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

Friday, March 13. 2015

Friday morning links

Missing The Lampoon

There Are Over 200 Bodies on Mount Everest, And They’re Used as Landmarks


What scares the new atheists - The vocal fervour of today’s missionary atheism conceals a panic that religion is not only refusing to decline – but in fact flourishing


NYT:  College for a New Age


Is it time to close all the zoos?


This is what poverty looks like in Appalachia


Doesn't sound too bad to me. The lost small towns of America. Plus everybody is fat.


Breaking: Sex with animals still illegal in UK


Does Every Parade Have To Be A Gay Pride Parade?


Millennials in America are atrocious at math — and not great at reading, either


Americans Name Government as No. 1 U.S. Problem


Kerry Outraged People Still Use “Outdated” And “Immoral” Fossil Fuels…


When Liberals Blew It by blowing off Pat Moynihan


David Horowitz: The Left’s Destruction of Inner-City Communities


FERGUSON SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE SHOOTING OF POLICE OFFICERS - "Best day Ferguson has had in years"


An excess of tolerance


Kerry: Climate Change an ‘Elementary Truth’ – Like the Laws of Gravity


VINDICATED: Researcher punished for exposing climate fraud beats UCLA


Democrats Have No Bench? Be Serious.


Did Hillary Clinton Commit a Crime?


Dems have to stick with Hillary because ‘she’s the whole plan’


This is why Hillary Clinton gives me a headache


I believe the Clintons


How Arab Spring Opened the Door to Terrorism’s Ugly March


There Is No Global Jihadist 'Movement' - The world of Islamist fighters is deeply fragmented and constantly shifting


Is America Still a Military Superpower?


Iran’s Drones Loom Over the World’s Oil Tankers - Drone footage places armed robot over the Strait of Hormuz


U.S. Warplanes Are Helping Iran Win

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:49 | Comments (15) | Trackback (1)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

PingBack
Weblog: www.thepiratescove.us
Tracked: Mar 15, 10:06

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I'm not sure what we did to deserve two links to SoS ketchup kerry but I'm sorry.

When I saw that movie Ideocracy I didn't realize it was a documentary.
#1 fjord on 2015-03-13 06:32 (Reply)
This is what povery looks like in Appalachia.


And this is how they can relocate us into urban areas under the guise of Agenda 21.
Give people no reason to live and as soon as the bitterclingers are buried, the new generations will be pliable for relocation. Here's your treadmill, for 12 hours you get a turnip and a beet for your pay.


What strikes me about that article is that everyone is poor and have no jobs, yet they smoke. My husband smokes and it's not a cheap addiction. Also, think they underplay the meth labs and drug trade.

I see this in our area, when I venture into the coal regions to go to the Polish butcher shop to buy kielbasa, the streets are full of people mid-day, I can't find a parking spot, the storefronts are empty except the WIC office, the Soc. Sec. office, the crisis counseling center and the bars are grand central station. Oh and there are many second hand stores to buy clothing and household goods. Kind of like yard sales inside.

I can see this same decline already starting to the northern tier where the fracking industry built everything up and is now moving out.
The area was struggling to get by on tourism/hunting alone. Now businesses have sprung up including laundry services, rental places, restaurants and stores. But now the new Governor is going to kill that. The gas companies are already moving out now since he got elected, now that he's going to put the extraction fee up, impose more regulations and raise the sales and income tax.
#2 fjord on 2015-03-13 07:21 (Reply)
Not only do they smoke, they have a newer, fancier cell phone than I have, the women have professional manicures, they are wearing new Nike shoes, they have plenty of bling, and pay for groceries in front of me with a food stamp card!
Oh, I forgot--they usually have more than 1 young child with them or on the way. If there were a job, I don't think they are looking for it.
#2.1 mary on 2015-03-13 10:42 (Reply)
Honestly, I felt badly for the girls who wanted to go to community college. But two of the things I thought were:

1) Studying art will not help a dying town.

2) If you have to commute to school and can't find a job, why not move to the town where school is and find a job there?

Maybe both of these thoughts are mean. But I lived in a place similar to this for six years in southwest Virginia. Most people didn't finish high school. Most had minimum wage jobs. Most didn't want to leave. You can't fix that way of thinking.

I offered to help an old friend of my daughter's. She is graduating this year, grew up with a poor and uneducated family, and even some basic certification course would change her life.

She thanked me for the offer (I said I'd help her family fill out the FAFSA form, help her with an application, etc.) and then did nothing. Now I see her post bong photos to her Facebook page.

You can offer all the help you want to people, but if they won't make a change to benefit themselves, then there is no helping.
#2.2 MissT on 2015-03-13 16:21 (Reply)
I see this same thing across the northern tiers of PA, New York State, and most of New England once you get a few miles from the coastal resort towns. Many of these communities were companies towns where the company left. Now the young work at WalMart or Sheetz, drive their dead grandfather's car, live with a parent or relative, and basically subsist but with life's little pleasures of a smart phone, tattoos, and cheap bling.
#2.3 DMW on 2015-03-19 07:51 (Reply)
Global Jihad:
It would be fun to see the money dry up and the stress it would put on the “true believers”. ISIS would be rare and unique if it was monolithic. In any ideology, there are always factions and back stabbing, jockeying for power, and turf wars; these rivalries could be exacerbated by smart propaganda, especially, if or when the money pot shrinks. Admittedly, ISIS may have had some success in attracting mindless tools, but, given their recruitment videos, I don’t see how they can also avoid the usual suspects, who gravitate to violence, money and power: the cynics, grifters, criminals, sadists, predators, leeches, sycophants ……
Where is William Casey when you need him? He would have figured out away to exploit the schisms. As it is, I think only MI5 is waging a propaganda war (in the Daily Mail).
#3 Exasperated on 2015-03-13 07:36 (Reply)
I haven't seen much on the Net Neutrality Act and the FCC from you guys but you've got to check out a guy named Robert McChessney and his group called "Free Press" apparently cited 46 time in the footnotes to the "act". He is a Gramscian, neo-marxist and wants the state to control content for its own purposes...It is amazing how Obama is trying to steamroll this thing through when the nature of the act is considered.
#3.1 Tom C on 2015-03-13 09:29 (Reply)
Superpower? I am skeptical that the American economy of the future can sustain being the world's policeman, given the threats of cyber, economic, and unconventional warfare. Couple that with Anti-Americanism, here and abroad; there is no win,win.
#4 Exasperated on 2015-03-13 07:59 (Reply)
Re: Moynihan

Moynihan was right about the effect of breaking up families - especially poorer ones - but he was wrong that slavery had anything to do with it. Thomas Sowell explains that before welfare, a greater percentage of black families were intact than white families and in fact, black families were strong from the end of slavery till welfare took hold.

The author blames pubbies for somehow increasing the incarceration of black fathers. I suppose the laws should have been changed to say that if you were the head of a black household and you commit a crime, you don't have to go to jail.

While I applaud the author for reminding us of the central point of Moynihan's (and Quayle's) point about the importance of families, it seems to me that he's still invested in the support of the welfare system that caused so many problems beyond the breakup of the black families.
#5 mudbug on 2015-03-13 09:27 (Reply)
From that Guardian article on atheism:

"In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. "

A road I have gone down many times with atheist tub-thumpers: the spurious notion that simply by virtue of being an atheist, a person is somehow more rational and liberal in their views.

I fear I tend to stick with the old stand-up gag line:

"Atheists - those guys haven't got a prayer."

[rimshot]
#6 JJM on 2015-03-13 09:34 (Reply)
Just a thought, but what if housewife hillary's emails, while the jaunting, juiced secretary of state was touring the world, were really all about the funeral, wedding and yoga? And that they would expose the truth that she was merely a figurehead?
#7 Judith on 2015-03-13 09:44 (Reply)
"Millennials in America are atrocious at math"

Statistics has weaknesses that cause it to both be accurate and misleading. If you were to use the U.S. data and exclude blacks and hispanics it is probable that our stats would be near the top or even at the top. Conversely if you required other countries that are being compared with us to use all their "millennials" and exclude none it is likely that their stats would go down dramatically. Most educators and government bureaucrats will know these basic truths but for various reasons dare not bring them up.

What the U.S. needs to do is to make sure that our better students and exceptional students are given better eductional opportunities. This means we must recognize that not everyone should be in advanced math in high school and equality of opportunity is the correct goal not equality of results. Stop propping up those who cannot excel at the expense of those who can.
#8 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-03-13 09:52 (Reply)
Re: Demoncrat bench

The author says:
QUOTE:
Clinton has (apparently) won the nomination fair and square, through hard work and political talent.

What political talent does she have? Complaining that she was flat broke when she left the White House in 2000? Talking about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia? Her lack of any substantive accomplishments while Secretary of State? The current email fiasco? A book tour that generated NO interest from anybody?

There are only two reasons she is in contention at all: she's the politically ambitious wife of a popular (sigh!) former president and she's a woman. If she were a man (if you squint a little...) - and thus neither of those would apply - we would not be talking about her - especially since the last try at running for president was a failure.

As for the rest of the bench, the author has a point that running for president can draw enough press limelight to make one viable but putting up those retreads Kerry or Gore? He's joking, right?
#9 mudbug on 2015-03-13 10:12 (Reply)
I think it should be clear to everyone by now: the African American community intends to carve out a piece of this country as it's own separate territory. We can see that beginning with the push to have representation by proportionate numbers. We can see that by their refusal to take ownership of any of the problems they have in their communities. We can see that in their determined effort (ala Holder) to steal through abuse of government control. We can see that in the failure of so many African/American elected state leaders. You know, the African/American guys who used to be governors, or mayors, etc. who have been clearly corrupt and contemptuous of our system of values. What they don't have is the ability to lead in a way that moves the community forward. Just street smart corruption--wow that's gonna lead to a good place! Why doesn't someone go out and get more good people like Condi Rice, or Doc. Carson? Because that community in general doesn't want to live by the rules. Just sign me--Broken Hearted
#10 another one on 2015-03-13 10:39 (Reply)
re Hillary

This from the WaTimes:

The big revelation from the latest Clinton scandals is not that the former president and his wife are corrupt, low-rent, grabby, greedy, serial liars.

Everyone already knows that.

No, the revelation is the exposure of the dirtiest little secret of them all:

No one likes her.

This is the hard truth that has popped up like a vicious migraine: No one — not even many of her fellow Democrats and leftists in the mainstream media — likes her very much.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/11/monica-crowley-no-one-likes-hillary-clinton/
#11 feeblemind on 2015-03-13 14:34 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.