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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Friday, March 20. 2015

Friday morning links

It's Spring, with snow coming today, 1 below zero F in Rumford, Maine, and the migrating Fox Sparrows scratching in the underbrush


An Ohio Lawmaker is Now Trying to Ban Fake Guns


What Is Honor? [VIDEO]


A book: Wild Bill Wellman


Manatees doomed. Population up 25%


Tongue Rolling and 5 Other Oversimplified Genetic Traits


Feds Extend Comment Period for Dietary Guidelines


Moonbats


In a Platonic dialogue, Socrates describes Homer as “the best and most divine of the poets.” Not a bad blurb...


Is There Really A Gender Gap In Education?


Yes. Girls ahead.


More on "positive interventions"



Recently mandated “positive interventions” have only exacerbated discipline problems in the largely minority Santa Ana public school district, where middle-school kids now regularly smoke pot in bathrooms — some even in class — and attack staff — spitting on teachers, pelting them with eggs, even threatening to stab them, according to the Orange County Register



WaPo columnist regrets supporting ‘hands up’ mantra


Time for a conversation about Starbucks:



Starbucks burns low-grade coffee beans in order to persuade its customers that they are drinking something sophisticated and European...



Hail EPA! Hail Caesar! When You’ve Lost Larry Tribe…


States Should Defy Unlawful EPA Carbon Dioxide Rules


Rebel!


Here comes Honey Boo Boo Algore


Kasich Looks to Republican Primaries, ‘Ohio Story’ in Hand


He looks 100 years old


Inequality is not poverty


The Clinton Foundation stinks, and the press is finding it hard to ignore the stench.


A new Hillary! What we do know is she is consulting with 200 experts to find a message and a platform.


DHS released another 30,000 criminal aliens onto streets


CIA Says Muslims Join ISIS Because of … Economics - "Devotion to Islam" never makes the cut among progressives.


This is because they lack multicultural understanding


Dalrymple:  A lack of attachment to civilisation is wider than we would like to imagine


Red Cross Case Raises Questions About How Nonprofits Handle Complaints


Egypt Fights ISIS—Obama Cuts Off Egypt - With Egypt in distress, the Obama administration's behavior is strange


For Jews in Sweden, “this is not living”


What France Really Thinks of U.S. Iran Policy


5 Surprising Facts About Nigeria's Economy


No Friends but the Mountains: The Fate of the Kurds


China Dominates the Scramble for the South China Sea


A New York Times Editorial Bashes Israeli Democracy


U.S. Omits Iran and Hezbollah From Terror Threat List


They are no direct threat to the US


Israel Votes to Exist


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:00 | Comments (20) | Trackback (1)

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Manatees:

Doomed. Yup. When a population reaches critical mass and there aren't enough predators to reduce the numbers, then nature will step in with something like disease. And what ARE the predators of manatees? Gators? Maybe they will stop hanging around golf courses then.

Banning fake guns:
I propose a bill making legislators wear a sign that says "lawmaker" on it so that these people can be cruelly mocked and hopefully pelted with rotted fruit and crap. Also make their jobs part time with reduced pay and no perks.

FDA comment period:
Is this like the comment period for the new farming regs in 2010 ? where the website didn't work for 8 out of the 10 week comment period? Not that I believe anyone reads them anyway.
#1 fjord on 2015-03-20 06:55 (Reply)
Doubling down on stupidity: (the FDA)
And I should add with the dismal way "they" have misguided the public on "nutrition" maybe they should STFU.
#1.1 fjord on 2015-03-20 07:05 (Reply)
Re: Starbucks. See this link on relative caffeine content in the top 3 chains people buy their jolt. http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/10/08/starbucks-dunkin-donuts-and-mcdonalds-which-coffee-has-the-most-caffeine/ The main reason to buy Starbucks is to stay alert at work when one's office does not provide decent coffee or just offers that plastic infused swill brewed from pods beginning w the letter K. Also, Starbucks is a far more pleasant place to have a chat over coffee w a friend or business associate than Dunkin Donuts wh latter is fluorescent lit and has surly staff who (where I live) under fill the most expensive drinks. My Starbucks has friendly staff who get my regular coffee ready when they see me and are cheerful. I see unemployed people allowed to sit there escaping their house for a LONG time nursing the cheapest brew and not being kicked out. You cd just take NoDoze but having a friendly community cafe is a neighborhood asset and one of the few things where I live that ordinary people can afford when going out w a friend. A lot more wholesome than a bar....

Their espressos, etc are fine. I'm not enthralled by their regular coffee but nothing is as good as real Italian made espresso....
#2 Retriever on 2015-03-20 09:13 (Reply)
And where do you live? In Boston the thin, sour cup of Starbucks brew didn't hold a candle to most (not all) Dunkin cuppa's.

Neither could match the occasional breakfast places that would come and go in the downtown area. My observation was, bad eggs bad coffee. Good food, great cup of coffee. One great place between Washington and Milk streets lasted ten years before a developer kicked them out. Then it was down to diner in the leather district.
#2.1 John the River (Link) on 2015-03-20 09:25 (Reply)
"'Devotion to Islam' never makes the cut among progressives."

And "patriotism" and "sense of duty and gratitude" never make the cut among leftists for why people join the American military.
#3 RonF on 2015-03-20 09:28 (Reply)
Starbucks may PR their burnt coffee as being "European" but they burn it because the bitter toward charcoal taste sells more high-profit syrups.

And besides, most of their customers start out just wanting a shot of coffee in their hot milk. But so far no one has tried to be honest in marketing and sell their "coffee" house as a hot milk shop.
#4 JK Brown on 2015-03-20 09:52 (Reply)
RE: Starbucks--one more key player in the Seattle Machine. Among Boeing, UPS, Microsoft, Wyereheuser, etc. Starbucks took over/takes over any competition--low prices, bullying threatening. The standard operating system of Seattle. Nice crowd those people.

Re: The Clinton Foundation--visited in 2007 nice rather small office building--no one home. Empty offices looked never used. The receptionist didn't know where anyone is/was. There was "no energy" of any kind in the place--it was not real! But then again you all love the mafia types so much, and Barrister's crowd won't confront them, and now we don't have a federal law enforcement that is moral either. So who cares really? The old America--we sold it out so we wouldn't have to stand up and defend on the home front a system of values.
#5 faculty wife on 2015-03-20 10:27 (Reply)
Off Topic:

I just came across this very relevant Milton Friedman lecture 'What is America?"

Should be must see for all students, even all people in America.

Starting at minute 12, he explains the benefits and problem with illegal immigration from Mexico. Obama is pushing to make it a problem instead of a benefit by making it legal and giving the illegals claims on the welfare system. BTW, it was the social welfare state that made unfettered immigration a problem.
#6 JK Brown on 2015-03-20 11:23 (Reply)
I consider Starbucks to be mid-quality coffee. Better than Dunkin - I really hate their coffee and how they serve it (no offense), but not that great.

The diners around here are slightly better and the local coffee shop that roasts their own beans is by far the best coffee - great flavor without the burnt bitterness of Starbucks or bad aftertaste of Dunkin Donuts.
#7 NJSoldier on 2015-03-20 11:28 (Reply)
Re: Kurds, Hamas, Iran

This administration has been taking positions that are, on balance, supportive of terrorists (Iran, Hamas) and diminishes the honest (Kurds and Israel). Hanlon's razor states, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." However, the symmetry of these positions argue that these positions can't be the result of sheer stupidity, but are intentional, purposeful decisions.

Obummer, the first anti-American president. Two years is a long time.
#8 mudbug on 2015-03-20 11:51 (Reply)
They purposely destabilized Libya and Syria - run by bad guys who were keeping a lid on the terrorists.

And - with the Ukraine and Libya, they proved that our word is worthless when it comes to giving up your nukes and chemical weapons.
#8.1 NJSoldier on 2015-03-20 13:54 (Reply)
Don't forget Egypt ans Obummer's stiffing el Sissi by not giving him intelligence against ISIS after they killed a bunch of Coptic Christians. The list goes on and that's only the foreign policy (not failures but) crimes against the US and our allies.
#8.1.1 mudbug on 2015-03-20 15:02 (Reply)
Iran and Hezbollah, according to Bird Dog, "They are no direct threat to the US". Easier said than real, and becomes no more real with snarky repetitions, ignoring Iran's ballistic missiles that can already reach Europe and being extended to US, soon to be nuclear capacity, successful efforts to control or be dominant throughout Middle East and its resources to create an even more dangerous bloc, all before even mentioning intent to destroy Israel and millions of Jews thus eliminating the only democratic state in the Middle East whose efforts at successful development expose how shoddy is Arab thug rule everywhere else.
#9 Bruce Kesler on 2015-03-20 14:03 (Reply)
"They are no direct threat to the US" I'm with Bruce on this. I don't know how anyone can seriously believe that. Hezbollah may not have the resources by itself to directly threaten the US, but Iran certainly does. And if they don't yet, I'm afraid our president is helping to give them what they need to make it possible in the near future.
#9.1 RR Knight on 2015-03-20 15:34 (Reply)
Well, we can just disagree.

What is Obama trying to do? Beats me.

These idiots scare me not at all, and Israel can take care of itself.
#9.1.1 Bird Dog on 2015-03-20 16:06 (Reply)
We agree to disagree BD. Thanks for giving us a place were we can all do just that.

Does anybody know for sure what Obama is doing in regard to Iran? Shouldn't, we as citizens of this country, have certainty, that our president is negotiating with the best interest of our country, friends and allies at heart? I don't think we can take it for granted today, and I find that a bit troubling to say the least.

I hear the US conceding on sanctions, uranium enrichment, time tables for Iran actually getting a nuclear weapon, and all we're hearing back is "Death to America!". Iran has proven over and over again that they are our enemy, why should we not take them at their word?
They may not scare us, but that doesn't mean we should disregard them as a threat. A lesson I hoped we had learned after 9-11. I'm not advocating mushroom clouds over Tehran, I am saying we should not give an inch when it comes to sanctions, and start doing whatever needs to be done to make it as unpleasant for them as possible in any part of the world in which they meddle.

I too hope that Israel can take care of itself, but being a friend and ally to the US, do we allow it to be wiped off the map if it cannot?

"Death to America" and "We will annihilate Israel" are basically Iran's national anthem. No threat? I respectfully disagree with you BD.
#9.1.1.1 RR Knight on 2015-03-21 18:58 (Reply)
Roly Poly bugs still get squished.
Ostriches still get shot in the butt.
The terror trainees are returning to the US and Europe. Might be wise to steer clear of the Met.
ICBM's and fallout cannot be avoided by closed eyes.
Israel survives not just by its own wits and bravery but by support and technology from the US as well.
#10 Bruce Kesler on 2015-03-20 21:06 (Reply)
So .... if they made you POTUS tomorrow, Bruce, what could you do to stop Iran from going nuclear?

Will you stop the terror trainees from returning to the USA? How?

Short of either nuking or invading Iran, I see no way to stop them.

Heck, if we couldn't even stop North Korea, how can we stop Iran?
#10.1 feeblemind on 2015-03-21 11:18 (Reply)
Increase the crippling sanctions on Iran, and extend them to any other country -- like Germany -- that seeks to profiteer.
Cooperate -- secretly if need be -- with Israel or Saudi efforts to disrupt and sabotage (Stuxnet was an example) or even bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
Encourage and fund Iranian dissidents.
Strengthen Middle East states, like Egypt and Jordan, that stand athwart Iranian hegemonic efforts.
Increase tracking and punishment of those who support or go to Middle East terror operations and refuse them re-entry to US.
Appoint judges who uphold the anti-terror laws and enforcement.
Increase border security.
I could go on, but you get the point: do what Obama won't, and be willing to fight for it Vs the accomodationists or surrenderists.
#10.1.1 Bruce Kesler on 2015-03-21 11:59 (Reply)
Fake guns are the gateway drug to REAL guns! Everybody knows THAT!
#11 Sam L. on 2015-03-20 23:49 (Reply)

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