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.

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Tuesday, February 23. 2016

Tuesday morning links

The ‘Risen’ movie: an unbeliever confronts the empty tomb


Why Are You Doing Situps? Here's The Truth About Your Gut and Your Health


Squats, deadlifts, and planks best for core strength


How Does It Feel, Chief Justice Roberts, to Hone a Dylan Quote?


Let's See if Sippican Can Tie His Heating System Into His Sewer System


One Man’s Impossible Quest to Read—and Review—the World


Forget What You’ve Heard: Organic Food Is Not Food Grown Without Pesticides


Ten Years Later, the Duke Lacrosse Case Still Reverberates


‘Uncomfortable’ Talk Censored at Williams


Heckler's veto


Chick-fil-A flap rocks another American university


Heckler's veto


Glenn Reynolds: Futuristic data security from a pen and pad


Another sign of de Blasio’s war on welfare reform


New York Magazine: Bring back welfare


Joe Biden says in 1992 that the president shouldn’t name a SCOTUS nominee “once the political season is underway”


VDH, depressed in Weimar America:



In European 1930s street-brawling fashion, no one knows quite whether Trump is a 1990s Clinton Democrat, a 1980s Reagan Republican, or a Perotist misfit. He has thrown a ball and chain through the pretentious glass of American campaigning. Trump excites voters because he can profane, smear, interrupt, fabricate, and be profane—on the premise that as a performance artist he reifies what they think but don’t dare say about a corrupt political class and its warped, politically correct values. Trump reminds Americans what deterrence is: the supposedly courageous media, the so-called truth-to-power leftists, and the sober and judicious careerist politicians are all terrified how he might reply or react to their criticism. None of them want to spend 2-3 days trading smears with Donald Trump.



The Obama Administration Wants to Make Sure Non-Citizens Vote in the Upcoming Election


Hillary and the Honesty Vote


Will Black Voters Leave Hillary's Plantation?


Hillary and the Honesty Vote

French President Threatens To “Suspend” Nations That Elect “Far-Right” Polticians


"There Is Definitely Something Strange Going On" In Sweden


Fake Muslim Refugees Leave Finland for Iraq Because It's Too Cold


Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Police Prepare to Take On Plague Of Leprechauns

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 04:19 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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I worked with one of the accused Duke lacrosse players, shared an office with him briefly. Nice kid, but chastened. I could tell he had an entitled air to him (Dad was well connected, and he eventually left for a better job those connections created).

I also knew (tangentially) one of the players on the team since he'd attended a nearby school and my sons were playing lacrosse at the time.

There's no question these guys put themselves in a precarious situation. Nevertheless, they did nothing 'wrong'. It took a waste of court time to determine this, as the witch hunt that took place sought to out these kids as entitled brats (many of them were) rather than seek the truth about the crime.

But the fact is the Duke case may have been the first of what now seems to be a common political trend on campus - ignoring common sense and fact in order to pursue a political agenda.

That is why so many of those professors, who were very, very wrong in their stance against the players, are still around. Campus academics isn't about pursuing knowledge. It's about selling swill and killing opposing ideas. Duke introduced that situation, allowing it to become mainstream.
#1 Bulldog on 2016-02-23 09:17 (Reply)
Trump is the proverbial bull in the political establishment china shop. But as Mythbusters showed, bulls can be quite agile in a china shop when it suits them.
#2 JK Brown on 2016-02-23 10:30 (Reply)
I just read an interesting quote from someone in the Washington Post reporter about Trump behind the scenes. He is not the blustering fool many on the right and left make him out to be. I wish people would get that. It is a way to get attention, make his case, and blow everyone else out of the way. He has a presidential side to him that he will turn on when necessary.

FIX: Does Trump treat the press corps any differently off camera than he does on camera? Or does he still not interact with you at all — or very little?

Johnson: We have very little interaction with him on a daily basis, but we occasionally get close. The Donald Trump you see in a small setting — a visit to a campaign office, a quick interview backstage, a lunch stop — is a different person than the bellowing, insult-throwing candidate you see on the rally stage. In one-on-one settings, he’s charming, softer spoken and rather relatable. While his nasty, mean comments get the most attention, he’s also capable of being overwhelmingly kind, almost to the point of being uncomfortably kind. I’ve interviewed a number of people who have spent a little bit of time with Trump — big-name endorsers, dedicated volunteers, police officers assigned to protect him — and all remark on how he somehow made them feel like the most important person in the world.
#2.1 MissT on 2016-02-23 12:35 (Reply)
It doesn't surprise me. For all the annoyance of the public persona, the private persona is evidently a very competent businessman who learns from his mistakes. But to the media, that he's made any mistakes at all is proof he's totally unacceptable as a Presidential candidate.

Obama had charisma out the a** when it came to campaigning - but he's proven remarkably inept in the job. I think Trump would do better - the man actually learns from his mistakes and isn't loathe, from what I've heard, to find experts on a subject.

What I worry about is whether or not he'll wake up dead one morning like Scalia.
#2.1.1 JLawson on 2016-02-23 13:11 (Reply)
It's not my place to tell other people's stories. But I know two people who 'know' Trump. One was offered a job to run his AC casinos after a helicopter accident, but didn't take it. The other worked for Trump for several years but hated every minute.

Their stories are different in many ways, primarily due to the proximity each had on a daily basis. The one who worked for Trump was let go, eventually. It's not my story to tell - but let's just say if I told it, you'd realize he may be a good businessman, but he's an utter jerk.

The twist, of course, is that the fellow who turned down the job still won't vote for Trump - for all the same reasons he turned down the job. The one who worked for Trump, and can't stand him, and called him every name in the book after he was let go (for no good reason), is voting for Trump. Why? Because this friend of mine is a borderline fascist and loves all the jingoistic BS Trump spouts.

Neither of them think he's a good guy. In fact, it's his persona - his REAL persona - that they find outlandish and unbearable.

I have no interest in seeing Trump as our president. He reminds me too much of Crassus. That said, I have no interest in seeing any of the main contenders become president. They are all extremely ill-suited for the position.

We really are voting for a bunch of clowns. So I'm just going to write in Bill Murray. If I'm going to have a clown, I want a professional.
#2.1.2 Bulldog on 2016-02-23 16:11 (Reply)
I see where Trump has said as president he will prosecute Hillary. Trump's not my guy but this makes it A LOT easier to vote for him. If he'd add people like Clinton, Koskinen, Holder, et al, it would be easier still.
#2.2 mudbug on 2016-02-23 12:43 (Reply)
That is an excellent point. If he followed through on this and prosecuted Hillary and the others you name, it would be much easier to feel like I was voting for him rather than simply voting against Hillary or Bernie or whomever the Democrats ultimately end up running.
#2.2.1 Kurt on 2016-02-23 19:15 (Reply)
"French President Threatens To “Suspend” Nations That Elect “Far-Right” Polticians"

EU bureaucrats and EUphile politicians are pretty blind to the situation they are creating. They seek to undermine the democratic choices of the Eastern European nations without realizing that the actions by Merkel and Hollande have created the real possibility of a Islamic state sympathetic governments on the European Plain, the traditional invasion route into Russia.

Poland will not let the suicidal tendencies of the Western Europeans make them a target of Russian aggression...again.
#3 JK Brown on 2016-02-23 10:39 (Reply)
As exasperating as I find Mr. Trump, I can't deny the appeal of watching him bat away the ineffectual attempts of his PC critics to cow or shame him. For decades I've watched people I hoped would be my spokesmen, quivering and collapsing after one verbal lapse and seemingly unable to articulate what was wrong with the attacks they were facing. They all spend so much time honing their message so that no one anywhere at any time could twist it into something that wouldn't poll well. Most of them seem to have forgotten what they'd like to say. I'd be even happier if someone whose ideas I trust could learn from him how not to wilt under pressure from a hostile media.
#4 Texan99 on 2016-02-23 10:39 (Reply)
"I have binders full of women I'll be getting into my adminstration" got totally twisted out of context. And in the rush of the professionally offended media to be offended, it got lost that what Romney was talking about was diversity.

Trump's like that honey badger video that circulated a few years back. He just doesn't care about their criticisms. Would that make him a good President?

I don't know - but it's a quality I'd like to see in ANY president, a willingness to understand that when dealing with the lions of international diplomacy the fleas of the media aren't worth even acknowledging.
#4.1 JLawson on 2016-02-23 13:21 (Reply)
Yes, the "binders full of women" nonsense was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. A candidate who can't talk himself out of that one is hopeless, even making allowances for the completely dishonest idiocy of the press's reaction. In fact, that's the point. Romney gave the impression that, faced with dishonest idiotic hostility from the press, all he could do was mumble and cringe.
#4.1.1 Texan99 on 2016-02-24 14:24 (Reply)
The "entitled air" of the Duke athletes as referenced by Bulldog above was learned at the knees of our "entitled" politicians, corporate elites and their media propagandists. What I love most about Trump is his total disregard for being manipulated by popularity or lack thereof as reported by and structured by these flakes. I have watched him for years as he built a high-end empire -- not his father's post-WWII projects -- in risky marketplaces, always amazed as he honed his skills to deal with dirty politics, labor unions and financing challenges in bubbles and recessions. He brings the same jazz shoes to the presidential stage.
#5 jma on 2016-02-23 12:06 (Reply)
"Fake Muslim Refugees Leave Finland for Iraq Because It's Too Cold"

It's like they say in North Dakota - "Forty below keeps out the riff-raff."
#6 RonF on 2016-02-23 15:26 (Reply)

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