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, February 29. 2012

Weds. morning links

"Holy crap: Asus demos smartphone that transforms into tablet, notebook"


What exactly is a leap year and why do we need them? Well, allow us to explain


Hard times for the National Education Association


Climate change may have caused Mayan civilization's collapse


Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl


Admission Standards and How to Lower Them Legally


Share of Government Aid in Personal Income Doubles


Via Robin Hanson on Charles Murray:



There’s a lot to like about day-to-day live in the advanced welfare states of western Europe. They are great places to visit. But the view of life that has taken root in those same countries is problematic. It seems to go something like this: The purpose of life is to while away the time between birth and death as pleasantly as possible, and the purpose of government is to make it as easy as possible to while away the time as pleasantly as possible – The Europe Syndrome.



Happy cattle, and happy and powerful overlords


Megan: Why I Still Think We Should Eliminate the Corporate Income Tax


Leftists Confused About Rights. Again.


75% Think The Rich Should Pay Lower Taxes


Most people aren't stupid. The less taxes the prosperous pay, the more money they have to buy our goods and services, and to invest in our businesses.


Insty: DIETS: The Importance of Portion Control. But is the solution really “changes in public policy?”


Insane.


Via The Unbearable Gleickness of Being: An Omnibus Climate Update, we have Volcanoes and earthquakes!


Good grief. These people are insane.


Georgetown Law Co-Ed Demands Everyone Else Pay for Her Untamed Sex Life


I am told the pill costs $9/month at WalMart


Knish: Uncivil Rights:



Rights do not come from the exercise of government power, but from the restraint of government power. Once an infrastructure is created to redistribute positive outcomes, the only true beneficiaries of that infrastructure will be the organizers and the administrators. Even that system will be built to fail because the administrations only fully benefit from the system when it does not work properly. To the extent that it works properly the administrations will always be on the lookout for more excuses to justify the expansion of their power. More groups to protect. More civil rights to safeguard. Until no one has any rights at all.



Duplicity and Diversity in Higher Education


BBC chief: mock Christians, not Muslims


Hamas and Fatah Want a New Intifada


A Model for Medicare Reform

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:12 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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@ BBC Chief mocking Christians? Sure, its safe - only things a Christian would do to you is either pray for you, mention you in the Prayer list, or Ex-Communication. Mocking Muslims can get you in a whole world of hurt.

Nothing like having a Fatwa put on you - I consider mine a badge of honor and revel in my 'infidel'-hood...
#1 Fred Zeppelin on 2012-02-29 07:52 (Reply)
I agree with Megan that the corporate income tax should be scrapped for some of the same reasons, but the biggest reason is that corporations do not pay that tax (or any tax, nor do they pay for pencils, salaries, rent, health care or anything else). People pay the tax - either customers or shareholders in the company, though I believe it is really the customers. Taxes are just a cost of doing business and in the end, all costs are rolled into the cost of the product or the company will go bankrupt.

As for hard times for the NEA - they won't be hard enough for me till it goes away for good.
#2 mudbug on 2012-02-29 09:16 (Reply)
re "Climate change may have caused Mayan civilization's collapse'

As expected, there is the obligatory nod to present day 'Global Warming"'

'The scientists noted that the droughts they saw during the demise of the ancient Mayan civilization were similar in severity to those projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the near future in the same region."
#3 feeblemind on 2012-02-29 09:29 (Reply)
re. Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl. For chrissake stop mucking around with mother nature already.
#4 BillH on 2012-02-29 09:55 (Reply)
Re: BBC doing Christians rather than Muslims. I got one, how about this: does anyone here remember the photos of Christ bathed in urine --submersed in a toilet bowl? Well how about we have some African/American female, lesbian artist (?) do the same thing to a picture of the Imman of Iran? Or maybe a representation of Mohammed? mmmm boy, that would be a fun show to watch !
#5 apple pie on 2012-02-29 10:01 (Reply)
Re corporate income tax
I used to own a small business and all those business taxes were simply passed on to the consumer as higher prices. Business don't pay taxes, they simply collect the tax from the customer for the government.
#6 Ray on 2012-02-29 13:56 (Reply)
I mentioned the Sandra Fluke (Georgetown Co-Ed) to a female friend of mine and O BOY what a response!
She had several animated responses:
1. I'm a man and can't understand birth control, nor should I have a say over it (funny, after my second child I noticed that I went in for the Big V, not my wife).
2. Birth control is a "right" of all women.
3. $1,500 a year is not "alot of sex", it's the actual cost of birth control.
4. She has insurance, but this wasn't about her, only her "friend", so my comments were misguided.
5. Why can her insurance cover Viagra, but not Birth Control (seems odd to me - if they cover Viagra, I'm certain they cover Birth Control, but even if they don't, it's her problem to rectify by finding a new insurance company)
6. She wasn't asking for taxpayers to pay for her birth control, she was asking for better regulation of insurance companies to insure "fairness".

Well, I calmly replied, you are wrong. I have every right to say something about birth control if my tax money is going to pay for something.
Birth control is not a "right", it's a "want" that has been confused as a "need" and is now said to be a "right".
$1,500 is quite a bit of money for birth control - there are other methods which are cheaper (condoms, for example) even if they aren't safer. The cheapest, oh by the way, is the safest (contrary to her claim that the Pill is "safest") and it's called abstinence.
The insurance problem is her problem - not the government's or mine.
Regulation is the first step toward subsidy, so get off the high horse and learn to fix things on your own rather than asking politicians to fix everything.

I pointed out to her that she is an advocate for gay rights and one of her slogans is "government out of the bedroom". I replied that you can't have it both ways. Either the government is in or it's out. You want it out for gay rights, but in for birth control. You really need to make your mind up.
#7 Bulldog on 2012-02-29 17:11 (Reply)
Actually, you might be surprised at how many insurance plans do not cover birth control pills. The last negotiation my spouse was in (three years ago), they finally got coverage for birth control in their health insurance package. I understand that is not unusual - maybe not common, but not unusual.

However your other points are right on target. And it bothers me that now medical ethics "experts" are beginning to justify infanticide as morally justifiable. How soon will it be that this will also become a method of "reproductive rights"? Between that and gender selection abortions, it's all becoming a huge mess and I don't know the way out.

We're all going to hell in a hand basket.
#7.1 Tom Francis on 2012-02-29 18:52 (Reply)
Is there something distinctively different about women? Can they be bought?

This birth control business came up, and then I saw reports that the SCOAMF's approval among women went up 10 points.

Are womens' loyalty only to whoever brings them the Benjamins? And since they aren't getting married anymore, and since this has been a ManCession, it must be that they now consider Uncle Sugar to be their guy. They'll keep voting for him, as long as he keeps shelling out the bucks. And apparently, they don't seem to care that these dollars are coming by looting their rich neighbors, and ruinous borrowing from their children.
#8 John A. Fleming on 2012-02-29 20:18 (Reply)

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