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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Thursday, February 23. 2012Thursday morning linksCan humans learn to forget? Thornton: “Nature Fakery”:
The madness of increasing dividend taxes (econ for dummies) Affirmative-Action Case Will Affect Private Schools Christie: Buffett Should 'Write a Check and Shut Up' Why They Seem to Rise Together: Federal Aid and College Tuition:
Schools are greedy Europe Is Now China's Sweatshop Brown Surges in Massachusetts How Come No One Wants to Help Gaza? The Arabs dislike and distrust the Palis How the Rockefeller Fund Killed Keystone The Myth of Runaway Health Spending - The growth rate of national health expenditures has been declining for a decade, driven by better medical care and consumer choice. Tar and Feathers for Ray Mabus The Cuba Embargo: A Foreign Policy Success Story Israel: Judges headed by outgoing Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch rule that law exempting ultra-Orthodox men from army service is unconstitutional Daniel Pearl’s death, 10 years later: An interview with his father Judea Pearl Of all the good reasons to evict Barack Obama from the presidency in November, the most fundamental is that he is spending our country into financial ruin. Sorry #Occupy Commies… Income Inequality Is Actually Plummeting in US "The left says we need to “pay our fair share” and we respond indignantly that “we already are! It’s you that aren’t!” The truth of our reply aside, our ability to get people to agree with us is not helped with this tactic. For one thing, we are accepting a premise from the outset: taxes are about “fairness.”" Comments
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re How is it that these environmental “crises” and their multi-trillion-dollar solutions gain so much political traction?
From Belmont Club. Newt understands it. "The former speaker of the house argued before an audience that the real problem in Washington was the dismaying tendency to make policy on the basis of fantasy. First you lied, then the lie became official, and finally the lie was funded by billions as if it were the truth." Of all the good reasons to evict your senators and congresspersons from the office in November, the most fundamental is that they are spending our country into financial ruin.
When I lived abroad I was often explaining to people who didn't understand "well why doesn't the US president just...." that we are not a parliamentary system where the PM sets the agenda and can whip the legislators into line to do whatever he wishes. The president cannot increase the budget or spend without the complicity and assent of congress. Yes, the initial budget plan is supposed to from the executive. Yes, the President does use the bully-pulpit of his office to sometimes take leadership in proposing and shepherding (through convincing and coercing) legislation. But the responsibility for this cannot be removed from the congress that goes along. I suspect the only way to help "the Palestinians" is to shoot all Hamas, Fatah, and Pali Authority members.
And those "environmental catastrophes in the making" are jumped upon as ways to gain power and money. Opportunities not to be wasted. Bird Dog: Thornton: “Nature Fakery”
While there is some truth in that people do "conjure from old myths and imaginative projections of human ideals onto an inhuman natural world", but it is also true the air and water pollution were out of hand in the West until people organized to enact controls, pollution is currently out of hand in China and many other developing nations, that anthropogenic climate change is a very real possibility, and that human civilizations have faced ecological catastrophes, even in ancient times. John Hinderaker: Mountains Of Debt: This {graph} shows the federal debt per household from 2000 through 2022; the numbers are actual to the present and thereafter represent the projections in Obama’s FY 2013 budget.
The problem with most such hyperventilations, is that it doesn't provide any reasonable idea of how to change the situation. Most people want to continue Medicare and Social Security, and people have to have medical care whether funded by the government or not. Most people like low taxes. John Hinderaker: Of all the good reasons to evict Barack Obama from the presidency in November, the most fundamental is that he is spending our country into financial ruin. Laying these problems on Obama doesn't seem appropriate, as the financial meltdown and the long term problem of entitlements are not due to any actions by Obama. It seems more a problem with the American people wanting benefits, but not wanting to pay for them. Re: Nature Fakery
First come the true believers. In the case of "Nature Fakery" these are people who have rejected religion but are apocalyptoid. Since doom cannot come via religion they use Nature in the place of religion. Next come the charlatans who know they can make money by stirring up the apocalyptiods. The Cuba Embargo: A Foreign Policy Success Story
The article makes two good points about the embargo policy, past and present. 1) The Soviet Union's subsidies to Castro, which were a result of the US trade embargo, accounted to the equivalent of ten Marshall Plans, by at least one estimate. [I'm sure the precise amount can be argued.] In the long run, that drain on the Soviet Union's resources helped topple it. 2) Since 2001, Cuba has traded with the US, and in most years the US has been among Cuba's biggest five trading partners. As this trade is for cash dollars, the US isn't getting stiffed by Cuba- in contrast to many other countries that have traded with Cuba. I remember reading in the papers and seeing on TV when Castro was having his revolution against the Batista regime. If I remember correctly, we (as in the U.S.) supported it, if indirectly, with arms and materiel (which is why Castro's and Guevara's uniforms looked like U.S. Army fatigues -- they were).
And I remember when "it was realized" that Castro was a commie (it had been an item of discussion with arguments both ways and was questioned for quite a while). OH NOES!!! And I get quite a kick out of reading different stories about the U.S. embargo. Mostly boil down to there are two reasons folks want it lifted: 1) It only punishes the poor people of Cuba, exacerbates their poverty, and makes them suffer so much more. (In the socialist commie rat-fink paradise.) And the other one is 2) "it really has no effect since the rest of the world trades with Cuba, so we're just being old crabby-pants." "Thanks to the college-for-everyone mania" I was in an upscale department store to buy a shirt when I over heard two store clerks arguing which of them had the best college degree. I wonder if many people don't go to college just to enhance their opinion of themselves.
I wonder if many people don't go to college just to enhance their opinion of themselves.
That is one reason why many apply to elite colleges: to be considered one of the elite. But like they say, many are called but few are chosen. At least those store clerks are working, not financially dependent on their parents or the state. It is a comedown to work as a store clerk when one has a college degree. Not all have the strength to do it. "Too beneath me.." It takes a while for some to realize that when it comes to self-respect, an employed ditch digger has it over an unemployed Ph.D. While hiking down along the border the other morning, I saw a Muslim extremist fall into the Rio Grande River . He was struggling to stay afloat because of all the guns and bombs he was carrying.
Along with him was a Mexican dope smuggler who was also struggling to stay afloat because of the large backpack of drugs that was strapped to his back. If they didn't get help, they'd surely drown. Being a responsible citizen and abiding by the law to help those in distress, I informed the local Sheriff's Office as well as the Federal Homeland Security. By noon, both had long since drowned. Neither the county nor the feds had responded in time to save them. That's when i started thinking i had wasted them two stamps. |
Tracked: Feb 23, 07:15