Maggie's Farm

Youth Music #3

nospam@example.com (Bird Dog) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:01:00 -0500

St Vincent with Actor Out of Work. One more from our highly-paid consultant, the Maggie's Youth of Today Czar:

Bipartisanship

nospam@example.com (The Barrister) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:37:46 -0500

Looks like the wacko Health Care bill in the House will be bipartisan - on the opposition.

PTSD Excuse For Ft. Hood Nutjob by MSM Nutjobs

nospam@example.com (Bruce Kesler) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:15:50 -0500

This from someone who actually had/has PTSD, with good reason: he lost an arm to an IED.

I’m more than a little angry right now. Yes, I’m irate that some shitbag Major (“shitbag” is often used as a technical term in the Army) opened fire on a group of his fellow Soldiers killing 12 and wounding 30. But that’s not even what is under my skin right now. What is bothering me is the general reaction of our media and those stupid enough to think this was not an act of terrorism, but was caused by supposed PTSD caused at Walter Reed Army Medical Center….

In order to actually have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you have to go through some sort of traumatic event(s) to have “post stress.” Can therapists be emotionally troubled by the things they hear from patients? Yes. But you cannot catch PTSD from someone. It's not the fucking swine flu.

I cannot tell you how angry I am right now as a former patient of Walter Reed. It is an absolute fucking slap in the face for people to use his time there as an excuse for what he has done. It is an absolute fucking slap in the face for all the wonderful people there who help soldiers every single day. Some of the most kind, caring, and noble people I have ever met in my entire life work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center day in and day out helping wounded Soldiers like me.

To fallaciously say this guy has PTSD from his time at Walter Reed as an excuse for opening fire on a group of innocent Soldiers is beyond reckless. It's an absolute slap in the face for every caregiver and every wounded warrior who ever set foot on Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

BTW, here's a column I wrote at Military.com a few years ago about PTSD, based on a study that even the NYTs called "authoritative."

Spelling & The Human Mind

nospam@example.com (Bruce Kesler) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:55:07 -0500

This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

What's in the Dem bill?

nospam@example.com (The Barrister) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:30:41 -0500

Betsy McCaughey: What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says. It is unbelievable.

Also, "ObamaCare’s Redistribution of Health...Of course the president and Congress are after money, but they really want control over your life."

And don't forget the $250,000 fine or go to jail. The major medical policy I now own and enjoy would be illegal.

Project Valour - IT Fundraiser

nospam@example.com (Bird Dog) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:41:09 -0500

There is nothing in the world like a USMC Drill Sargeant. The three guys here are great, but the third and final guy is the most musical. I could run all day listening to that.

This via Tiger, Jules, Villainous and many others who are drumming up support for Project Valour.

Saturday morning links

nospam@example.com (The News Junkie) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0500

The Right Wing Prof offers thanks to all for prayers and support.

This Is Not Your Grandma's Humane Society. Just one more non-profit co-opted by moonbats.

Pelosi: Buy a $15,000 policy or go to jail. They had better begin building more jails - maybe with stimulus money.

AARP's tacit endorsement of Medicare cuts line its pockets, but shortchanges seniors

The O at MIT: “We’ll just have to deal with those people.” I guess he means me. Nice approach to a fellow citizen.

Related: Frustrated in Copenhagen. Good. Those people are nuts. Al Gore Himself already said that CO2 isn't the main problem.

This is crazy, isn't it?

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

Obama cedes the center. RCP

The truth leaks out on health care. Powerline. Not only do the Dems want to cover abortions - a truly elective procedure - they want to cover sex change operations. On my nickel? Of course, boob jobs would be fine with me...

Insty:

ROBERT REICH: Forget healthcare, focus on employment. “Obama’s focus on health care rather than jobs, when the economy is still so fragile and unemployment moving toward double digits, could make it appear that the administration has its priorities confused. While affordable health care is critically important to Americans, making a living is more urgent. Yet the administration’s efforts to date on this more basic concern have been neither particularly visible nor coherent.”

Problem is, the only way to make jobs would be to cut taxes and spending.

Bad: Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting. A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.

Via Viking: Yeah...we know - Real Clear Markets: "Why middle class tax hikes are coming"

From the Krautman:

November ’08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was November ’09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm — and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

PTSD by Proxy? Plus the video of the Major in a minimart.

Who wants the Gitmo terrorists and Jihadists in the USA? Besides the O?

A short essay on ubermensch myth and politics. Flopping. Related and equally good: No-one saw Barack in the balloon?

"In a fast-breaking development comes word that agents of the Attorney’s General office in Louisiana have raided ACORN’s offices in New Orleans. ACORN’s New Orleans was, for decades, the headquarters of the national community organizing association"

Canadian students march for "good jobs for all." What's a "good job"?

Joblessness:

"This may be the toughest employment situation we've seen in the postwar era," Mark Gertler, an economics professor at New York University, said in an interview earlier this week.

Who would hire a new employee if you don't know how the Dems will screw you? How can you make a business plan?

Saturday Verse: Shakespeare

nospam@example.com (Bird Dog) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:16:00 -0500

Sonnet XLIV

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements so slow
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

Lesson of the Berlin Wall, Still Relevant

nospam@example.com (Bruce Kesler) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:54:54 -0500

November 9 marks the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, put up by the communist rulers in 1961 to stem the drain from behind the Iron Curtain of those to whom freedom meant everything. There was widespread shock throughout the West at the end of the Cold War, which seemed endless, costly and perhaps unwinnable, and the fall of the existential threat of communism and its terrible toll on mankind, which to some seemed impervious or even eventually triumphant.

Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, writes about “Tyranny Set In Stone: Why We Must Not Forget The Lessons Of Berlin.”

As we look around the world today, a melancholy spectacle greets our gaze. The Soviet Union is no more, but a minatory if diminished Russia has taken its place. A possibly nuclear Iran. A confirmed nuclear North Korea and Pakistan. Preposterous anti-American strongmen like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. An increasingly rampant threat of Islamofascism. The enemies of freedom and the West are more numerous than ever. It is here that the two deepest lessons of the Berlin Wall lie. First, that tyranny frankly confronted can be defeated. But, second, that the victory of freedom is never final: it must always be renewed not only through our willingness to acknowledge and struggle against evil, but also through a forthright proclamation of our own founding principles. It is this last requirement of freedom that seems most difficult for Western intellectuals. To quote Kolakowski once more, there is “one Great Cause that has persisted more or less intact throughout the past decades in the Leftist mentality: the loathing of democratic countries. Allegiances changed, but if there was something enduring in Leftist politics, it was this: in any conflict between a tyrannical and democratic country, the tyrants were right and democracy wrong.” One would have thought that the admonitory tale of the Berlin Wall would provide an incontrovertible disabusement. Alas, it is a lesson we have yet to absorb.

President Obama is too disinterested, and occupied accomplishing nothing, to attend the 20th anniversary celebration in Berlin.

P.S.: Here's another rumination on 1989 and another fall.

Those who don't remember, or who never learned about communism, might want to read this short essay.

More from our Youth Music Czar

nospam@example.com (Bird Dog) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:45:00 -0500

She is a fan of the group Grizzly Bear:

Subsidized suburbanization and sprawl

nospam@example.com (The Barrister) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:10:08 -0500

I don't care too much about people's energy use, and, if people want to live in McMansions two hours from work, so be it.

However, I do object to the subsidization of urban and suburban sprawl by tax-supported highways. I also object to the public subsidization of home ownership via the mortgage tax deduction. (I am a flat-taxer.) From the Globe:

Nathaniel Baum-Snow of Brown University found that each “new highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 18 percent.’’ The home mortgage interest deduction further encouraged suburbanization, because rental units are disproportionately in cities while owner-occupied homes are disproportionately distant from city centers.

"I wish that I were..."

nospam@example.com (Dr. Joy Bliss) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:40:00 -0500

I have been thinking about the wishes we have about ourselves, and about how we deal with our disappointments in ourselves and our perceived shortcomings.

Here are some of the things I have heard from people:

I wish I were...

taller
shorter
more beautiful and sexy
stronger
more handsome
richer
blonde
blue-eyed
green-eyed
more outgoing
more inner-directed
more charismatic
a better athlete
smarter
better at math
more popular
more disciplined
less fearful
better at memorization
better at focusing
less neurotic
more confident
more courageous
more authoritative
skinnier
able to relax
more energetic
more knowledgeable
less naive
less cynical
less of a manipulator
more interesting
less of an asshole
less self-centered
more self-interested
more adventurous
less reckless and impulsive
less boring
darker-skinned
lighter-skinned
bigger
smaller
bigger-breasted
smaller-breasted
bigger-penised
quicker to orgasm (women)
slower to orgasm (men)
younger
bigger-assed
smaller-assed
better at (fill in the blank)

The list could go on and on. It is not human to be too pleased with oneself unless one is delusional on some level. God, and our Moms, and Mr. Rogers might like us just as we are, but we generally do not.

Why would we? Love would not be as special, as miraculous, otherwise.

What would the world be like if we could all design ourselves - besides being filled with rich 6'3" guys with 3-foot johnsons and rich 5'6" skinny blondes with perfect - but generously so - boobs? All with 160 IQs and charming personalities.

Best Reason To Buy A VW

nospam@example.com (Bruce Kesler) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:19:39 -0500

It's not a real commercial, but still...

Friday morning links

nospam@example.com (The News Junkie) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:36:00 -0500

Photo from yesterday's protest in DC

Office gossip. NYT

AVI: The liberals I am most familiar with

Is abortion pro-family?

WSJ: The Madness of Queen Nancy

Guy reinvents the Constitution

Eurocourt Bans Crucifixes in Italy

Related: Europe - a leviathan is born

Are mammograms worthwhile? NYT

Get a clue, O: Iran doesn't like you. But they enjoy toying with you.

Gitmo prisoners don't like the alternative

VDH on the plutocratic Left

Voegli on California vs. Texas

We'll miss Jungle Trader

Census blocked from asking citizenship questions

Stossel:

Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good
and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view.

So why am I the one called biased?

Kandinsky

nospam@example.com (Bird Dog) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:02:00 -0500

Jaune, Rouge, Bleu. 1925. Interesting fellow, Kandinsky. Degrees in Law and Economics.