It's the adaptive dishonesty, stupid

"Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) produces the highest yields in full sunlight and under cooler conditions," according to UWI/UMN's  'Alternative Field Crops Manual.'"  Unlike annual crops, the leaves do not readily wilt during extended periods of drought due to its deep root system." 'Reminds us of GW. This specimen (x 6.5), the latest generation of a few clumps taken years ago from Mummy's Down East garden, is enjoying its best year ever on the estate here in Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

"Having to wait for vindication will make it all that sweeter," comments Lucianne re Investor's Business Daily's "Bashers Beware," a warning for BDS sufferers of both the left and right whose fearful flight from facts has led them to believe their own rhetoric instead of their lying eyes (and ears):

It takes little courage — or brains — to join the mob vilifying President Bush. But the Democrats (and Republicans, too) depicting him as villain will one day regret it.

In the eyes of members of both parties, George W. Bush seems to be the cause [Bush's Fault ™] of everything from the recent GOP special election losses to a flagging economy to today's bad weather …

There is undeniably a lot of gloom and doom out there, with the Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index at a 26-year low. But the National Association for Business Economics announced Monday that it expects the current downturn to be mild and brief …

When faced with the entire Washington establishment demanding an end to the war — including his own father's secretary of state, James Baker — President Bush stuck to his guns, placed a new general in charge and employed a surge strategy that is now winning the war in Iraq in resounding fashion.

"Looking for a hardy, pest-resistant, drought-tolerant plant that can handle sun or shade, has an extended blooming period and comes in a whole range of colors? If you answered yes, you've been saved by Coral Bells (Heuchera)," according to HGTV. Normally beet-red underside of leaf of Heuchera micrantha 'Palace Purple' — 1991 Perennial Plant of the Year — backlit by the morning sun glows crimson. Middleground: lanceolate leaves of Giant Onion (Allium giganteum). Background: pale purple blossoms of Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) taken years ago from the forest edge along Western Point Road on the way to Goomp's.

"McCain, meanwhile, seems to think it a wise campaign strategy to highlight his differences with the president, such as outgreening the greens on global warming," notes the IBD. It's the "adaptive dishonesty," stupid, explains Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in today's WSJ:

"But honor, the value that underllined Mr. McCain's stand [on Iraq], is no use on an issue like global warming … Politics is often a business of adaptive dishonesty, and never more so than when dealing with an issue like climate change. Real solutions are lacking so politicians can only devote themselves to telling voters what they want to hear while dishing out favors to whatever lobbyists are handy … Nobody who seriously wants to be president in 2008 is going to question the "consensus" on global warming.

Migratory like the better known Monarch (Danaus plexippus), the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui AKA Cynthia cardui) is "also known as the Thistle Butterfly because of the caterpillars' food preference and also as the Cosmopolitan because it is the most widely distributed butterfly in the world," according to online sources. This specimen stopped to take nectar this morning from the full-blooming lilacs along the porch front facing the river. Fun fact of the day according to an Iowa State web page: "There is increasing evidence that climatic anomalies such as El Niño trigger large-scale migrations of Painted Ladies." Who's going to tell Al Gore?

We'll be voting for McCain in spite of his jumping on the anthropogenic-climate-change bandwagon, of course. Back in November of 2004, when climatologist and Cato Institute Senior Fellow Patrick J. Michael told CNSNews.com that the Arizona senator was "trying to define himself as an environmental Republican, which he is going to use to differentiate himself from his rivals for the (presidential) nomination in 2008," we wrote:

We suspect that beyond media manipulation for funding purposes, the primal human need to believe we can control nature is what makes the human-causation thesis so appealing to both buyers and sellers of junk science. McCain knows human weakness when he sees it and is all too willing to cynically prey upon it in his grab for the golden ring.

Will it be enough to fool that segment of the undecideds — the ones we call the mushy middle of our fellow citizenry who go whichever way the wind blows, assisted by a carelessly left-leaning media — that he needs to beat The Great Appeaser?

Update: John Stossel makes sense of it all:

McCain's hero is Teddy Roosevelt, a hectoring, activist president. To justify government interference in our lives, it helps to have a crisis. In Islamic extremism, McCain has his foreign affairs crisis. In global warming, he has his domestic crisis.

Charge!

Update II: Bird Dog at Maggie's links:

The Queen of the Segueway meanders from Heuchera to Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy is in the Maggie's Farm Pantheon. He is a worthy role model for any politician — or any person.

Rough Riders rule!

Update III: Dr. Sanity takes a break from taking a break from blogging to barker the Carnival of the Insanities.

Comments

[goomp]

I hope things are not as bad as they seem. Obama as President could lead to an early atomic war as the dictators see an opportunity to put an end to Western civilization. Hillary? All I can do is shake my head. That leaves us McCain as our last choice, and his swallowing of the hoax of man-made global warming makes one wonder about his ability to do what is needed to stop the ignorant intellectuals from destroying the economy.

[Gayle Miller]

Great post Sissy! And sound reasons to vote for McCain.

Thanks also for the plant information. As it happens I am heading for a nursery very early on Saturday morning to pick up herbs, tomato and pepper plants (and doubtless some impulse purchases as well) and intend to plant my front border and window boxes (both in front of the house and on the deck) with landscaping that, in the words of my late father, "pays for itself". Hence rosemary will be part of my new front yard plantings, among other lovely and hardy plants. Think I'll definitely keep my eyes open for some of the plants you highlighted today as well!