. 2007
This came in over the transom: .
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?" She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."
Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA." The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to Conservatism."
 We used to post interesting complaints from time to time, but the onslaught has been overwhelming. It's time for some praise, for relief. "We get letters..." as Mad Magazine used to say:
"A very hip blog, but not enough Buddhism." Allen Ginsberg "I check it frequently." Thomas Brewton at View from 1776 "Maggie's is my favorite blog." G.K. Chesterton "Les Aubes sont navrantes!" Arthur Rimbaud "Maggie's Farm is a daily Ivy League education - and no exams." George W. Bush "There is always a surprise on Maggie's Farm." Rocky Raccoon "I envy your IQs." Albert Einstein "Nice blog, but yo - where the cheesecake at?" Bill Clinton "Eclectic but confusing. What are you all about, and why do you bother?" SL in Indianapolis "This is your third and final notice. Your electric bill is past due." New England Light and Power "You waste too much time with it, and you shouldn't have to edit everything - but I do enjoy reading Maggie's sometimes." My first wife "What is a "blog"?" MR in Covington, KY "I agree with you 100%" Rick Moran at RingWingNutHouse "A very fine, refined, and unpredictable poetry selection. Love it." T.S. Eliot "A bit centrist for my taste, but the blog opens my mind." Markos Jones ("Mr. Jones") at Daily Kos "An essential once-a-year read." TC in Toronto "An exemplar of the true American spirit." George Washington "You are cybersluts who would sell your souls for a reader." JT, CIO, Interplanetary Industries, Ltd. "You sure do know your tractors and your hotdish." Johan Johanssen in Minnesota "Good Injun braves. Heap big hunters. Only blog in casino." Chief Sitting Bull "Excellent New England bog, I mean brog, I mean - hey, pal, that's my drink!" Ted Kennedy "Maggie's Farm has true grit." John Wayne "Maggie's Farm 'gets it'." Frederick Hayek "Most misunderappreciated politically centrist, intelligent, and groovy website in the Milky Way." Powerpine "We put Maggie's on our blogroll, but it was like 'pity sex'." Balloon Juice "You will be the first to die, filthy counter-revolutionary pigs." Lenin "You will be next to die, filthy infidel pigs." Omar Muhammed el Rashid al Ramal, in London "A bunch of f***ing goddam fascist counter-revolutionary pigs who I will have lined up and shot, you f***ing c***suckers." Hillary Clinton "Maggie's makes me feel square and old-fashioned." Sigmund Freud "A deep understanding of the challenges facing Western Civilization." Lionel Trilling "The blog that knows the blues." Sonny Boy Williamson "The blog that knows the Constitution." James Madison " .............................. ." Instapundit "Maggie's Farm has raised my ticket sales by getting my name out, so hurry and place your ads here now!" William Shakespeare "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more." Bob Dylan "Hey - that photo is the farmhouse I grew up in." David Burge, my hero, at IowaHawk "Hey Bird Dog - I just stubbed my toe on the Spanish Steps. Owww. Ouchie." Ezra Pound "Excellent taste in whine." Robert Parker (Parker rating for the 2006 Maggie's Farm: "32. Corked, overly-sweet, too much gunpowder, aftertastes of liver, diver duck and old owl. Past its prime, worn-out even though it was never any good. Drink now if a desperate alcoholic, or, if not, put down the drain immediately.") "You lean a bit left, but you are otherwise quite likeable." John Ashcroft "My sixth or seventh...or maybe eighth... I dunno... favorite blog." His Royal Highness Roger De Hauteville, King of Sicily (brevetted) "If you were in Europe, you'd be in jail where you belong, writing your memoirs on fine French toilet paper." Jacques Chirac "Les oiseaux - fantastique!" John J. Audubon "God bless you all at Margie's Kitchen for your good work. I'd like to offer to name your Connecticut contributors 'Honorary Democrats.' Would that be something they might like? There would be a photo with Nancy Pelosi." Joe Lieberman "Your blog is a good example of why we need to limit political speech in America. Free speech is one thing, but you make it clear why we need limits. Even roads have speed limits. Not everything needs to be said." John McCain "What is all this hideous right-wing nonsense? Do you all really mean all this?" My sister in MA "Hey Bird Dog, get away from my quail." Elvis Presley Image: A 1950 Farmall Model C
 I have been truant with our Fallacies for a while, but I figure I do them as much for myself as for our readers.
By posing, or implying, a false dilemma, you put the other guy off balance for a moment. Like most fallacies, it works because we, in the Western World, tend to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt and to assume his logical integrity. Wrong! He just might be working an agenda. Always watch out for "either A or B" arguments. Examples: 1. A classic: "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit." Why? Aren't there other considerations? What if they weren't the same gloves? What if they shrunk from the blood? What if he didn't care whether they were a nice fit or not? He got the jury going, though - and the rhyme helped. 2. "You believe in choice? What are you, some sort of baby-killer?" You see how false dilemmas give the illusion of a sharply-divided reality. What can you say? "No, wait - I never killed a baby..." and you are on the defensive right away. 3. A famous Christian one: "Either Christ was the son of God, or he was a con-man or a loony." I worship Him, but not because of this false dilemma. 4. "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." This false dilemma tugs at one's guilt a little, until you see the trick that is being pulled. After all, what if there is nothing meaningful I can do about it? Or what if I don't care? Or what if I think it's a minor problem? Or what if managing my own life is all I can handle? Or what if saving the world just isn't my bag? Image: The late, great defence lawyer Johnny Cochran.
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However, in general I have learned, over many years, from a long series of unfortunate experiences, to not automatically trust people from different cultures. Not to dislike them, because I tend to enjoy humans - but just to distrust them. I think this is an intelligent decision.