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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, June 30. 2005Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Bread Jimmy Buffett bemoaned the fact that he missed his true calling as a pirate by 200 years, but he apparently never thought to check out Somalia, where honest-to-goodness pirates recently hijacked a UN-chartered freighter bearing food aid for tsunami victims. Now, one could more easily sympathize with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, who are known for plundering gold-laden Spanish galleons, but the theft by Somalis of food destined for their starving compatriots somehow strikes one as less daring and romantic. Do we now need to bring in food shipments to these people under full military guard to prevent criminals from stealing the whole lot of them? I seem to remember us trying something like that back in 1993 but somehow I don't think it ended up very well.
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13:13
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Could not be much better, with low inflation too, and about the best employment rates in modern history. Is anyone complaining? Hmmm, the angry-type Dems are strangely silent on jobs and the economy. Plus we have a little housing correction, which is good for young buyers. The incomes of married blacks equal those of married whites - and that is a big deal. We have come through a stock market blow up, and 9-11, stronger than ever, and subject to the ugly envy of the world for our freedom, our faith, our confidence, our prosperity and work-ethic, and for the opportunities we offer everyone. We have so much work that we're being unwillingly invaded on all sides by people seeking opportunity. Growth rates on Ex-Donk. Oh, I guess if someone is determined to bitch about something, you can bitch about gas prices, but in 5 years these will look cheap: the Chinese gave up their bikes, and took up oil-based capitalism. I am waiting for the NYT headline: "Things Are Good in the USA." Dem approval polls looking worse Duh. Wonder why? Thanks, Michelle. In UPI. It's a tough time to be a leftist Dem - they keep pushing on everything they can think up, but no door ever opens; there is never any traction - except in the NYT. The few "centrist" Dems - not many left around - are doing fine. Good times in the USA - except for the moonbat Supreme Court.
Posted by The News Junkie
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12:11
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Why Kyoto is a Scam It's about $, and about simulated virtue. Samuelson Take Back the Memorial Consider signing the petition, if you haven't yet. The 17th Amendment A savvy reader is all over the role of the 17th Amendment (Click here: The Constitution of the United States of America - popular election of Senators) in undermining Federalism, with references here:Click here: Federalism & Seventeenth Amendment. Repeal it! and here: Click here: NeoPolitique -- Far-Reaching and Forgotten: The 17th Amendment. It's a heck of a good point but I think that battle has been lost. How could you run a campaign to take the vote away from people and return it to the morons in state legislatures? A Namby-Pamby Nation Michelle has a pretty good rant on the subject, at Town Hall. More on Kelo In American Thinker: The Pandora’s box opened up by such a position should be obvious. I ask you, what legal business doesn’t create jobs and revenue? That’s what businesses do. Therefore, under this reasoning it follows that any commercial development proposal under the sun could serve as an eminent domain-enabled pretext to seize your property. Hey, even a hotdog stand produces more jobs and tax revenue than your home does. This fact was not lost on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. In what strikes me as a rare moment of lucidity, she wrote in her dissent, “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property . . . nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.” I do concur. Moreover, what seems to have escaped everyone’s notice is that the leftist judges have broadened the definition of “public use” to a point where they’ve rendered the term meaningless. After all, if a “public use” can in reality be any use deemed beneficial to society by the powers that be, then the term has lost its raison d’etre. Read the whole thing - link above. Can you believe Delay said this? re the House voting to raise their salaries - try this one on your boss today: "It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."
Posted by The News Junkie
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05:08
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Wednesday, June 29. 2005Souter's Farm, and Kelo, etc. Those New Hampshire folk don't take it lying down. Live Free or Die. The law suit to build a hotel at David Souter's home, from Ex-Donk. And Scrapple-Dude: "In a pair of rulings on the constitutionality of the 10 Commandments on government property, the Supreme Court today said the commandments may be displayed on public land if that property has been seized from private owners for 'public purposes' under eminent domain. The 5-4 decision comes on the heels of last week's court declaration that so-called "private" property is actually government land temporarily under private management until its eventual seizure." Who Wrote that Lame Speech? That speech was pure high-school, as was the delivery. Fire the writer right now. Bush did himself little good, but no harm. He should have called Bird Dog. Re the flaws, Auster agrees.
Posted by The News Junkie
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05:07
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Tuesday, June 28. 2005Combat Diary Michael Yon, on patrol in Iraq, with photos. Wish I could be there with him. The Unraveling of the EU Blair wants to roll back EU regulations, but can he? In the (Uk's) Gun Culture
Posted by The News Junkie
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14:12
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It's True about Mosquitoes Some people repel them, and some attract them. Hmmm. Interview with Ed Klein by
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05:04
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Monday, June 27. 2005
For what it's worth, the Discovery Channel's online poll of "Great Americans" puts Reagan as #1. What a wise people we are. Is this a real guy, or what?
Posted by The News Junkie
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15:17
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The LA Times vs. Reality From Immigration Blog, signs at LA Immigration protest: printed: "Fight the Right! Fight Capitalism!" (apparently from the "Party for Socialism and Liberation") alongside an ANSWER LA sign Who would have thought Bush would be on their side? Read entire here. Euro Leftists Funding Al Quaida Who is surprised? In Vodakpundit Voice of a Suicide Bomber It seems to be mostly about God. In Time. A Few More Views on Kelo Samizdata: But perhaps this is for the best as there is no long any doubt that things are badly broken Scott at Powerline: The founders observed that tyrannical rule and material scarcity had by and large been the fate of man through the ages. They saw the confiscation of property by government in the name of the sovereign power of the state as an old and sorry story. Through the protection of property rights they aimed to forge a new order of the ages. It lies to us to regain their understanding and act on it. Captain's Quarters has a review of jurists on the potential for abuse on the Court, including Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 1930: “As the decisions now stand, I see hardly any limit but the sky to the invalidating of those rights if they happen to strike a majority of this Court as for any reason undesirable.”
Posted by The News Junkie
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05:29
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Wednesday, June 22. 2005The War is Over And it has been for some time. The press won't admit it, though. Random suicide-bombers do not make a war, unless you are a complete 'fraidy-cat. American Enterprise makes the point. Arnold's Gamble, Arnold's Guts and what he can do for the CA Repubs: Walker in Intell. Cons. Krauthammer on the Supremes "With Thomas's originalism at one end of the spectrum and Scalia's originalism tempered by precedent -- rolling originalism, as it were -- in the middle, there is a third notion, championed most explicitly by Justice Stephen Breyer, that the Constitution is a living document and that the role of the court is to interpret and reinterpret it continually in the light of new ideas and new norms. This is what our debate about judges should be about." PRECISELY! Read entire in WaPo Tim Graham not happy with PBS in NRO Online Mugabe: Vegetable Gardens damage environment What will it take to get rid of this guy? The AAUP Defends Terrorist Faculty "Cheer Up, Conservatives" Micklethwaite and Woolridge in Opinion Journal: The biggest advantage of all for conservatives is that they have a lock on the American dream. America is famously an idea more than a geographical expression, and that idea seems to be the province of the right. A recent Pew Research Center Survey, "Beyond Red Versus Blue," shows that the Republicans are more optimistic, convinced that the future will be better than the past and that they can determine their own futures. Democrats, on the other hand, have a European belief that "fate," or, in modern parlance, social circumstances, determines people's lot in life. (And judging by some recent series in newspapers on the subject, the party appears to have staunch allies in American newsrooms at least.) If the American dream means anything, it means finding a plot of land where you can shape your destiny and raise your children. Those pragmatic dreamers look ever more Republican. Mr. Bush walloped Mr. Kerry among people who were married with children. He also carried 25 of the top 26 cities in terms of white fertility. Mr. Kerry carried the bottom 16. San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism, has the lowest proportion of people under 18 in the country (14.5%).
Posted by The News Junkie
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06:00
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Tuesday, June 21. 2005The Iran "Vote" The Hijacking of the Memorial Buzzmachine has more, including a link to an online petition and a report on yesterday's protest. This issue needs to be of concern to the entire nation, not just to those in the NY Metropolitan area, who lost so many friends, neighbors, and relatives. We will continue to post this story weekly. Don't let the termites hijack the 9-11 Memorial. This issue deserves a major stink. With a comment from Vodkapundit. Here is a list of sites dedicated to the 9/11 memorial. Personal stories and photographs that are worth revisiting especially in light of the continuing discourse on the topic. Click here: Paxety Pages The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity Thanks, JS. Here. Aid to Africa Preble in Reason: In recent decades, of each dollar given to Africa in aid, 80 cents were stolen by corrupt leaders and transferred back into Western bank accounts. In total, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo estimated, "corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion from their people in the [four] decades since independence." All that is left when these regimes eventually collapse is a massive public debt. Click here: Reason: Trade, Not Aid: Farm protectionism threatens farms in Africa, wallets in America, and lives everywhere Glacial Meltdown Is this why Hannibal's elephants survived? Click here: The Coming and Going of Glaciers: A New Alpine Melt Theory - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News The Politician Stole My Penis African politics.
Posted by The News Junkie
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05:21
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Monday, June 20. 2005Jew-Baiting Leftists Is the Left anti-semitic? Well, they do not wish to appear so. Anklebiter. also in American Thinker. Ataraxy A good explication of the oft-misunderstood Epicurus, who was no epicurian, in NRO Our Rights in Time of War Shape of Days adds some good perspective to the subject. Wow Paul Johnson gets it re Euristan, with a punch: There is another still more fundamental factor in the EU malaise. Europe has turned its back not only on the U.S. and the future of capitalism, but also on its own historic past. Europe was essentially a creation of the marriage between Greco-Roman culture and Christianity. Brussels has, in effect, repudiated both. There was no mention of Europe's Christian origins in the ill-fated Constitution, and Europe's Strasbourg Parliament has insisted that a practicing Catholic cannot hold office as the EU Justice Commissioner. Read entire piece about the failures and arrogance of Europe on Opinion Journal here. The EU Vote The problem was that the voters "got too much info" - MartiniPundit Sri Lanka taxing aid vehicles Truly disgusting, mercenary, and deeply wrong. Makes you want to say "the heck with 'em." Gay and Right. I (Heart) Gitmo Isn't capitalism something? The Band T Shirts Proudly display your excellent taste in music. From Riverdance to modern dance In CSM - Cool. What is your emotional age? Blogthings. Don't lie! Lying is a far worse thing than being immature, and self-deception is maybe the worst form of it. "Nuke the Jews" Rafsanjani: It doesn't bother the BBC? Maureen: Too much pressure No Maureen to kick around any more? Is she really leaving the Times? To start a blog, maybe? Anklebiter.
Posted by The News Junkie
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05:13
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Saturday, June 18. 2005The Hawk The deluxe super-duper ultra-stupendous and also real good Iowahawk is back. We hope all is well with him. Now back to the garden. Friday, June 17. 2005Turban Durbin, more From the Dartmouth guys at Powerline: "We give Durbin failing grades in attention, conduct, intelligence, knowledge, candor, logic, manners, loyalty and decency." So many blogs, so little time: three excellent blogs we have recently found: Atlantic Blog, by an American economist in Ireland And a site for the legal implications of blogging: Welfare State Demographics It's not a crisis yet in the US, but in Euroland it is. Ponzi schemes can only work if you have growing, working populations. If anyone but a government pulled this crap, they would be in jail. A piece in The Economist goes through the details of the population declines in Western countries, and the consquences. "Turban" Durbin and Treason Excerpted from Scrapple-Man, but... "The unspeakable cruelties that Sen. Durbin decried on the Senate floor must stop before his own detention on treason charges," said Mr. Rumsfeld. "After all, Dick Durbin is an American citizen, not an ordinary enemy combatant bent on destroying this nation and increasing the danger to our troops by inflaming the passions of the Muslim world." Termite Non-Profits: The International Committee of the Red Cross I have been assigned the cheerful task of following up on anti-American or America-undermining non-profits. The ACLU and Amnesty International are no-brainers - they have been dramatically outed recently. The ICRC has no direct relationship with the American Red Cross, but is 35% supported by US tax money. I cannot copy excerpts from the Senate Republican Policy Committee report, but you can read the whole report here: Why am I paying for this?
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