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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Wednesday, December 10. 2014

Wednesday morning links

The Ugly Christmas Sweater: Still Ugly, but No Longer Ironic


Bank of America sees $50 oil as Opec dies


Feathered Fossils Give Scaly Dinosaurs a Makeover - Plumage may have adorned even the earliest dinosaurs, long before flight.


Parking-lot-challenged Canadian BMW driver has now been watched 4 million times


Sultan: Fat people and class warfare


A Devastating Takedown of America’s Most Overrated Gay Power Couple


The Rustbelt Roars Back From the Dead


From Bill Clinton and From Fat Albert to the Rev. Al: All the enablers


Bill slanders his cops - Mayor de Blasio’s suggestion that NYPD racism killed Eric Garner – and fuels police-community tension – is baseless and odious


A nation with insane leaders:  The Gods Have Made Them Mad


Thornton:  The End of Feminism


From Why I Left Feminism (Or, How Feminism Left Me) :



 1. Current Feminism Lies to Young Women About Sex


Feminists like to tell young women many crazy lies, so it’s hard to cover them all. Most of them, however, surround sex. Here are a few:

    Sex is a purely physical act and is completely meaningless.
    Casual sex is not only a right, but it is also empowering!
    Casual sex will leave you with no emotional or psychological damage.
    There’s a “sexual double standard”: Guys get away with rampant casual sex, so why  shouldn’t we encourage the same behavior for women?



VDH:  Lying for the Cause - If myths do more for social progress than facts — then why worry?


Obama: Ferguson, Garner Protests 'Necessary' to Trigger 'Country's Conscience' with 'Some Inconvenience'


When you interfere with people getting to work, conscience is not triggered


Social Injustice Ate My Homework



The “national crisis” that has been provoked by the cases of Garner and Brown, they argue, has left them with no choice but to “stand for justice rather than sit and prepare for exams.”



What the Numbers Say on Police Use of Force - Two decades of data show police interactions with Americans of all races decreasing in number and improving in quality.


Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives


Germans protest fascism; liberals complain



Among the stereotypes you are allowed to have is that all German conservatives are Nazis.
Among the stereotypes you are not allowed to have is that all Islamist terrorists are terrorists.





Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:01 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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How bourgeois can you get?
Now, if they did something, useful, constructive, or selfless, instead of preening, I might muster up some respect. This is just addled and adolescent, self important, hero complex posturing, for an audience. No guts or courage required and no consequences; the wusses are even given a pass by school authorities. So yes, I'll go with S(below).
From Jane the Actuary blog:
S: The target audience isn't the general public, or people you are trying to persuade - else why piss them off, as you say - no, the target is other activists, and tribe members. Protesting isn't about policy, or social change, its about status whoring and social climbing. If true, then the incentive is to be as visible and controversial as possible, not to convince. And that's exactly what we see.
#1 Exasperated on 2014-12-10 07:08 (Reply)
The Berkley protestors couldn't survive a day in elementary, middle or high school under the Michele Obama regime.

The menu selection is quite distressing in jail.

The sad part is, now jail, at least in Berkley, is a better dining experience than any school cafeteria in America.
#1.1 JKB on 2014-12-10 09:32 (Reply)
What does it say about a future lawyer that they can't look at the evidence and see the strong argument for self defense with corroborating witnesses and physical evidence as is the Ferguson case?

How traumatic. Reality not agreeing with your privileged preconceived notions.
#2 JKB on 2014-12-10 09:27 (Reply)
I'll quote Jake Barnes, Isn't it pretty to think so?

These authors don't really understand the present day psyche of the rust belt, neither do they comprehend how the rust belt became that way.
#3 DrTorch on 2014-12-10 09:36 (Reply)
This was a response to the "The Rustbelt Roars Back From the Dead" story
#3.1 DrTorch on 2014-12-10 10:31 (Reply)
Re: end of feminism

Several years ago, I thought feminism had gone the way of peace signs. Boy was I wrong! Along came Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. It used to be mainstream feminist dogma that it should always be unacceptable for a man of power to diddle with an underling woman. Well, with Bill & Monica, that was modified (at least for Bill). Now, we have this lunacy out of California where it almost seems that a man needs (wants?) a video of every sexual encounter (with subtitles, or maybe a written contract will do) to protect himself from a rape charge.

Of course all that runs counter to feminist principles but that doesn't stop feminists from embracing and adopting that into their 'new' feminism that's even more expansive. That's the beauty of all leftist dogma. There's no need for intellectual consistency (see The Gods Have Made Them Mad). It must be something about being able to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at one time.
#4 mudbug on 2014-12-10 10:04 (Reply)
Reading Victor Davis Hanson's 'Lying for the Cause' made me think. I agree with everything he said but I was a little uncomfortable equating white police brutality towards blacks with black thug's violence toward other blacks. After all, the policeman has the power of government and a legal responsibility not to brutalize citizens. Black thugs do not.

However, if the government (in the form of the Attorney General of the United States) chooses to take a side in a conflict, isn't he lending governmental power to the side he's supporting? By not concerning himself with black on black crime, isn't he really saying it's not important or even worse, that it's somebody else's fault (white people)? And doesn't that also impart some governmental power?
#5 mudbug on 2014-12-10 11:13 (Reply)
re Lying for the Cause

What's interesting about it is that the entire edifice of leftist ideology is built on lies. All of it. And yet, they never lose credibility with a large percentage of the population.

I marvel that people believe what they want to believe in the face of evidence to the contrary and are blind to the failures of their beliefs.

Of course we will see more of it.
#6 feeblemind on 2014-12-10 12:11 (Reply)
trivia fact for the day:

In November 2007, there were 124,014,000 native-born workers employed in the United States and 23,104,000 foreign-born workers employed in the United States. By November 2014, the number of native-born employed in the United States had dropped to 122,558,000 and the number of foreign-born employed had increased to 25,108,000.

In the seven years from November 2007 to November 2014, the number of native-born workers holding jobs in the United States declined by 1,456,000, and the number of foreign-born workers holding jobs increased by 2,004,000.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/25108000-record-number-foreign-born-hold-jobs-us
#7 feeblemind on 2014-12-10 12:52 (Reply)
Those interested in early aviation or New England history may find this interesting:

West Island - Fairhaven-MA, Fairhaven Airport / Baylies Field 1930

http://mlbaron.webs.com/fairhaven-airport-1930
#7.1 feeblemind on 2014-12-10 13:57 (Reply)

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