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

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Thursday, August 12. 2010

A few morning links


Toon above via Powerline. See new surge of layoffs.


Never a bad idea: a summer visit to the USS Constitution, still commissioned in the US Navy. Old Ironsides (that was southern Live Oak) never lost a fight.


Bill Gates: watch for the disappearance of the physical university. Right now, you can eddicate yourself pretty good with The Teaching Company. We love their courses, but no term papers (bad) and no exams (good).


Legal Ins, to the Left:



Obama has accomplished as much as he could for you. He has put in place laws which will enable him to accomplish through regulation that which he could not accomplish through legislation. Obama is playing the long game, and you are short-sighted.



The savvy Leftists always keep their eye on the long game.


Majority of voters consider Democratic agenda “extreme”


Dalrymple on conservation and aesthetics


More violent rage from the Left: N.H. Dem Airs Palin Death Wish on Facebook. Where's the tolerance and sensitivity to differences?


Prof B: Coerced "caring" is not compassion


McArdle: The End of Retirement as We Know It. People used to expect to work until they keeled over. What's wrong with that?

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:54 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Did Maggie's Farm "go dark" last night/this morning?
I couldn't access the website earlier; I was afraid you were gone!
#1 cas on 2010-08-12 08:26 (Reply)
Our site crashes once in a while. We blame it on the moose knocking down the power lines, or woodpeckers destroying the transformers, or the mice in our home nuclear reactor.
#1.1 Bird Dog on 2010-08-12 08:30 (Reply)
The teaching company is great - but you can watch video of whole courses by some of the world's greatest teachers for free.

One of my favorites is MIT open courseware. Great physics lectures there.

Lots of others like it out there
#2 jg on 2010-08-12 08:36 (Reply)
A (slightly) older co-worker of mine and I have been joking about that "work till we die" idea.... mainly because neither one of us has saved to the 75%-90% spending level in retirement. And with the recent bloodbath in the markets, watching my investments tank, that thought grows each day. Pretty soon, all the good Wal-mart greeter jobs and McDonald's table wiper jobs will have been taken. Then what? What the Singapore government does? Have people out of the streets on the dole doing litter patrol and push broom street sweeping?
#3 JoeC on 2010-08-12 12:08 (Reply)
I have an IRA for retirement savings from my previous jobs through 1997, well diversified but majority in equities, haven't touched it except to rebalance on occasions. The balance today is less than it was at the end of 1997 and especially the bubble years of 1998 and 1999. So much for prudent investment to protect the value of your life savings.

My current 401k is not exactly performing well either, and some unexpected expenses mean I can't take advantage of the bonus contributions for people in their fifties. Company match has been dropped years ago, so we are all on our own.

I work with a fellow who is 79, but he works because he loves it, not because he has to. More people my age will work because we have to.
#4 Thad Ellis on 2010-08-12 16:04 (Reply)
Well, the Busybody Brigade has struck again. Our electric utility, Centerpoint, just arrived and forced us to accept the new Smartmeter electric meter that they are forcibly distributing. The device "monitors" your electric use, so that they can send you minatory notes with your electric billing, comparing your usage with that of your neighbors.and telling you what you should be using. Less, obviously.

My contention is that if they can "monitor" our electric usage, they can, and will, eventually ration it, if the Liberals have anything to say about it. Big Brother is not just a novel notion of George Orwell's. He has arrived, here and now.

Oh for the days when buying electricity was a simple transaction between the buyer and the seller. And holier-than-thou didn't enter into it.

Marianne
#5 Marianne Matthews on 2010-08-12 16:31 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.