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.

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Tuesday, August 2. 2011

Tuesday morning links

Podhoretz: It's the day the emperor officially has no clothes


Conservatives still outnumber liberals by nearly 2-1:



Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.



The Debt-Ceiling Debate is Dead! Long Live the Debt! Or, Will ObamaCare Cover What Krugman's Smoking?


Figures. Obama to Celebrate Birthday With Millionaires, Billionaires and Corporate Jet Owners


Why Libertarians Aren’t just Republicans Who Smoke Pot


Why do Democrats want high taxation as their brand?


Walmart Just Gets Greener Every Day


First casualty of global warming


Totalitarian Tea Party:



“Incidentally, nice bit of Orwellian doublethink to call the grass-roots, libertarian-oriented Tea Party ‘Totalitarian.’ This has to be the first ‘Totalitarian’ movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants…will leave you the hell alone.”



PJ Advice columnist Belladonna Rogers on surviving the era of the condescending president.


Trailer below h/t Theo:





Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:01 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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In re: Althouse's column, this is what I wrote yesterday,

"Why are people so keen to see gov't revenues increase? Why don't they want to see gov't scaled back? That's what the liberals of the '60s wanted. So why do our current "liberals" want to find ways that gov't can grow?

Tell you what, if you want to give your money to gov't, feel free to do so. But why must you take mine? "

Why are high taxes the brand of the left?
#1 DrTorch on 2011-08-02 08:19 (Reply)
"First casualty of global warming"

I loved the part about the sled dogs. Those poor things! Rather than having to haul 600 lbs of sled through a raging blizzard, they'll actually have to romp around the back yard chasing butterflies and squirrels! O, the inhumananimality of it all!

Personally, as I was reading down the list, my thought was "sanity" was the first casualty of AGW, then I noticed a couple of commenters using "truth", so pretty much the same thing. I do, however, agree with the commenter who won the prize by noting the real first casualty of global warming:

The Woolly Mammoth.
#2 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-08-02 09:00 (Reply)
I don't believe that conservatives outnumber liberals 2 to 1. I think some people who call themselves conservative either don't know what it means or want to skew the poll or something! By that count, the conservatives would win every primary an cream the liberal by at least five to ten points and obviously, that doesn't happen
#3 mudbug on 2011-08-02 09:01 (Reply)
mudbug,

In other words, Conservatives are too stupid to understand what 'self-identify' means... but Libs are real smart, and know what 'self-identify' means?

The fact is that MOST Americans want smaller, less intrusive and less expensive government. Conservatives are generally honest; Liberals are generally not; they have no problem with legalized theft.

Libs have learned to self-servingly game the system. The result is a giant government kleptocracy, in which appointed theftocrats have inserted themselves in between the large majority of taxpayers and the majority of tax suckers – and they take their cut both ways. The result is stagflation.
#3.1 Smokey (Link) on 2011-08-02 13:27 (Reply)
Hi Smokey,

I never hinted that conservatives are stupid, but you seem to agree that the left is skewing the results: "Conservatives are generally honest; Liberals are generally not..."
This might contribute to the results; if the liberal (I actually prefer "leftist" since I favor the original definition of liberal) lied and said he was a conservative. Or the lefty is the stupid one and didn't know he was a lefty - I actually find this more believable.

I'm with you. I want less obtrusive govt., etc., but if two thirds of the people wanted that, don't you think we'd have it? Or do you believe the system is rigged (now I do believe that there is a lot more chicanery on the left that could skew results, but I don't think it is enough to make up the difference between 2 - 1 and roughly 50 - 50).
#3.1.1 mudbug on 2011-08-02 14:01 (Reply)
Interesting quote by Harry Reid about previous debt ceiling votes:
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m kinda embarrassed I did. It was a political maneuver by we Democrats. The Republicans were in power – there were more of them,” Reid said. “The president voted when he was in the Senate the same way. I heard him apologize for it."

From RealClearPolitics.com
#4 mudbug on 2011-08-02 09:30 (Reply)
Link is messed up. "Redtails" video leads... here!?
#5 Chilibuck on 2011-08-02 09:37 (Reply)
Just watched the Red Tails video. Cool flying sequences. A movie about WWII and black soldiers has to be about black soldiers, alas, because that's how they were seen in the 1940s. But it also looked like the "black soldiers" part was going to be in perspective: the movie looks like it's about courage and skill.
#6 Geoff Brown on 2011-08-02 10:35 (Reply)
I cringed at the racial aspect of the movie (same with another movie I saw about the - the Tuskegee Airmen - on TV). There is just way too much name-calling and finger pointing about race now a days. However, it was a central part of the story and cannot be left out. It was a very ugly part of those times.
#6.1 mudbug on 2011-08-02 11:08 (Reply)
There's a Red Tail organization that's rebuilding a P-51C. I thought that was a good cause and sent money. Then I got appeals from NAACP and SPLC.
#7 Sam L. on 2011-08-02 10:51 (Reply)
Oh G*d, that movie looks awful, and the dialog is worse. And B-17's? Where are the B-24's?
#8 chuck on 2011-08-02 11:36 (Reply)
the dialog is lame, cartoonish. I agree.
#8.1 Bird Dog on 2011-08-02 13:36 (Reply)
THE BEST ARTICLE ON GETTING BIN LADEN


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle#ixzz1TsgAPjE8
#9 Mal on 2011-08-02 11:56 (Reply)
i like John Podhoretz---always have---and until now have never listened to a word from Ron Paul, but on the debt ceiling law JP is wrong and RP is one of the very few who is making any sense.

Trimming a few percent of "spending" on paper from imaginary projected hypothetical extrapolated proposed future bloated federal budgets is not "cutting" anything. It does nothing to lower the nation's debt. As Paul has said, if the Republicans had merely demanded an agreement that fixed government spending at its current level (never mind going back to the lower spending levels of just a few short 2-3 years ago), the country according to CBO scoring would be "saving" far more money than will be accomplished by this legislative monstrosity that is John Boehner's Baby. Not that any money would actually be saved if spending were fixed at today's level instead of being truly reduced, mind you, but rather that's the way the strange government math the wizards in the CBO use to evaluate budget bills against sliding baselines works. Zero-based budgeting? Congress has never heard of it!

So far today, the early decline in the stock market has shown what investors think of the agreement. By October, when the credit rating of the US is lowered a notch, will the Republicans still be proud of their handiwork? Obama must be getting a tingle up his leg this morning, knowing his re-election campaign has won its first major victory. Meanwhile, the Republicans are still too dazed to realize they have been snookered yet again by the Democrats. Can these people really be that dumb?
#10 Agent Cooper on 2011-08-02 14:34 (Reply)
Chuck, the B-24's just cost too much CGI time (snark, snark), and the 17 just has the glamor. Even Jimmy Stewart couldn't give the 24 glamor. (Gable flew in a B-17 with the 351st BG--I have a documentary, in color, of it; saw it on History Channel, found it on a set of 6 DVDs on the Air War.)
#11 Sam L. on 2011-08-02 14:44 (Reply)
I'm a history buff and an aviation buff and I love those planes, the Lib and the Fort. I'd like a Peacemaker for my family plane, myself, but they're hard to find these days.
If you have a chance to visit Tucson, get Pima Air Museum on your agenda. All three aircraft are there.
#11.1 Geoff Brown on 2011-08-02 16:42 (Reply)
The Collings Foundation came by near me with a B-17, a B-24, and a B-25. I got a ride on the 17, because my old missile wing was a B-17 wing previously. And, if you go to Tucson, go to the Titan Missile Museum 20 miles south to see the only Titan II missile complex around. With the missile in it.
#12 Sam L. on 2011-08-02 18:14 (Reply)
Good posting about Walmart, free markets are the best routes to conservation. A point to add is the effect on employment because Walmart gets beat up all the time about low wages. If the policy is to source local produce in order to reduce costs, then someone in the local produce department has to step up and be trained to buy the goods. Would that happen in a union shop?
#13 knocko on 2011-08-02 19:00 (Reply)
I can smell the political correctness from home:

Whites = bad guys. Blacks = good guys.

Count me out. I'll be living in the real world.

Hollywood sure hates us Americans.
#14 PacRim Jim (Link) on 2011-08-06 04:07 (Reply)

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