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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Tuesday, June 27. 2017

Tuesday morning links

The $100 billion per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax


 The Secret Cold War History of a Ruined Long Island Estate


For a daily testosterone fix I get my kicks on Sociopathic Boys 66


Cool hot rod video 


Conversational Narcissism


Kling:  I say that academic economics is on the road to sociology.


 The War on Work—and How to End It - An agenda to address joblessness, the great American domestic crisis of the twenty-first century


 Buffett’s Vice Chair – Al Gore Is ‘An Idiot’ Who Just Got Lucky Obsessing About ‘Climate Change’


Affirmative action in med school admissions 


Mansfield speaks: Venerable Harvard professor laments the ruination of higher education


 UC San Diego Students Actually Protested Dalai Lama Over His Lack of Tolerance


Dallas city councilcritter:



...  it is just infuriating. We have people come down here saying ‘please don’t take my property’, and because they’re just an ordinary person we take their property. But this guy’s rich enough to fight us for years and so he is gunna win. It’s just so maddening”



BLM goes to war against LGBT 


 Feminist Mag Calls on White Women to Fight Supremacy by Aborting All of Their White Babies


 Seattle's Painful Lesson on the Road to a $15 Minimum Wage - The experiment has hurt low-wage workers, cutting their earnings by $172 a month.


 Amazon Robots Poised to Revamp How Whole Foods Runs Warehouses


 The Genius of Trump’s Tweets


 A Truck Stop Teaches Mark Zuckerberg That Politics Is Hard


CNN producer says Russia story is bullshit 


 Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe?


 Byron York: On Russia, a senator's deception and a timeline of Trump frustration


 Three CNN Employees Resign Over Botched Trump-Russia Story


Fired by CNN for fake news? Really? 


Sketchy Media Now Retreating From Sketchy Russian Conspiracy Reports…


 Central European Nations Unite Against EU on Migrants


Sold their sovereignty for a bowl of lentils 



Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:00 | Comments (21) | Trackbacks (0)

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Ref Medusa

Probably a put-on. This website just appeared out of nowhere, no history of other articles.
#1 jay on 2017-06-27 08:34 (Reply)
Years ago, a person I respect asked me if I wanted to be treated by the affirmative action doctor or a doctor who got into med school the usual way.
#2 mary on 2017-06-27 09:22 (Reply)
Re: Seattle's $15 minimum wage

Price controls still don't work. Whoda thunk?
#3 mudbug on 2017-06-27 09:33 (Reply)
What these politicians don't recognize about minimum wage is it usually applies to people without experience and the wage of the person training them has to be costed into the big picture. If you have a person who is typically worth $50 an hour having to give time to train a newbie, that ups the cost of new employees.

Frankly, when I first started working, I would have done the job for free if it taught me something I needed to know to be valuable in the marketplace. Thankfully, the woman who hired me (for the summer when I was 13) paid me $1.25/hour AND I learned a great deal about the mechanics of sales. Invaluable experience. Finding a job after that was never a problem…and for a much greater paycheck than most my age.
#3.1 jma on 2017-06-27 11:52 (Reply)
I agree that they are ignoring the details for their own political agenda at the expense of the less experienced workers. My point is applies even without the details you mention. Assigning a price to an item (including labor) that is either too high or too low will eventually lead to disruptions and the greater the disparity between the arbitrary price and the "real" price, the quicker the disparities show up.
#3.1.1 mudbug on 2017-06-27 12:50 (Reply)
The minimum wage is mainly a gimmick of the unions. All union contracts are tied to the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is increased, union wage scales slide up accordingly.

Benefits the union worker, but tends to put more and more non-union workers out of work as employers cut back on employees to compensate.

Another progressive scam.
#3.2 Jim on 2017-06-27 12:05 (Reply)
Minimum wage laws were also racist in intent. They knew that if you priced the value of labor above what most blacks could produce, they would take the hit and the politician would look good with his racist buddies while claiming to care for the downtrodden.
#3.2.1 mudbug on 2017-06-27 12:55 (Reply)
Did the FBI retaliate agajnst Mike Flynn?

This entire "the Russians are coming" fiasco is finally being exposed. But this is an new and interesting twist. More and more the FBI and out top three intelligence agencies appear to be a hotbed of lies, leaks and losers. Where are the perp walks and arrests of these people? Will any of them even be charged? Drain the swamp!
#4 GoneWithTheWind on 2017-06-27 10:18 (Reply)
Yes, I am fascinated by this, too. Why do corrupt people end up in positions of power? Why does no one stop them? You'd think the sexual harassment story would be catnip for the media, but yet we hear nothing much about it until now?

I am hoping for a thorough clean out. But we need to have patience. Sessions has only been in his position for 4 months. Think of the crap he has to clean up. It's EVERYWHERE.

Since the quick taking down of Reality Winner and the new diplomat-turn-China-spy, I think things are heating up in the DOJ office. Once Christopher Wray gets into the FBI see some more of it. McCabe may be only working with Sessions b/c DOJ got a hold of Comey's files...and McCabe can't cover his butt any more.
#4.1 MissT on 2017-06-27 11:14 (Reply)
It would be greatly pleasing to see some of the corruption prosecuted. This is the same problem with all bureaucracies--the people in them want to maintain the status quo or grow to insure their jobs. You can even see it in the small county where I live. Once a person becomes part of the machine, it is difficult for them to resist wanting to preserve it and the power it affords.
#4.1.1 mary on 2017-06-27 12:19 (Reply)
Part of the problem is the system in place for promotion in gov't. It's like the military, check all the boxes, have the right 'time in a position,' and you MUST be promoted. Has nothing to do with job performance really. When I saw this in action while in the Navy, I realized that the government was not the place for me. I wanted to be acknowledged for my talents and skills and not be promoted due to 'checking the boxes.' I think many good workers are like this. The idea of a gov't system that does not reward the best with promotions is socialist in nature and not attractive for many who believe hard work gets you noticed.
#4.1.1.1 MissT on 2017-06-27 14:08 (Reply)
Checking all the boxes does NOT guarantee promotion, when there are more people than promotion slots.
#4.1.1.1.1 Sam L. on 2017-06-27 16:27 (Reply)
Corrupted people appoint or install corrupted people who also appoint or install corrupted people. It is the reason nearly every institution in this country is in the gutter, and face down in the gutter. Politics may be the worst but it is even in the churches, education, military, finance, wall street and government in general. It is never corrected until it becomes so painful and costly to the public that they leave the transgressors hanging from the lamp posts.
#4.2 indyjonesouthere on 2017-06-27 16:03 (Reply)
I can see Chinese students protesting the Dalai Lama, given the Chinese takeover of Tibet.

Dallas City Council loses: Oh! The JOY!

This Pride fooferah is such a BUMMER! (Can I say that?)

It's good to see some European countries interested in preserving themselves.
#5 Sam L. on 2017-06-27 10:36 (Reply)
Yes, it's really bad - the laws of supply and demand are such that by the time you get to the MD/PhD level, there is out-of-control competition by institutions for black and Hispanic people.

My sister is the director of a research institute that focuses on health care economics. It is almost impossible for her to find qualified black faculty members. One faculty member was tenure track but she never published a peer-review article, didn't really understand statistics, and didn't change her work products when she was counseled halfway through the tenure track to publish in peer-reviewed journals (she had been publishing case reports but hadn't actually done any, you know, data analysis).

My sister was really, really worried because this MD was black, female, and a Jehovah's Witness - a triple threat in terms of the EEOC lawsuit she would have undoubtedly filed had she not gotten tenure. And my sister in good conscience couldn't recommend this person for tenure. At the last minute she gave her notice and went to another position, one with less research requirements.

So what happened next? My sister got criticized by the university for not having a more diverse research staff.
#6 JM01 on 2017-06-27 12:41 (Reply)
FEMINISM or FEMALE MAFIA ?

I was once referred to a specialist at a university hospital. When I got to that department the woman at the desk told me I had to see the newly arrived female doctor, or I would have to go somewhere else. She made it very clear that women have to support female doctors no matter how qualified !

That brings to mind the question I have been meaning to put forward for MF folks to consider. Do you understand that the feminist leadership now openly supports the "female mafia" organizational model and all the corrupt brutality that that model implies. Maybe more white guys should have stood up to them before we got to this place.
#7 faculty wife on 2017-06-27 13:23 (Reply)
In 1976 when I started Emory medical school, there was a black female in her 4th year of trying to make it through the first year. A white student would have been sent packing 2 or 3 years earlier. Emory was determined to graduate her and did; I always pitied her patients. That same year, across Atlanta, Morehouse opened a non-accredited black medical school. The first several years, Morehouse graduates received a diploma that said they had attended Emory University School of Medicine, so patients would never know, unless told, that their doctor never darkened (pardon my racism and privilege) the door of Emory. Funny to me was an undergraduate white classmate of mine, who couldn't get into medical school anywhere else, applied to Morehouse as an Affirmative Action minority student, had to fight it in court, and won. He graduated first, top of the class, in Morehouse's first graduating class. We've laughed about that more than once.
#8 twolaneflash on 2017-06-27 14:18 (Reply)
For $50 I'll tell each them why their back hurts. Eh, on reconsideration, I'll do it for free right now; "You're Fat!"
#9 Fred on 2017-06-27 19:01 (Reply)
When I was in my 20's (and not fat!) I had back problems all of the time. I was extremely lucky that our company doctor was Dr. Kenneth Riland, a famous NY Osteopath. While most doctors would give you muscle relaxers that would take a few weeks to work, Dr. Riland could contort my back and I was without pain in seconds. He was a truly gifted physician and I was very fortunate to have him as a doctor. I've never met a doctor before or since with his talent.
#9.1 DMW on 2017-06-28 07:58 (Reply)
Maggies. How many ways do I love thee?
#10 jma on 2017-06-27 19:22 (Reply)
Bird Dog: Fired by CNN for fake news? Really?

Mainstream news organizations, such as CNN, are far from perfect, but conflating that with purveyors of fake news is why you are so surprised.

--
Fake news, sources that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news.
#11 Zachriel on 2017-06-27 21:50 (Reply)

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