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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Thursday, September 4. 2014

Thursday morning links

The Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking Is Healthy


5 Lies Christians Are Told - A few of the lies Christians often believe that are hurting the Church.


Recent college grads:



College selectivity did not significantly affect the graduates’ chances of employment, the authors write, and neither did gender, race or parental education.



About Horowitz's oevre:  Rebel With a Better Cause


The Scariest California Drought Map Yet


Double mastectomy doesn't boost survival for most, study says


Priorities: Germany bans Uber, ride-sharing services


Why Dying Is Easier for Doctors



 To administer medical care that makes people suffer is anguishing. Physicians are trained to gather information without revealing any of their own feelings, but in private, among fellow doctors, they’ll vent. “How can anyone do that to their family members?” they’ll ask. I suspect it’s one reason physicians have higher rates of alcohol abuse and depression than professionals in most other fields. I know it’s one reason I stopped participating in hospital care for the last 10 years of my practice.

How has it come to this–that doctors administer so much care that they wouldn’t want for themselves? The simple, or not-so-simple, answer is this: patients, doctors, and the system.



September 1st Heros: Shop Teachers



UN Looks In Crystal Ball, Creates Weather Forecasts For 2015


It is Historically Unusual for China NOT to be the Largest Economy on Earth


Fired Writer Gavin McInnes: Politically Correct Outrage Is Like The Mob


Marxist Feminism’s Ruined Lives:



 “Why are we here today?” she asked.
“To make revolution,” they answered.
“What kind of revolution?” she replied.
“The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.
“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.
“By destroying the American family!” they answered.
“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.
“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.
“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.
“By taking away his power!”
“How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”
“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.



5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die


"In
short, Defendants claim a carte blanche to target more or less every
person or group that has ever participated in Wisconsin political or
policy debates..." - "... to raid their homes...


Univision Reporter Gets Owned


The Great Myth: World War I Was No Accident - World War I wasn’t an inadvertent war but the result of deliberate German state policy.


AMCHA POSTS LIST OF ANTI-ISRAEL PROFESSORS - Warns Students of More than 200 Middle East Scholars Who Signed Boycott Petition


Jihad in the Balkans: The Next Generation


This message is to you, Vladimir Putin’: ISIS threatens ‘to liberate Chechnya and Caucasus’


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:13 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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"The medical community is paying increasing attention to overtreatment and excessive costs, and the study results raise questions about reasons for rising use of an expensive, potentially risky treatment "of dubious effectiveness," the researchers said.

Patients' preferences and fear that cancer will return play a role, but that fear "usually exceeds estimated risk," the study said.

Reasons why survival was slightly worse for woman who had just one breast removed are uncertain..."

It's interesting how 'bending the cost curve downwards' for health care always seems to start with denying treatments to women. I'm sick and tired of women's bodies being considered a) public property and b) expendable.

Maybe men could take one for the team this time around, eh? Give up taking those statins? I'm sure that for most of the people involved, quitting statins won't immediately kill them.
#1 JM01 on 2014-09-04 10:25 (Reply)
The "cost curve" and the idea of bending it is a red herring (emphasis on 'red'). The reason it's such an issue is because it is eating into tax receipts - Medicare, Medicaid, etc. There is no similar hand wringing over the cost of rents, food, or gasoline.

If medical costs were born by people, people would likely be more intelligent about their healthcare spending and providers would know that they could price themselves out of the market for many people.

Of course, there is more to the story than that. We have become a ridiculously litigious society and with that comes increased costs for malpractice insurance.

As with everything, a freer market generally provides better service at a better price. The Surgery Center in Oklahoma (http://www.surgerycenterok.com/) runs their hospital like a business, not a hospital - the fees for different procedures are published so a patient can shop around.
#1.1 mudbug on 2014-09-04 12:11 (Reply)
"drinking is healthy"

"For example, despite being heavily out-drunk by the English, we have almost exactly twice their levels of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease."
But when you look at the referenced study you find this: "This conclusion is generally robust to control for a standard set of behavioral risk factors, including smoking, overweight, obesity, and alcohol drinking, which explain very little of these health differences." That is they excluded the effects of drinking and smoking etc. in their studies. So while England may have half the diabetes rate the U.S. does it isn't because of drinking, ditto for heart disease. So what is it from? Having seen some of these studies and followup studies before I think I know the answer. If instead they had compared only Americans of European descent with the English the results would have been suprisingly similar. Why? Because England doesn't have a 15% population of hispanics and a 15% population of African Americans. Both of these ethnicities have have very high rates of heart disease and diabetes. It is unlikely that anyone versed enough in health and health studies wouldn't know these simple facts so I can only assume that the author of the article wrote this intending to mislead.
There are confounding factors in this story as well. For example an individual who is prone to have blood clots but is untreated for that condition will be less likely to have blood clots form if they drink daily. So indeed for a small percent of the population drinking could be "healthy" and indeed prevent heart disease (or at least certain types of heart disease).
Another confounding factor is in the U.S. about half the people with diabetes are undiagnosed. That is their symptoms have not become serious enough yet to cause them toseek medical care and be tested for it. But also in the U.S. a proactive approach is being used to find the undiagnosed people with diabetes. This resulted in an apparent dramatic increase in diabetes. In fact the total number remained constant but the number of diagnosed cases jumped considerably. This to is a fact that is often used to distort opinion. Typically it is used to claim that we are having a diabetes "epidemic" when the facts don't support that conclusion. In this case the author threw in diabetes as a "gimmie" because he knew it would strike a chord with a lot of readers. Dishonest, yes, but effective. So draw your own conclusions. Some of what the author stated is indeed true but some of what the author stated is untrue and intentionally used to disinform. Do you as a consumer of scientific studies enjoy being manipulated for nefarious reasons? Not too different from what the warmies are doing with the global warming scare which generates massive funding for their livelyhood.
#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-09-04 10:48 (Reply)
[b]RE: Marx and Feminism[/]

Having been a married faculty wife for 32 years I can affirm these comments. However, our experience was even a little more concentrated--my husband focused on systems theory and design thinking. These are both subjects that have been grabbed by the extremists and twisted for their own political use. As an expert in systems at a time when unqualified pseudo-scholars(femnazis) were taking over the campus we were bombarded with threats. When they broke my husband's contract we tried to leave on good terms. When we refused "To stay and make her look good" The dirty tricks began. I have been shunned by women in my church, stalked and followed on international flights by a "student/scholar" (age about 50) trying to talk me into getting my husband to sign an NSF grant application for a university he no longer worked for--she sat next to me on the airplane and tried for four hours to engage me in conversation. When I told her to forget it she said "fine take it the hard way". My husband has not worked since. HOWEVER, every Christian on this board and every person at the Horowitz center MUST ACKNOWLEDGE that the most powerful group of communists in this country also has many members of the Jewish Community vigorously dedicated in designing the "new America". If we are not allowed to criticize members of the Jewish community--we are not allowed to fight communism in this country. The women who blacklisted my husband, who searched my home illegally, who stalked and followed me. Women and men who spit in my face where I worked as a volunteer. Women who tried to shove me down stairs and choked me in public meetings--these were all members of the Jewish Community. Sad to say--but true. They are also the same women who work with Bill Ayers, who have put Obama in office, and who organized ACCORN. Experts in Community Organizing.
#3 faculty wife on 2014-09-04 11:18 (Reply)
I feel an obligation to also state that three good and decent Jewish men have tried to help--behind the scenes. They were unable to get past, go around, or over the Jewish women's group. But these men are so loved--because I know they tried. However, the tragedy is they were not free enough from the domination of their communal group to go public with their efforts or professional skills--you know who you are--please know I will never forget your caring and concern--you are truly loved!
#4 faculty wife on 2014-09-04 12:08 (Reply)
Cause of WWI: And the Germans were so afraid of Russia that they shipped Lenin there to destabilize it. Boy was THAT a bad idea.

UN's Chrystal Ball: Shows only what they want it to show.

AMCHA: Good for them. The profs are already so proud of themselves.
#5 Sam L. on 2014-09-04 15:20 (Reply)
No patriarchy under my roof, but we do have plenty of monogamy.
#6 Texan99 on 2014-09-04 16:35 (Reply)
Speaking for myself I would like you to name names. Do you fear retribution? It sounds like you have a story to tell but without the names it is incomplete. I believe a lot of things that are happening in the shadows are going to hurt us. I think ACORN is alive and well and in fact receiving funding from this administration to do what? I am in favor of sunshine on these shadowy groups.
#7 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-09-04 19:53 (Reply)
Interesting take on the beginning of WW I. Some years ago, I read an interesting book - the title of which I cannot recall - whose thesis was that WW I was inadvertent because all the royals were on holiday for the month prior to all the declarations. This new theory makes sense if one assumes the Kaiser was not fully apprised of the deliberations of his War Office (or German counterpart).

That being said, I have read more than once (albeit in novels) that there was a general climate for war in Great Britain in 1914, and men flocked to the standard. That being said, I remember also a comment by an character in an Anthony Price novel (and I paraphrase): ..."My father always said that the problems in the 20's were because the best men - on both sides - died in France". In other words, too many potential leaders - labour and management - died in the trenches; we are all the poorer for that.
#8 Frances on 2014-09-04 21:22 (Reply)

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