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.
We are seeing the greatest wave of economic transition since the mechanization of agriculture reduced the percentage of the labor force engaged in farming from more than half the American labor force in 1890 to less than two percent today.
I am sure that the energetic and ridiculously-productive (blog, books, newspaper opinion pieces - plus a day job teaching) Prof. Glenn Reynolds would enjoy having a law named after him.
A reader reminded us of Reynold's Law. Good comments there, too.
1. Dang compressor died in our icebox. Replacing it would be a few thousand $, half the cost of a new one. OK, get a new one. The KitchenAid lasted 20 years. Nice timing, it died 2 days before our Mother's Day party and cook-out. Ribeyes on the grill for 12. But why, I wonder, does the 55 year-old Frigidaire at the farm still work fine? The very pleasant, amusing, and smart refrigerator repairman (retired NYC cop on 75% salary) explained that it's because the old ones were low-tech. He said KitchenAids are the best, and Sub Zeros are just for show, not worth the $. He said modern refrigerators require surge protectors. Besides the cost, worst thing is that the failure defrosted my year's supply of frozen cranberries.
2. Gwynnie always tells me I need to get out more. Mrs. BD drags me out constantly for social events. Whenever I go, I meet charming ladies and guys who are far smarter and more accomplished than I am. That is life-enriching and humbling. At a cocktail party on Friday nite, besides touching base with old pals, I met a guy who builds nuke plants around the world and a physicist who loves modern dance and speaks intelligently about Thomas Nagel. He kept pressing me on whether I was a materialist (in the metaphysical sense), but his lovely wife said he had had too many gin and tonics. I kept saying "I don't know," which made him think I was smart.
3. Worked on the vegetable garden yesterday, with the lad. Deconstructing parts of it to make it smaller. It just got too big to keep up with. I realized that all I really care about growing are tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, and herbs. Everything else is just as good from the store, and no weeding required. In the afternoon, I split logs from a tree we took down in the winter. I ache all over. The good kind of ache. Some days I feel like I'd like to bring back slavery, but it just wouldn't be right in today's political environment. I don't mean black slavery - any color would be fine.
4. This morning, we had a Mother's Day wren in the bedroom. The house painter had not put the screens back on the windows. I figured it was a good luck thing of some sort. At least it wasn't a rabid bat. It was indeed a House Wren. Kind-of funny, because I saw this morning that a pair of Chickadees are nesting in one of my wren houses. We love to house the homeless here at Maggie's HQ. Still hoping that a pair of owls will use my Screech Owl house. I've heard them around a couple of times in the early morning, but I am not sure that they like my placement of the thing. My experience is that they seem to like their houses in full sun.
97:1 The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 97:2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 97:3 Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side. 97:4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 97:5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. 97:6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory. 97:7 All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him. 97:8 Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God. 97:9 For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 97:10 The LORD loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked. 97:11 Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. 97:12 Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!
On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement," the report says.
So, by implication those who still believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are if not enemies of the US, then certainly subject to far more scrutiny by the country's tax collectors?
Educating on the Constitution seems very dangerous. Subversive. The populace can not be trusted to read it because they won't understand that it doesn't mean what it says. Something like that.
The IRS never got to auditing Maggie's Farm's accounts as far as I know. Whew. Under the radar. We're just a bird-watching site, anyway. We hide our vast advertising income in the Caymans, like everybody else, and it is delivered to the contributors to Swiss accounts, in gold bullion carried on private sailboats to the port at Zurich and thence by courier to our private bank.
Posting for Maggie's is a good, tax-free gig if you don't mind spending the income overseas. But who would mind doing that, as long as it's done quietly at the craps tables in Monte Carlo?
Going after the Jews too? To get serious for a moment, political corruption of the IRS is about as bad as it gets in America. Criminal at the least. Not funny.Heads must roll for this. I will assume that smart lawyers are on top of this already because it is an outrageous abuse of power in a free country.
We see in higher education something like what we saw in housing. Government programs aimed at increasing college education and homeownership, particularly among minorities, turn out to hurt many of the intended beneficiaries.
The intentions of the people who created these programs were good. The results -- well, not so much.
In the US, before protection the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs were market-hunted year-round along with many other migratory shorebirds.
I suspect they tasted very good.
They are on their way north to raise their chicks in the tundra and boreal forests right now, and will begin to trickle back down in August on their way to the Southern US and South America.
Experts can tell a Greater from a Lesser by call or bill length, but I find it difficult unless they are in a mixed flock. Sometimes they are in flocks, sometimes solo.
Nice birds found in the nicest places: marsh edges, mud flats, water edges, etc.
Unlike Watergate, an unremarkable political dirty trick with a dumb and unnecessary White House cover-up (if a handful of people had been fired it would have been a big nothing), in this case American public servants died seemingly because of State Dept and possibly White House incompetence or indifference, and both may have been complicit in an attempted cover-up a few weeks before a national election. Possibly the CIA too. People have been intimidated about speaking out, but maybe no longer.
If this is the way it smells, this is a big problem for Washington. One more from Jim Hoft:
In a week in which the IRS finally admits that they were harassing Conservative organizations prior to the elections, the administration is looking terribly corrupt. Whatever happens, I think this Chicago administration has blown itself up and lost whatever credibility it ever had. Plus, with the low-life Putin making John Kerry wait three hours to meet with him, it's looking sort of pitiful too.
Buddy suggested that I add the tar and feathers image to this post. Seems right.Even though we disagree with the administration on most policies, we take no pleasure in seeing our USgovt in this position.An embarassment for all of us. Respect must be earned, and these people thought they could easily fool us low-information citizens.
Benghazi occurred seven weeks before election day. The administration's strategy was simple: Downplay the terror attack, change the narrative, and run out the clock. And that's what it did.
But now the dam has burst. Carney's "here at the White House" comment has essentially thrown Clinton under the bus. Republicans, who leaked the edited emails to Karl and Hayes, have succeeded on two fronts: They've got the administration on the defensive over Benghazi, and they've weakened the Democrat's most formidable 2016 candidate.
I think Peggy Noonan has it right: The Inconvenient Truth About Benghazi - Did the Obama administration's politically expedient story cost American lives?
I hate bubbles. I am 100% out of equities right now. My self-directed IRA. Market is just floating on hot air. Just my humble opinion, of course. Time will tell whether I was lucky or unlucky.
What a character he was. He embodied all contradictions and futilities and was possibly the best pub or dinner companion of all time. Boswell's stuff is great fun to read (Boswell was quite a character himself), but nobody has run out of things to write about Dr. Johnson.
On reading the article, one might be left with the impression that California higher ed is afflicted with a crisis-sized epidemic of destructive racism and sexism. I would doubt that. From what I have seen and read, the U of C is mainly afflicted with a crisis of poorly-educated and ignorant kids whose four years of Fun 'n Indoctrination is largely thanks to the abused California taxpayer.
What sorts of nervous nellys would worry about a little warmth anyway? Myself, I worry constantly about the coming Ice Age.Visions of an advancing glacier towering over ye olde cabin.It keeps me up at night.The science is definite on this.It's just a matter of time.
Should the youth "follow their passions" in career direction? And what if they have no career passion? And is "passion" necessarily a wise guide to major life decisions anyway? (It's definitely a good guide to hobbies and avocational pursuits, but not always a good guide to talent.)
Already signs of big changes are appearing. Overall college enrollments fell last fall for the first time in years. Even law schools are struggling for students -the ABA is openly discussing possibly going to two-year training. Bond rating agencies are showing growing concern about indebtedness of colleges, and student-loan default rates are very high. Big changes are coming to American higher education.
"I had been brought up to believe the Left stood for altruism rather than selfishness, community rather than individualism, self- discipline rather than the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest.
Instead, society was worshipping at the shrine of the self, and this was causing a rising tide of juvenile distress, crime, emotional disturbance, educational and relationship failure.
The fact that I continued to write along these lines regardless of all the abuse hurled to shut me up seemed to drive the Left nuts.
Yes, they espoused a doctrine of being tolerant and non-judgmental, but not when it came to me. I was branded a ‘moraliser’, which appeared to be a term of abuse.
Most of the time, those hurling insults provided no contrary evidence or even arguments, just blanket denials and gratuitous abuse..."
She imagined she was on the side of the angels until she began thinking for herself. It's a good story, along the lines of David Horowitz' excellent Radical Son and David Gelernter's Drawing Life.If a person's view of the world does not change between age 20 and age 50, they haven't been thinking or challenging their assumptions very much.
Most of us here have changed our views on things many times. It's called growth, accumulation of information, experience, and, one hopes, wisdom.
A superstorm from the sun: 
Readers know that my Mom died this winter, but we still have lots of Moms in the family.
In the US, before protection the 
It is, indeed, looking much worse than Watergate. 
The pleasures of Dr Johnson