Maggie's Farm

We 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.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Wednesday, December 16. 2009

Weds. evening heavy-duty links

Tom Sowell's Christmas reading


How about a doppelganger for Christmas?


Militant Theophobes


Illegals, yes. Anatolie, no.


Climategate: Something’s Rotten in Denmark … and East Anglia, Asheville, and New York City 


Copenhagen: 'This Guy's Just Showing Up to Collect His Check'


A good post with good links re Paul Samuelson


Good comments on our sexual addiction post


A book: Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law. Interesting reviews there at Amazon.


Ann Applebaum: Some climate-changers are anti-human.


The 2009 Obama Achievement List


Climate Scientists and Ethics: Some Advice from a Finance Professor


How would the Reid bill affect the middle class?


Protecting Investors or Prosecuting Innocents? The Dangers of Vagueness in Financial Fraud Laws


Kimball:



...if it is hard to ginger up any enthusiasm for the topic of health care reform, it is even harder to contemplate what is happening in Washington without an overwhelming sense of alarm. The Obama administration is not only on the threshold of usurping some 20 percent of the U.S. economy, handing it over to government bureaucrats to oversee, it is also just a few signatures away from utterly transforming medical culture and the way you will be allowed to interact with your doctors. Do you really want this?


And via Insty:



ANN ALTHOUSE: Blaming Obama Is The New Trend. “People just don’t want this bill. I think the big mistake was skipping the step of winning public support for a particular plan. It wasn’t enough that people believed there was a problem. People needed to believe the solution wasn’t worse than the problem. We were supposed to look away and trust them. The trust was never won, never earned. It’s been a horrific mess, and it just looks messier and messier as time wears on. Obama kept his distance, which looks pretty smart now.”

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 18:08 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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I wonder what the atheists would do if I constructed a Satanic Christmas display. Let your mind wander on that for a moment.

All the red lights, totally inappropriate uses of the big plastic nativity figures I have, a pentagram (duh), and nothing too graphic, blasphemous, or obscene, of course. Just good ol'fashioned devil worship in lights, swap the cross for the star and you are pretty much done.

Oh, wait. "militant" atheists only care about G_d and Christ. You never see them come out against Buddah or some elephant dude with 8 arms. I think they are all racists who don't like Jews, perhaps?
#1 Phil on 2009-12-16 18:37 (Reply)
Paul Samuelson was THE MAN in economics when I was an undergrad in the mid '60's. Our Econ 101 used his book and I learned what little I know about economic concepts from it.

One of the more interesting concepts I learned in Samuelson's textbook is the "multiplier effect", the economic impact of company payrolls as they course through a community. JOBS really are Job 1 of any politician and economic developer worthy of the name.

As my work in commercial and industrial real estate often touches on economic development, the importance of the multiplier effect has been demonstrated to me, over and over again. Jobs mean economic impact in many ways, the better paying the job, the greater the economic impact. If an economy can produce good jobs, everything else falls into place.
#2 greenmtnpunter on 2009-12-16 19:02 (Reply)
Here is some interesting information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09aclu.html
#3 apple pie on 2009-12-16 21:38 (Reply)
I like what one of the commenters said on the Doppleganger post: "At last, you can be at your desk working and off fishing at the same time."

BOOYAA!!! :>)
#4 Tom Francis on 2009-12-16 22:25 (Reply)
Sorry for the extra comment - I messed up.

With respect to Theophobes the court "victory" only goes to prove that atheism is now a recognized religion and thus as valid or in-valid as any other.

I'd like to know from our more learned law experts if this actually doesn't violate the establishment clause of the Constitution. It seems to me that if the state forces the recognition of a belief system as valid, that would violate the church/state condition would it not?

Or am I way off base?
#5 Tom Francis on 2009-12-16 22:33 (Reply)
Courts can and do recognize religions and that is alright.

However, I doubt that one court in Arkansas recognizing God haters will solidify same as a religion in any other domain.

Judge may be giving the ignorant a bit of rein so's their folly is publicly acclaimed.
#5.1 Leag on 2009-12-18 16:04 (Reply)
"He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."

- George Orwell.
#6 JJM on 2009-12-16 22:47 (Reply)
"Some climate-changers are anti-human"

Some?
#7 JJM on 2009-12-16 22:54 (Reply)
I like the distinction between atheist and theophobe, or perhaps anti-deity. A philosophical atheist would leave people to find their own beliefs, as a philosophical Christian or Muslim would invite others to hear what they believe but demand nothing except to be left in peace.
Any specific public square is only so large and there can be only so many displays. Given that the season is a traditionally jolly and religious one, it seems that jolly and/or religious displays would have first claim. I agree with many Farmers that we've had too many court actions trying to shove religion out of the public square. You'd have a hard time finding any Founder who felt that way.
#8 Geoff Brown on 2009-12-17 11:35 (Reply)

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