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

Wednesday, August 18. 2021

Talibans just like to have fun

Taliban Terrorists Celebrate in Clown World


Are they "terrorists," or just Islamists? 


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 08:05 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Tuesday, August 17. 2021

Trump Sneaks Back On Twitter By Disguising Self As Taliban Spokesperson

At BB, of course


Related,  Twitter Offers Word Salad to Explain Why It Won’t Ban Taliban Spokesman


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 17:44 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Afternoon Links

Strong Demand for Gas Vehicles Drives Detroit Production Plans, Clouds Biden’s 2030 Goal for EVs


Call For ‘Decentering Whiteness,’ Blame White Children. “White children have been done a great disservice by sustaining white-centered schools in America over all these years."


 New Zealand to go into national lockdown over one COVID case


Media Literacy’s False Promise - Another social-justice-steeped pedagogy is gaining ground—and like the others, it won’t help students understand the world.


 AMERICA’S SUICIDE ATTEMPT—THE SEQUEL

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 15:50 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Must Watch

This Afghanistan vet just went nuclear on MSNBC, live, as they tried to defend Biden, and it’s a must-watch

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 11:58 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0)

CRT Jew-Israel Hatred

A New Israel-Hating Curriculum is Coming to California School Districts



Posted by Bruce Kesler at 10:58 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

The Invisible City Beneath Paris

Under the southern portion of the city exists its negative image: a network of more than two hundred miles of galleries, rooms, and chambers.


I feel no desire to see that.

Posted by Bird Dog at 10:52 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

Monday, August 16. 2021

"This is worse than Saigon"



America’s humiliation in Afghanistan confirms that the woke West is utterly incapable of standing up for itself.


Read it all. An excerpt:


The West’s post-9/11 bluster was continually undermined by the West’s broader descent into moral relativism. How can you assert the civilisational authority of Western values when your entire educational and university system is devoted to questioning and demeaning Western civilisation? You cannot partake in a clash of civilisations if you loathe your own civilisation.


Anyone who thinks the Taliban did not pick up on all of this, on the Potemkin nature not only of the Afghan government but also of Western civilisation itself, is kidding themselves.

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 19:06 | Comments (28) | Trackbacks (0)

Worth reading

Why We Failed: The American Exit From Afghanistan


H.R. McMaster, Nikki Haley, Justin Amash, Elliot Ackerman, Thomas Joscelyn, Eli Lake and Jacob Siegel weigh in.


Avoids the excuses spins by Biden and minions, or of defenders of earlier presidents. For me, who proudly served in USMC in Vietnam, the incompetence and timidity of our supposed leaders is despicable.

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 14:37 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Monday afternoon link dump

For the Love of Music - Conductor and violinist John McLaughlin Williams’s work constitutes a profound rebuttal to the constricting vision of today’s race arbiters.


Scottish Schools Will Allow Kids as Young as Four to Change Gender Without Asking Parents


 ‘Pregnant People’ and the Erasure of Motherhood


Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine suggests ‘chestfeeding,’ ‘father’s milk’ in new guidelines


 THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO IS “JOIN[ING] THE NATIONWIDE EFFORT TO DECONSTRUCT ANTI-BLACKNESS [AND] DISMANTLE WHITE SUPREMACY”


 Teachers Union Sues Mom for Demanding to See Her Child’s Curriculum


The Fears of the Elite - We aren’t a normal society, and the timid reticence of the elite whenever a charge of political incorrectness is launched is one of the sure signs of abnormality. 


 DHS List of Terror 'Threats' Should Raise All Kinds of Eyebrows


Cori Bush Wants to Defund the Police. My Neighbors (in Oakland) Have Other Ideas.. The congresswoman can afford private security. Those who live in Oakland, California, don't have that luxury.


 The Afghan military was built over 20 years. How did it collapse so quickly?


LGBT Pride in Afghanistan 


 Hemingway: Afghanistan Disaster Is The Result Of 20 Years Of Failed Interventionist Strategy


We Once Waltzed in Kabul. The U.S. abandoned my friends. Now they are trapped in Afghanistan and hiding from the Taliban.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 12:26 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Sunday, August 15. 2021

DIY Links

We Once Waltzed in Kabul: The U.S. abandoned my friends. Now they are trapped in Afghanistan and hiding from the Taliban. 

Please Don’t Feed the Businesses: Ending crony capitalism requires understanding the difference between a pragmatic, pro-market dispensation and a dogmatically pro-business one. 


Sasse knocks 'Trump-Biden doctrine of weakness' as situation deteriorates in Afghanistan


'Easy money': How international scam artists pulled off an epic theft of Covid benefits: Russian mobsters, Chinese hackers and Nigerian scammers have used stolen identities to plunder tens of billions of dollars in pandemic aid, officials say. 






Posted by Bruce Kesler at 20:44 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0)

Nonsense by the NewsJunkie

It only needed several thousand air and logistic support personnel from the US and other countries for the Afghan army to keep the Taliban at bay. Without that, the US-NATO molded Afghan army, which relied on that, crumbled, its troops knowing they couldn't survive without it. Trump and Biden, despite military advice to the contrary, wanted to pander to politics of war-wearied voters by saying a complete withdrawal. The result is a sanctuary for terrorists, energized Al Quada and ISIS, encouraged Russia and China (look out Taiwan), Israel's strategic reliance on its alliance with the US undermined, and other countries reluctant to depend on the US. Not to mention the slaughter of allied or innocent Afghanis, subjugation and rape of Afghani women, and children raised to hate and fight the West. All that for the political pandering removal of several thousand US and NATO troops! 
Posted by Bruce Kesler at 20:41 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

Afghanistan

As I opined here many times over the years, Afghanistan is not a nation. It's a place on a map. It is run by warlords and poppy-growers. There has not been any central government with any power.


The Russians pulled out of there decades ago, rightly realizing it was hopeless to mold that place into any sort of modern nation with any outside allies or help.  


Guardian is right:



 Behind the scenes America’s senior leaders have known, almost from the beginning, that the war was unwinnable, that the Afghan government was fatally corrupt, and that the Afghan security forces would never be up to the task. Instead of acknowledging reality, instead of coming clean to the American people, they hid the truth or outright lied about it. The result?



America's (and NATO's) longest war accomplished exactly nothing. I'll give Trump and Biden credit for publicly recognizing the sad reality.


Taliban seize power amid chaos in Kabul. The U.S. Embassy was being evacuated as Afghanistan's president fled the country.


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 18:08 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

Classical Music’s Suicide Pact (Part 2)


Succumbing to specious charges of racism, America’s orchestras, opera companies, and conductors are abandoning the Western canon- Heather Mac Donald



Posted by The Barrister at 16:44 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Yes, Keith Jarrett is the musical genius of my generation


I did not know that he had a stroke, but I have been a fan for many years. Rick Beato gives you a taste of why.


Yes, he is/was a concert pianist, but for improv he is mind-boggling. For starters, try his Koln concert recording. You will not want to turn it off.



Posted by Bird Dog at 16:24 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Re-posted because good exercise stuff

9 essential exercises to include in any full body workout


For sturdiness and functionality, the basics for age 16-95. 

Posted by Bird Dog at 13:03 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Yes, that Emirates ad was mostly real

Is this woman really standing on top of Burj Khalifa?



Posted by The News Junkie at 10:42 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

From today's Lectionary

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

2:10 Then David slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David.

2:11 The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

2:12 So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.

3:3 Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David; only, he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places.

3:4 The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the principal high place; Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

3:5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I should give you."

3:6 And Solomon said, "You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today.

3:7 And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.

3:8 And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted.

3:9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?"

3:10 It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

3:11 God said to him, "Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right,

3:12 I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.

3:13 I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you.

3:14 If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.
Posted by Bird Dog at 07:00 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Saturday, August 14. 2021

A gift to our readers: Some of the best, from Bob's pre-covid tour

From 2019. On there they have Masterpiece and Gotta Serve Somebody



Posted by Bird Dog at 16:23 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Darn good-lookin' Down East lobster boat

Her hull and balance are basically Maine lobster boat/pilot boat, but re-made into a cruising trawler. At 36', she's not a toy boat and she doesn't seem to care what the seas are like.


Her range at "slow cruise" is 1000 miles on a tank of diesel. Sheesh. Not a speed boat, doesn't really go on plane much but if you were ambitious, with time on your hands, you could take her from Texas to Maine in a leisurely way with fun stops for looking around, food, and fuel. And pump-outs.


Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 12:45 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Illegal crossings


There were more illegal crossings at our southern border in the month of July than any month in 21 years.





Posted by The News Junkie at 10:32 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

That racist rock and other insanity

At ZH


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 10:02 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

DIY Links





Biden's hasty bugout echoes the US Congress' Democrats after Watergate knocked out Nixon ending US air and logistics support of the South Vietnamese
Posted by Bruce Kesler at 01:05 | Comments (14) | Trackbacks (3)

Friday, August 13. 2021

A few Friday links

 Gender Reassignment Surgery Is Child Abuse, Says Texas Commissioner


Illegals Are Coming to Do the Jobs Americans Don’t Want to Do--Which Are Most of Them


 The Silent Majority is Going to Get Loud


"Systemic Racism" vs. "Racial Inequities": Glenn Loury with John McWhorter


Biden begs the Taliban as terrorists move toward Kabul

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 11:50 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (3)

France: The incestuous sins of the soixante-huitards

The secrets and lies of the Castro-loving 1960s revolutionaries who became part of the French establishment


Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 09:44 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday, August 12. 2021

She is a good sport


Losing a rudder in mid-ocean. Nice boat. I have a friend who hit a whale en route from New York to Ireland, which destroyed their rudder. They remain grateful to the Canadian Coast Guard.


As they say with boats, things always go wrong, and usually at night. What a good couple they are.


Seems as if English is the new langua franca. 





Posted by The News Junkie in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 18:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
« previous page   (Page 3 of 5, totaling 124 entries) » next page
A Chris Southern Consulting website.