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
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NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
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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
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Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Wednesday, February 19. 2014

Weds. morning links

Today's pic is a Calabash Tree (not to be confused with the African Calabash Vine) as seen on a St. Lucia jungle hike. It is odd to see, in the tropics, fruits growing directly out of trunks.



Suppose that we were supplied with groceries in same way that we are supplied with K-12 education.


Walsh:  The two steps to getting 30 million hits on your blog


Narcissism and Gen Y


The lies of the animal-rights racket


Cooking, etc: Like Grandma Used To Make


Gallup: Joblessness now top priority for Americans


How racist is the Tea Party?


Krauthammer's Take: Climate Change 'Is a Matter of Almost Theology'


James Piereson: The Truth About the 'One Percent' - The typical 'rich' person works for a salary. Only 18% are in the financial industry.


FBI Documents Confirm Existence of Texas Islamic Terror Enclave


Days after Univision announces Clinton partnership, network owner says Hillary presidency his ‘dream’


Trade ban will outlaw certain lacy underwear in Russia




Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:00 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0)

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This must have been Mrs. Calabash's tree.
#1 Charles Curran on 2014-02-19 07:30 (Reply)
Flowers (and therefore fruits) appearing on the trunks of trees is known as 'cauliflory' (not to be confused with cauliflower, although the words are linked). Another important plant with the same feature is Cacao (chocolate); and a commonly seen example is redbud.

For more, see this excellent site: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plmay99.htm
#2 botanyman on 2014-02-19 07:57 (Reply)
Great site!
#2.1 jma on 2014-02-19 17:29 (Reply)
>>the lies of the animals rights racket

"In short, the radical animal-rights ideology isn’t about caring for animals; it’s about stopping even the humane use of animals. The true believers use these and other tactics to take out one business at a time: carriage horses, the circus and eventually all farmers who use animals."

It's about elevating the status of animals over humans.
They do this in increments, through lawsuits and allowing the watermelons to dictate animal housing/feed policy in agriculture. The feed companies BRING them to the farms where they set the rules on housing, which causes farmers to go out of business. (Like all regulations, they cost money, something small farmers don't have, land rich, cash poor)

This opens the playing field for Big Ag to take over. where you have hourly compensated employees who have NO incentive to treat animals humanely. All your reports of cruelty end up being some PETA plant to record it or aggravated worker that strikes out at animals that are too slow or 'misbehave'.
#3 figment on 2014-02-19 08:59 (Reply)
I'd change Big Ag to Big Soy, most (if not all) of the animal rights crowd are vegetarians. Otherwise, spot on.
#3.1 walt moffett on 2014-02-19 11:23 (Reply)
Bird Dog,
Don't know how to contact you (email) so I'll try to use this approach. The Great Courses is have a $9.95 sale. Just purchased Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre for $9.95 download edition. Perhaps you would add a link to today's Weds. Morning Links. rray
#4 rray on 2014-02-19 10:07 (Reply)
To continue the conversation of academic administrative bloat--where did it begin? I propose to you that it began when most of the people involved in this fraud went uncharged and the few who were charged suffer minimum penalty. So minimal in fact that the situation has continued to this day:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/29/nyregion/6-indicted-in-fraud-over-use-of-grants-for-hasidic-groups.html

That follows with:
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/11/news/mn-36271

At the same time there was another school operated in a small town--,a liberal Jewish community in OH. An old style physical campus that had been going bankrupt for years. This school had opened "satellite" campuses in 25 other states--almost all of which had been closed down by local authorities in the late 70's and early eighties. Closed down, sent home, but never charged with criminal activities.
The federal money from student loans went not into the education of the student, but rather it was procured through questionable means, for the sole purpose of sustaining the very pleasant life for the faculty. A quaint old style small community with lovely autumn color! Picture post card perfect. Gotta keep those incompetent faculty comfortable doncha ya know!! OH, and by the way the guy who ran the AAUP protected this school, it's fraud for years and years, as did the North Central Accrediting Agency. So after years of internal haggling the "business school" has left, the BA completion got the old building and the "business school" got a new building and the title of University! A university without an undergraduate program--how does that work? Meanwhile, the BA school-- is now advertising for free tuition for anyone stupid enough to come there and waste some time. NO ONE IN THE FEDERAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT has had the courage to go after this fraud! NOT ONE--NOT SINCE THE blowback from the Jewish Community over the New Square school fraud! NOT SINCE THEN have the FEDS had the courage to confront fraud on such large scale. But, they will spend millions of dollars going after a Catholic, or other Christian school for something like homophobic teaching!
ONLY Question I have now is this: take a look at the two guys who will reap the most from selling the "Common Core" package to America's schools in the current outrage ?
#5 facultywife on 2014-02-19 10:27 (Reply)
"Krauthammer's Take: Climate Change 'Is a Matter of Almost Theology'" Yes grasshopper, you are learning, stay tuned to these pages.

"Narcissism and Gen Y" No, although narcissism can be very complex, because people are complex, you go astray when you try to hang all of the boxed Christmas decorations in the shrink's attic onto this one rather basic aspect of human psychology. Narcissism is essentially self-love and we all have some of that. Dragging the so-called "entitlement mentality" of the "Y" generation into the picture is more misleading than edifying. The biggest error however is the disconnect the author of this article claims to observe between "objectivity" and the narcissist's false sense of superiority. Why is this error? Because "objectivity" is an abstract concept. It cannot be anything else because we cannot remove the subjective human perception factor from any discussion of it. This is a particularly acute problem when discussing human behavior as opposed to chemistry. But, it is always a problem. So, claiming that a group of people allegedly sharing a very poorly defined set of physiological traits are not being objective is like saying my daddy can beat your daddy. Who has a perfect sense of self and who can claim true objectivity? Nope, this article is a trifling piece of fluff exhibiting the author's false sense of superiority.
#6 W. C. Taqiyya on 2014-02-19 11:01 (Reply)
Of course the Tea Party had to be labeled as "racist". This is the left's version of the witch hunt and suprisingly effective in spite of gross over use. Ironically labeling those you oppose "racist" for political reasons is in itself "racist". But no matter, it's not as though we have a free press that feels obligated to prit the truth.
#7 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-02-19 11:28 (Reply)
Re ‘Narcissm vs. Objectivity’ comments: A writer says “One in four Americans do not know …” The subject is “One,” not “Americans.” Therefore, the singular “One” takes the singular “does not know.” “Americans” is the object of the preposition “in.” Lack of proper grammar is a lubricant on the slippery slope.
#8 SgtBob (Link) on 2014-02-19 11:53 (Reply)
There's no evidence it causes harm. It just bothers people. Not the same thing.
#8.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2014-02-19 22:49 (Reply)
The Muslims of America and similar New Africa/Aryan Nations enclaves pose a problem for those who believe in the constitution. Do we go in with guns blazing to preempt problems or do we let the police and courts handle the problems as they come up? I believe the the constitution means we have to do the later while with a court order we monitor their communications.

Tea Party racist? Well, noticed racist has almost replaced fascist as the epithet of the week.
#9 walt moffett on 2014-02-19 11:58 (Reply)
You posted a good read about villages yesterday. It is very similar to how San Francisco functions, or used to. How does this apply to villages like New Square, or Yellow Springs?

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_1_community.html
#10 another one on 2014-02-19 12:36 (Reply)
The Official Forecast of the U.S. Government Never Saw This Winter Coming

From the article:

"Surprised by how tough this winter has been? You’re in good company: Last fall the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that temperatures would be above normal from November through January across much of the Lower 48 states.

The cause of the tough winter, as is well known by now, is the polar vortex, a strong and persistent ridge of high pressure over the eastern Pacific and the west coast of the United States. First, it’s causing California’s drought. Second, polar winds are flowing northward around the high-pressure ridge and then plunging down along the ridge’s backside.
What the Climate Prediction Center hasn’t been able to figure out is why that ridge has maintained its position so persistently. “Sometimes trying to figure out why something happened is as hard as making the forecast of what will happen,” Halpert said in a Feb. 14 interview.

“Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director. The center grades itself on what it calls the Heidke skill score, which ranges from 100 (perfection) to -50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better). October’s forecast for the three-month period of November through January came in at -22. Truth be told, the September prediction for October-December was slightly worse, at -23. "

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-18/the-official-forecast-of-the-u-dot-s-dot-government-never-saw-this-winter-coming#r=hp-ls

feeb here, They can't remotely come close to a long range winter forecast and yet the global warming models are spot on?
#11 feeblemind on 2014-02-19 15:01 (Reply)
"50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better"

Hey! Those monkeys were highly trained by the Gore daughters!

But seriously, Climate Predicting has nothing to do with the weather! Proving the need for blocking unnecessary pipelines, unnecessary off-shore drilling or wood stoves through properly publicized climate studies written by the right scientists and published by real journalists in real newspapers is the important job. And you can't allow the actual weather to interfere with that!

Right comrades?
#11.1 John the River (Link) on 2014-02-19 21:52 (Reply)

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