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

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Sunday, May 26. 2013

Sunday links


Quick movie review: Watched Margin Call last night. A heck of a cast, and an authentic Wall Street ethos. Did not doze once.


How the Smartphone Killed the Three-Day Weekend


Kareem: 20 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 30


Reading Hayek in Beijing - A chronicler of Mao's depredations finds much to worry about in modern China.


Fired for word: 'Negro' in Spanish class


Even Politicians Tire of Failure-Prone, Freedom-Threatening DHS


Hate DHS? Hate the IRS? How about the idiocy of FEMA?  FEMA Plans Clear-Cutting 85,000 Berkeley and Oakland Trees


Then covering the canyon with Agent Orange or something. That will keep us safe.


WHEN DID WE VOTE TO BECOME MEXICO?


Enough With the Bipartisanship - Republicans plus Democrats doesn’t equal good policy.


Whose Administration Is It, Anyway?


The bureaucratic-administrative-regulatory State:  The rise of the fourth branch of government


Eleven people across UK arrested for making 'racist or anti-religious' comments on Facebook and Twitter about British soldier's
death 


Free speech is limited to Muslims, in the UK


By 22-Point Margin, Voters Favor Obamacare’s Repeal


Obama Says Don't Fear Gov't; Tell That To Fox News


McKinsey report: 12 disruptive technologies that will transform life, business, and the global economy


If a gay dude tries to hit on me in college, can he be thrown out?


‘Allahu Akbar. We Take the Money’


Does welfare cause terrorism, Part XVIII …

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 12:23 | Comments (14) | Trackbacks (0)

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This is kind of cool. Newsreel footage reporting the end of the 'El' in NYC, 1955. You can see some vintage NYC here as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4-3SpZtz4

But what really struck me was the 'good riddance' tone of the narrative. How times have changed.
#1 feeblemind on 2013-05-26 12:28 (Reply)
re: The rise of the fourth branch of government

Very surprised to see this in the WaPo.
#1.1 feeblemind on 2013-05-26 12:36 (Reply)
I've just been watching MRU University's Development Economics. Without intending, Alex Tabarrok has informed the drive to make us Mexico by the Progs in 'The Effect of Geography on Institutions'.

See, south of the border, all the way to southern tip of South America, they were very much like the Europeans. Feudal economies were formed, with privileged Europeans owning and controlling (very few) the land and indigenous and imported people (very many). They wanted to do this North America but it didn't take and the geography was more conducive to individual effort and the yeoman farmer bringing forth democracy and an innovative society.

Seems to me, the Progs (Dems) would love to import the aristocratic model from down south. Now, imposing this upon free peoples would be "problematic" so they seek to import via unfettered migration those who are used to "plantation" life.

Stopping the influx is probably futile. We can, however, subvert their plan by moving to ease the formation of small business, remove "by your leave" government permissions for as much as possible and encourage the new arrivals to drop the hyphen when it comes to embracing the culture. Right now, the vocal push against the immigrants is creating conditions for them to see "masters" to protect them.
#2 JKB on 2013-05-26 13:07 (Reply)
"them to see " -> "them to seek..."
#2.1 JKB on 2013-05-26 13:10 (Reply)
Eleven people across UK arrested for making 'racist or anti-religious' comments on Facebook and Twitter about British soldier's
death

Since the twitter stream is world-wide and twitter handles are semi-anonymous, how were these people identified? Does the British government read every post on twitter for offense, discover the location of its author, then prosecute those within its jurisdiction? Who complained? How did the complainant identify the tweet and twitterer?

I better be careful while travelling. I may inadvertently break British Law (or the law by other oppressive states) by tweeting my ordinary opinions.
#3 ErisGuy on 2013-05-26 14:04 (Reply)
Sadly, from what I've read, the police are acting on citizens informing on fellow citizens.

Also, watch what you say around your kids, especially if they are fresh from the indoctrination center formally known as university.
#3.1 JKB on 2013-05-26 15:25 (Reply)
Citizens informing on other citizens is both a hallmark of tyrannical governments throughout history and what the Obama administration tried back in 2011 with the "Attack Watch" website. Probably just a coincidence.
#3.1.1 MTF on 2013-05-26 19:26 (Reply)
People being available 24/7 is their own fault. I won't let people call me when I'm off. If it's important, they can call me in the morning.
#4 Randy on 2013-05-26 16:02 (Reply)
The birdseed industry renamed niger seed to nyjer seed years ago, confusing finches across the country.
#5 rhhardin (Link) on 2013-05-26 18:45 (Reply)
Now that I find amusing.
#5.1 jma on 2013-05-26 19:14 (Reply)
After high school I worked in a leather factory (late 50's) for a year. They measure the sides with an antiquated machine that read's out on a big clock like scale in sq/ft and tenths. Tradition required that you read certain numbers with a word instead of the actual number so the guy marking the leather with the size could understand you in the noisy factory. Sometimes I would work the back end of the machine marking and stacking the leather sides. To the best of my memory the number 10 (for 10 sq/ft) was "Buck", the number 11 was "number" and the number 12 was "niggar". There were a couple other words they used and I cannot think of any of them. The only time it was ever a problem to just yell out the size was once when we had a black truck driver waiting for a load. So my partner on the front of the machine would just say "12". Don't know where the different words came from but knowing a little of the history of the leather industry I have no doubt it was over 100 years old back then.
#6 GoneWithTheWind on 2013-05-26 21:36 (Reply)
I have a question for the watcher of Margin Call: Why is it so important that the character played by S. Tucci come back to the office and sit there all the day of the transactions? Thank you for helping me - I don't understand unless it was to keep him from telling anyone about the plan to save the company.
#7 Linda Roberts on 2013-05-27 12:31 (Reply)
I think it amounted to a bribe.
#7.1 Bird Dog on 2013-05-27 21:21 (Reply)
No smart phone for me.

Paul Krugman would say there has been no famine in China, and therefore there won't be. Tom Friedman would say it simply could not happen, because the Chinese are so smart.

Who's administration? Sgt. Schulz's. The Know-Nothing Party seems to own Washington.

Gee, the trool combine isn't telling us how great Obamacare is going to be.

Renewable energy has certainly transformed our economy into submission.
#8 Sam L. on 2013-05-27 21:17 (Reply)

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