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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Tuesday, April 24. 2012Tuesday morning linksGerson: Charles Colson found freedom in prison Rick Moran: Who Cares About Race?
SCOTUS: Rent Control Is Forever A darn shame. Gummint programs, enacted to deal with a crisis, develop constituencies, expand, and become eternal - but strangle change. Punished for Not Being a Victim The Obama Administration's 15+ Scandalous "Achievements" "Abolish the Department of Homeland Security. If they’ve got time for this crap, we don’t have a terrorist problem anymore." Eat what we want you to eat: The Progressive impulse to totalitarianism You are not my Mommy, jerks Cameron Should Scrap His Tired Old Script Scott Walker to Newsmax: Obama's Machine Spending $60 Million to Defeat Me Mead: The Health Care Disaster and the Miseries of Blue U.S.-Based Mayo Clinic Offers Three Medical Insurance Programs for Canadian Patients Capretta: The President’s Incoherent Economic ‘Philosophy’:
Arab Spring 3.0 What’s more revolutionary in the Middle East: Facebook or porn? Obama on Education: Bully Pulpit at Its Best … and Not Much Else Why Do They Hate Us? The real war on women is in the Middle East. 'Osama bin Laden Made Me Famous' - Bernard Lewis Looks Back Will the GOP stop playing Charlie Brown to the media's Lucy?
That's a big deal. He's the guy who thought up the Gaia Hypothesis, or religion, or whatever. Humility can arrive at any age. Comments
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Arab Spring 3.0 - y'know, it would be a great propaganda war for all those sat-receivers in the ME to begin having pirate porn channels broadcasting and popping up.
Plus, with some embedded subliminal messaging added, it would be a pretty cost effective counter to I'm-a-dinner-jacket and the rest of the Zealots. Sad part is, there is no will for this in the Progressive West... Abolish the Department of Homeland Security
The DoHS does have Customs/Border Protection and Immigration/Customs Enforcement so their role in busting fake goods, etc., is valid - that's what these agencies are supposed to be doing. My objection to DoHS is that is isn't necessary. There is no real value in combining the seven agencies DoHS has now - in particular with respect to the USCG and Secret Service. The draft is stupid. I'm not so sure about that and I'll tell you why. A large part of the problem with both Iraq and Afghanistan is boots on the ground. Rotating citizen soldiers in and out of the war zone two, three and four times isn't a solution - it's a stop gap. You realistically can't rely on this approach to war forever - eventually the "professionals" will have had enough, morale drops, units become fragmented - it's going to happen. The problem is in how the draft is conducted. You should not be able to escape the draft by exemption or delay the draft for any reason. One of the problems with the Vietnam draft wasn't the draft itself - it was the methods by which one could delay being drafted that created the problems. Those who didn't have the means to delay being drafted were the ones who were drafted - meaning that the best and brightest weren't available because of deferments. The example of drug abuse in Vietnam isn't exactly accurate either. Yes, there was a problem - but the problem was also seen in other parts of the world such as Korea and Germany - places where we also had a military presence. It was the culture of the times - the drafted kids had already been exposed to the drug culture and just took the lifestyle with them into the service. It was the times combined with drafting the least able to defer service that caused the problem - not the draft itself. I'm convinced that a draft now would be very successful for two reasons - the first being that it would be a way for the un/under employed to get trained up and second, you have a cadre of committed and seasoned citizen soldiers to coach the new soldiers, airmen and sailors up. Which just happens to coincide with my idea of the draft and part-time soldiering. Our citizen soldiers have been very very successful in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Wouldn't it make sense to take the model and extend it across the military? Say you are drafted - your term is six years but instead of two years and four on the "inactive reserve", what if the draftee's spent the rest of their term in the "active" reserve? That would provide a rather huge pool of trained military personnel that could be called on quickly if needed. The idea would need to be fleshed out a little more, but that's the essential concept. I think it would work. And this is why the TSA should be disbanded immediately:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120418/OPINION03/204180345 Seriously - robbing old people is now a "security" protocol? If I were Obama, I would be severely concerned about having Bill Clinton helping me. Might take out Hillary!'s angst about the last nomination run on me. Might just do something to stab me in the back. If I were Willy The Slick, I know I'd think about that.
You want to know what the chief weapon in the War on Women is worldwide?
Abortion. Look at the numbers. In an undisturbed human population the imbalance in sex of live births is 105 males to 100 females. And, by the time they get to reproductive age, it's pretty much 100 to 100. Modern healthcare helps prevent the evening out, so there's still a few more boys than girls that get to the age where they can make more boys and girls in the U.S. and other Western countries. In China the ratio is male:female::120:100. In India it's a little less - 115:100 or 118:100 IIRC. Why? The combined availability of sonograms and abortion. People want sons for both cultural and practical reasons. They selectively abort daughters. Tens of millions of girls are killed in utero, several orders of magnitude more than would die of illegal abortions if abortion was not legal. I don't know what the numbers are in Saudi Arabia and other such countries. But I imagine it exists there as well, made worse by polygamy - for every man that has two wives there's going to be one that has none. You might also want to reflect on what young men will turn their hands to if they find themselves unable to find young women to have sex with, never mind to love and marry and have a family with. Crime, of course. And a totalitarian state like China can always find a use for an army. Just ask Japan or Taiwan. Or Tibet. I can't imagine it would make South Korea or Vietnam or the rest of SE Asia or even India happy, either. I believe that the Gaia as world concept was initiated in one of the Foundation books by Asimov. A female character in a science fiction book. A great book, however, with applications to our current situation of land barons, serfs and subsidized medieval wind and solar technologies in the American west.
"Why are barns painted red?"
Thank you for answering that lifelong question I had! The Stupid Party, the Republicans, do indeed have to learn not to play ball with the Lucy Democrats and their lapdogs in the media (woof, woof, dogs are the other red meat). They can't be trusted. They do not keep their promises. I predicted here long ago, for instance, that the Dems would renege on their promise to limit spending (in an election year no less!) to the totals both Congressional parties had agreed to in last year's budget reconciliation act. As sure as night follows day, that's what the Dems are now doing: they are threatening to throw out the agreed upon budget limits in order to buy the upcoming election. D'uh, Republicans, you can't do business with the Dems until you whip their behinds at the ballot box. Don't expect love or respect from the Dems. The keys are power and fear.
Fortunately it looks to me as if Team Romney may be getting the message. They may understand the political dynamics. The first step to dealing with the Dems' false narrative is to mock them at every turn. No respite. No quarter. Nothing will serve better as a campaign strategy than to deflate the golden aura with which the idolatrous Dems surround their Obama. Obama will say many ridiculous, mockable things during his campaign. He can't help himself. Republicans can take advantage of that. Ridicule is the strongest bunker-busting weapon in the Republican armory. I say, bombs away! "Rent control is forever" -- the NY city councilwoman is pleased with the result, which she thinks will ensure a supply of affordable housing. As if you could ever simultaneously assure an adequate supply and a low price. It's like talking to people who really believe the next perpetual motion machine will be the breakthrough.
Lovelock demonstrates the arrogance of the poor scientist.
Reminds me of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, more than an adherent to the scientific method. Saw your comment about the Kauai video over at Theo Spark's place yesterday, PacRim Jim. Come for the girls, stay for the awesome daily picture dumps! I wonder where their photos come from. The shots never credit the photographer. Some of them are so absolutely stunning I get jealous looking at them.
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Tracked: Apr 24, 07:24
Tracked: Apr 24, 09:39