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

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Monday, July 9. 2012

Monday morning links

How The Average American Has Changed Since The 1960s


From the IEEE: A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy


Pinching, purification and finding The Bridge to Total Freedom: Inside a very sinister induction at the Scientology HQ

Solitary Confinement


Physical punishment would be preferable


The Dream of Command Economics


Her Fiancé, Garry Brown Sr., the Man Who Fathered 10 of Her 15 Children …’


LIBOR-Gate Will Take Down Many More Bankers, And The Claims Will Spiral Into The Trillions

A small percentage of challenging cases, often at the end of life, make up the great bulk of Medicare spending on hospital care.


People vote for Democrats because they believe that Democrats will give them access to other people’s money.


When Carolyn Coulson was deciding how to vote in 2008, she found Barack Obama’s rhetoric “exciting,” especially when he talked about a “different kind of politics.”


Hill Poll: Majority feel Obama has changed country for worse


From Hope and Change to Cut and Paste


Air Force Considers Segregated Training After Sex Scandal

All aboard for Bakersfield! California pours $7.9 billion into bullet train bottomless pit


Rep. Thaddeus McCotter Resigns From Congress


I like the guy. Is he Bipolar or something?


Obama as Venture Capitalist


Under Obama, Disability Claims Have Outpaced New Jobs


Bizarre claim: “I was outspent in 2008″ — he outspent McCain over 2 to 1


He lies, often

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:00 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Thaddeus McCotter

Mid-life crisis. I think the signature fiasco did him in and he just snapped - wants to walk it back to a more stable situation where he can regain his balance. I say this only because I went through this once and it appears to be very similar in terms of his behavior.

$7.9 billion into bullet train

One of my long time good friends lives in the San Diego area, works for Boeing (has for over 30 years) and has had enough - he's moving to South Carolina to become a Chief Engineer at the Boeing plant down near Charleston. He loves California, loves living in San Diego, but he can't afford to live there - and he makes a VERY good salary and is a big shot in the engineering division of Boeing. Tells you something doesn't it?

Scientology Scifi fan mythology has it that L. Ron Hubbard made a bar bet with Robert Heinlein that he could start a religion and make a lot of money. This was shortly after the publication of Heinlein's "Stranger in A Strange Land" which, as fate would have it, involves the establishment of a religion based on Martian water rituals. In fact, Scientology follows some very similar policies and procedures and beliefs which are clearly devised from the "SiASL" plot outline. Nobody knows if the bar bet every actually happened (although some of the Grand Masters of the genre claim to have been there when it happened), but it is well understood that Hubbard wanted to make money (as he was somewhat of a minor scifi author) and invented Dianetics - the rest is history.

What amazes me is that Scientology is still viable. Probably because of the major money contributors, all the Inner Circle of Enlightenment stuff and such, but I can't truly understand why these folks fall for this stuff.
#1 Tom Francis on 2012-07-09 08:54 (Reply)
Alternative energy is always an interesting concept to me. I spend a bit of time every year investigating solutions to see if they are cost effective, yet.

Last year when oil prices were rising, some alternatives were getting close. But now they aren't anymore.

It's amazing to me that people still believe a full and complete elimination of fossil fuels is viable today. Even if there was a major alternative that could reduce our reliance, it's almost certain that fossil fuels would continue to play a role in any economic structure. As alternatives replace fossils, fossil prices would drop....and third world nations would begin to use them to ramp up their industrialization.

Meanwhile, they'd still play a role in an economy which was predominantly based on alternatives. It's just a question of what that role would be (a friend who is a geologist for Exxon once told me he considered fossil fuels a 'last mile' solution no matter what the future holds - they provide too much power at too low a cost to be abandoned completely).

I suppose if hydrogen could be made efficiently, and delivered in a stable and reliable fashion, then maybe the fossil fuel debate would end. But I imagine that technology is still pretty far off, too. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/hydrogen.shtml
#2 Bulldog on 2012-07-09 10:47 (Reply)
It's all about bang for the buck and fossil fuels provide the best bang for the buck. Nothing else delivers more energy per erg.

What these alternative energy folks don't understand is that energy density of fossil fuels cannot be duplicated unless you consider nuclear energy (fission or fusion). The technology just isn't there to provide the end result which is power. Technical development never comes from throwing money at something - it always comes from the engineer, technician or scientist noticing something interesting and wondering "huh - wonder why that happened?".
#2.1 Tom Francis on 2012-07-09 16:32 (Reply)
And then, there's the need for lubricants.
#3 Sam L. on 2012-07-09 14:32 (Reply)
This is really funny.

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/6/7/reading-comprehension-101.html
#4 feeblemind on 2012-07-09 15:04 (Reply)
I don't get this LIBOR scandal. Banks manipulating interest rates? Aren't banks supposed to change their interest rates to make or save money? How is this that big of a deal?
#5 molloaggie on 2012-07-09 15:31 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.