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Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Monday, December 29. 2014Monday morning links Josef Cardinal Ratzinger on Christmas Hollywood Barbarian - Column: The Romantic genius of John Milius Ask the Captain: Is a Gulfstream smoother than a big jet? Dave Barry's Year in Review Via Insty, What was the most significant story in mathematics in 2014? 2014: The Year of the Imploding Narrative Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer Eleanor Roosevelt Had a Carry Permit, So Why Can't You? Self-defense is a constitutional right Americans have a duty to express unpopular opinions Editor of CUNY Student Paper Defends Call for Violence Brandeis Student Under Attack for Calling Out Leftist Hate Driscoll: Death Wish VI: On the Turning Away Not Showing Up To Riot Is A Failed Conservative Policy Obama’s Executive Memoranda Highlights Constitutional Crisis Obama, a One-Man Revolution - In his “fourth quarter,” he feels free to ignore popular opinion, the rule of law, and Congress. Hillary Clinton Shifting Left to Meet Democrat Base The liberal health care dream blows up Egypt Bans Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus’ Over ‘Historical Inaccuracies’ Sunday, December 28. 2014Christmas birdsNot many interesting birds around thus far this winter, but a Red Tail Hawk has been screaming at me all day from the top of a Sugar Maple. I've been hauling firewood, which seems to annoy. My regular Great Horned Owls are of course hooting each morning at 4:30. Which reminds me that on Christmas afternoon a Bald Eagle flew right over my roof. Not an everyday occurrence here. I mentioned it to Mrs. BD and she said "Oh yeah, they have been nesting down on --- Road this summer. Watched them raising their chicks every morning on my morning exercise walk with friends." Sheesh. Could have mentioned that to me. I, the Bird Dog, would have been interested. Wonderful to see those big fish eagles coming back. I didn't think it could happen, but then I never expected the Ospreys to come back so strongly either. Or, God knows, the Wild Turkeys. The resilience of nature is a wonder. Cute prank: Fresh sausageAnother Cuthbertson Christmas My sibs still get to use and see them here at the Maggie's HQ, every Christmastime. It is sentimental for all of us. Like most nice stuff, they are not ok for the dishwasher despite what they may say. Frederick Cuthbertson of Greenwich, CT, designed these classic and charming things in 1922 for his shop in NYC. Still made in England, though. You can buy them today and leave them to your kids. They don't get heavy use.
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:24
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A free ad for Hotel Uhrerhof Deur
We loved this family-friendly hotel in the Dolomites - southern Alps - now part of Italy but Austrian in culture and food. People speak German and at least some Italian, and also Ladin. Mostly Ladin at home, because nobody else in the world speaks it. This hotel is in the Val Gardena. You get a rental car in Malpensa airport, and drive north almost to the Brenner Pass. Hiking the Dolomites is on lots of folks' bucket lists. It can range from easy and relaxed to very challenging hiking. You do not have to climb those peaks, although we have a neighbor who climbed each one of them. A good thing is that there are refugios with coffee, beer, snacks, and frische buttermilch every few miles. There are trail maps to sort-of help you from getting too lost, but getting a little lost is part of the fun. Stinky peopleScience Makes the Case for GodFrom today's Lectionary: and a sword will pierce your own soul too...Luke 2:22-40
Saturday, December 27. 2014The difficulty of faith
Rod Dreher has more, in The Hard, Healing Experience of Faith:
Saturday morning links Antique American recipes, restored John Cleese: 'I'll never grow up' - The Fawlty Towers actor on grasping ex-wives, self-centered mothers and Lobsters thrive on lobster bait “Scrooge Was A Liberal, Studies Show” Once Upon A Time, Free Speech And Association Were Sacred To Liberals Meanwhile, back in grad school Have We Become a Nation of ‘Wussies’? Do Diversity Initiatives Indirectly Discriminate Against Asian Americans? The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal - The real story behind the murder of two NYPD officers:
Cuba Derangement Syndrome strikes again With Two Years Left, the Inflection Point of the Obama Presidency The World Is Not Falling Apart - Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times. Ben-Dror Yemini - "The Industry of Lies", an interview Image below via Sultan's Every Christmas Now Comes With Muslim Terrorism
Friday, December 26. 2014Annals of government medical careIn the UK, docs must now report weight-gainers to the government. Is that the first step towards making being fat a crime? That's a country in which it is now a crime to put your garbage in the wrong bin. That is not from a Monty Python skit. We always figure that if you get fat and die young, you save money for the government. So why not encourage obesity? America does, by asking people to eat carbs as a diet despite sedentary lives. A word to the wise It's all pure manipulation. There is no real neurotic hypersensitivity there. Play-acting, like drawing a foul. In today's politicized world, people use contrived pain as a tool of aggression and control, just as borderlines do. Friday morning links
Passenger tossed after flipping out over staff’s ‘Merry Christmas’ A little touchy? Well, holiday season can do that to people. Anti-Feminists Baffle Feminists - Woman Against Feminism vs. feminists: Who's actually confused? Who owns Chicken Tikka Masala? I feel triggered by the odor of cultural appropriation My atheist Christmas: How I overcame my personal struggle with the holiday - The holiday and its religious trappings used to offend me deeply. Here's how I overcame my feelings of oppression Good grief. He thinks Christmas is all about him A cool museum: inside Manhattan's Tenement Museum shed light on Lower East Side's notorious turn-of-the-century slum What is a "slum"? It's a starting place where people would rather live in than the hopeless crappy place they came from Thank SCOTUS for Credential Inflation If Single Payer Can't Work in Vermont... Tribal Raid In Peru May Be Related To Hotcoldwetdry Teenager Shot In Missouri: So What? "Stories of choice" Imagine No Religion - The French press refuses to see a clear case of Islamic terrorism. Thursday, December 25. 2014The Bleak MidwinterFor those not too busy with Christmas todayA few fine Christmas treats: Christmas at Bastogne - Seventy years ago, American heroes spent the day halting Hitler’s advance in Belgium. A now-elderly friend of ours was there, in the medical corp. At age 16. He lied to get in, and so did his mom. I've seen his letters home because his mom saved them all. Carried lots of stretchers of bleeding through snow during artillery barrages. What are our 16 year-olds doing? Went on to go to medical school later. How Haussmann destroyed the old Paris 600 BC Greek pottery comes to life Was Robert Frost an obnoxious person? Yes Damocles Had Nothing To Do With It. It Was Cassandra All The Way For Sippican Sex, slavery, and freedom in ancient Rome. Ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is 'not melting', says global warming expert Daniel Hannan for President! We love this guy: And from Prof. Alan Kors, "Who's Too Weak to Live With Freedom?" American kids need to be raised to freedom and independence. This fellow is enjoyable -
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:33
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A Farmall tractor Christmas card from your Maggie's Farm team (recycled, to help heal the planet) A Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season to all of our readers and to all of our contributors, with thanks for being part of our humble Yankee enterprise (No innocent trees were murdered for this card to compensate for murdering our Christmas tree) I've been to a bunch of parties and some fancy parties this season, and heard some great music too, but the best was a neighborhood caroling get-together Friday night - adults and kids. Good food and drinks with around an hour of singing practice around the piano (divvying up the voices of the wise men, the soloist for O Holy Night, etc), then out tramping around and driving around in the dark to our target audiences. Shut-ins, an old friend and WW 2 Navy vet with Alzheimer's, guys on the job, friendly families. Mrs. BD feels that this neighborhood event is the most Christmassy thing we ever do. I can guarantee that none of the kids who participate will ever forget it. Maybe they will pass it on when they grow up. Hope so. Fine traditions of family, friends, community, and faith do matter because they become embedded in our souls like little candlelights, lighting our dark corners through our entire lives. O holy Child of Bethlehem
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Posted by Bird Dog
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05:14
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Changed the world
All humans on earth - believers, cultural Christians, atheists, other-believers, etc - are the beneficiaries of the Christian tradition of individual dignity, justice, and of worship in all of its forms from the intellectual to the artistic to the civilizational. A dear favorite of mine:
Wednesday, December 24. 2014Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Joyous Protest SeasonI am heading up to western MA to be with family and for our Christmas Mass, thence to Stowe with friends to ski, drink beer, chase girls, and get away from the intertunnels and all of the insane news about the protesting retards. A special Christmas thanks to all American law enforcement. Cheers to you guys and gals. I'd be scared witless to do your jobs. But first, two items of interest. 5 Reasons Why Fewer Americans Are Working and this from Zero:
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14:04
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Santa, Clement Clarke Moore, and Chelsea
Wonderful city. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Moore led a movement to block the running of 9th Ave. through the middle of his rural estate, but NYC progress could not be stopped. He hated Jefferson for his apostasy. His summer house was in Newport, RI. He was buried in the Trinity Church graveyard. His dad was a bishop and president of King's College, now Columbia University. Writing The Night Before Christmas was the least of his academic and cultural accomplishments and generosities, but it did end up inventing an American version of Santa Claus which has endured until now. He's the guy who made Santa fat and jolly. An email from a daughter:
You know the words of his delightful doggerel, so I do not need to print them out. Like people such as Conan Doyle or Lewis Carroll, inventive people never know what they will be remembered for. Moore's house in Chelsea -
Moore founded St. Peter's Church in 1838 on his estate. It is still there, on W. 20th St. I've been there for performances of the Chelsea Opera. Lovely old Anglican church, now sort-of Episcopalian.
Jerusalem!
By popular request -
Can All-Season Tires Really Handle the Snow?No, not really, even with all-wheel drive. In the back woods of the Northeast, most local people drive crappy little old RWD rusty GM sedans and zoom around nicely with snow tires while the skiers from the cities slip and slide their Subarus and 4-WD Suburbans, Range Rovers, and Escalades all over the roads and into the ditches. Wednesday morning linksA well-bred, gracious gent Documentary confirms Michael Rockefeller was eaten by cannibals Happy Holidays: FDA Moves to Ban Cake, Donut ‘Sprinkles’:
Women Discuss the “Normal Barbie” 4 Things That Are Hurting Your Wife and Killing Your Marriage Crazy music: Please, For The Love Of God, Stop Hitting It, Joe A wonder I double dog dare ya to read this and to understand it. I think the point is that the U of Michigan is a hotbed of institutional racism. Never have liberal ideas been so firmly entrenched within America’s core elite institutions. Never have those institutions been so weak and uninfluential. Minus rape, feminism is rather too obviously a list of trivial complaints by comfortable yet hysterical semi-affluent white women. De Blasio Blames Media for Making Anti-Cop Protesters Look Bad As Congress Lawyers Up Harvard’s Cass Sunstein Defends the Technocrats How much economic potential does Cuba have? Is Obama getting the last laugh on Cuba? USA Offering $5 Million Reward for Terrorist Released From Club Gitmo Steven Pinker on the Boycott Israel Dispute at Harvard How much economic potential does Cuba have?
Christmas in ViennaTuesday, December 23. 2014Advent musicThe 11 Most Politically Correct Moments on College Campuses in 2014 Here. It's good fun.
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16:10
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