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

Monday, June 11. 2018

Monday morning links

 Why predicting suicide is a difficult and complex challenge


 Fifty Years after Tet


Study: Dog parks are manifestations of rape culture and oppression


 Cultural-Marxist Left Doesn't Like Term 'Cultural Marxism'


 Manhattan Doctor Sues Patient For $1 Million For Posting Negative Reviews Online


 High Tech Oligarchs for Diversity


 Real Life Feminist Bookstore From “Portlandia” Closing, Blames Cis White People


Vermont Subsidizes Remote Workers to Move to the State


Z-man on the free market ideology:



 Libertarians and “conservatives” will read this and reflexively start chirping about free markets and invisible hands, but there is a reason they are now a punchline. That’s because these are ideologies, if you want to be generous and elevate them to ideologies, that make all the same assumptions about humanity as the Marxists. That is, they see man as the ultimate consumer, a beast that devours his environment, in the same way a plague of locusts wipes out a field...


OK, but there is a freedom issue 

 Crisis at the National Archives


 PRO-TRUMP JEWS ARE THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ZIONISM


Vox:  Study: telling white people they’ll be outnumbered makes them hate welfare more - White racism keeps hurting programs that help the poor.


 More Asylum Seekers Game America’s Immigration System


 The Cambridge Fossil Fuel Divestment Plan Goes Up In Smoke


 Bill Clinton’s Me Too Reckoning


Lawmakers Warn IG Being Pressured to Slow Roll Clinton FBI Report - Concern mounts as DOJ and FBI seek redactions and weaken report


 Media blackout: Trump’s 60-point accomplishment list of ‘American Greatness’


Steve Hilton: Trump’s criticism of G-7 is ‘unprecedented’ scream the elite -- That’s the whole point of Trump!


 TRUMP NAILS TRADE HYPOCRISY


 ABC Depicts ‘Hindu’ Terrorist Plot on Pakistan in “Quantico” Episode


Italy’s “populist” government


 An Iraqi threat goes mainstream

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:49 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

G-7 Okay, so I am cynical. When I look at the political leadership of these countries, I wonder who they represent, their working people or the Davos caste (aka the donor class)(multinationalists, globalists, financialists)? No question, Trump is rocking their yachts.
#1 Exasperated on 2018-06-11 08:52 (Reply)
G-7 Okay, so I am cynical. When I look at the political leadership of these countries, I wonder who they represent, their working people or the Davos caste (aka the donor class)(multinationalists, globalists, financialists)? No question, Trump is rocking their yachts.
#2 Exasperated on 2018-06-11 09:07 (Reply)
Sorry I got an error message after the first post.
#3 Exasperated on 2018-06-11 09:10 (Reply)
Obviously, there was an error, just not yours.
#3.1 JK Brown on 2018-06-11 16:16 (Reply)
Re the Portland bookstore...

E-readers are simply more handy, and I doubt they had anything in paper that couldn't be gotten on-line. Specialty and niche bookstores have a really hard time surviving unless they've got a real hook - and you're constantly having to get new customers.

"... citing low energy from the community, drops in sales, rising rents, and, of course, cis white people." - Of the four things there, the last is least important.
#4 JLawson on 2018-06-11 09:45 (Reply)
"White racism keeps hurting programs that help the poor.

The HUGE elephant in the room here is the [i]false[/u]presumption that income redistribution overseen by the State, in the guise of "programs that help the poor," actually HELP THE POOR!

They do not automatically help the poor and the raft of unintended bad consequences of such programs, continue to be justified by the lame excuse of "Gee, we had the best of intentions." Rather than eliminating these bad programs, they are kept alive forever with little change in outcomes. That's what white, or heck, any thinking people resent: the continued throwing of their cash (the State does not generate the cash used for these programs) at problems of the poor, with no results!
#5 B48 (Link) on 2018-06-11 10:11 (Reply)
Wait, those programs DO produce results!

It keeps the recipients dependent on the programs.

It makes the folks pushing the programs feel good.

And in election years, "Hey, ya wanna keep the handouts? Better vote for us, or you'll lose 'em!" is a GREAT motivator.
#5.1 JLawson on 2018-06-11 12:19 (Reply)
Also provides bullshit jobs for the mostly unemployable.
#5.1.1 Fjord on 2018-06-11 16:54 (Reply)
It is important to note that most of the money (taxes) to fund the system that (supposedly) helps the poor comes out of those white people's pockets. I believe that the "racism" they refer to is when some poor schlub taxpayer cis gender white person discovers that they can't afford to send their own kids to college because the government is taking to much of their money to pay for free college for illegal aliens and other hangers on that they become resentful. The racists bastards were supposed to empty their pockets, drop their drawers and grab their ankles. Don't they know their place yet???
#5.2 OneGuy on 2018-06-11 18:55 (Reply)
"ABC depicts Hindu terrorist plot against Pakistan"

Someone at ABC didn't get the memo. You cannot demonize just anyone. So while there is a clear effort by the PC police to allow no Islamophobia (even if it is actually truthful) you cannot just substitute any old group as the bad guys. You can always demonize Hitler and the Nazis, Hollywood has been doing this for years even when it didn't even fit the plot. You can now demonize white men and Great Britain. Maybe they should have had Queen Elizabeth attack Pakistan. Or they could probably have chosen Christians...
#6 OneGuy on 2018-06-11 10:14 (Reply)
As Pakistan instigates much more terror in India than India instigates terror in Pakistan, that ABC show about "Hindu" terror in Pakistan is comical.

I was visiting my brother when the Bombay/Mumbai bombing occurred. My immediate reaction: Pakistan's ISI was behind it. Which turned out to be the case.
#6.1 Gringo on 2018-06-11 13:21 (Reply)
I was in the Navy on a destroyer during the Vietnam war and we shot gunfire support for the Army and Marines. After Tet we joked that there was nothing left to shoot at. The NVA and VC were crushed but you wouldn't know that from reading the papers. One of the sailors parents sent him the Miami Herald and according to the paper Tet was a disaster for us. We joked that the Miami Herald should be printed on pink paper to show their true colors. I became very cynical about the media and concluded they were all liars.
#7 Ray on 2018-06-11 11:07 (Reply)
Ray, excellent and accurate evidence-based conclusion. I would ad an adjective: "unethical liars"

Some prosper by just spewing hate. But most prosper and advance by secret liaison with "sources" (or in the case of a NYT reporter, horizontal lays-on with a source). The "sources" at the FBI, CIA, West Wing, Congress are symbiotic with the media to advance their agendas, personal or institutional. The "unethical liar" media may not believe any of this crap they report, but it is their livlihood and position they need to protect.
If the Justice Department is finally prosecuting leakers, it may be possible that incumbent leak-recipients could be be partially replaced by actual journalists. Maybe too optimistic?
#7.1 jaybird on 2018-06-11 11:30 (Reply)
sorry to belabor the point, but I just saw this machiavelli quote , which unsurprisingly Machiavelli says better than I ever could about the emnity of the "old media" trying to protect the system with their "old sources"
:
“It must be always be remembered; there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones. ”
#7.1.1 jaybird on 2018-06-11 14:52 (Reply)
It would seem the media slutwalkers haven't changed a bit since VN. They spent most of their time in bars hoping to catch leaks from an occasional REMF or more likely a political attache. Now they just shag the leakers in DC in order to save their expense account for other earthly delights.
#7.2 indyjonesouthere on 2018-06-11 13:05 (Reply)
The Tet Offensive was a suicide mission that the NV knew would create terrible press for the Americans. It was a calculated decision to turn the American public away from the war. During this time the American communist were taking orders from Russia and almost all of the demonstrations against the war were directed, controlled and funded by the communists. True, most of the hippies and college draft dodgers were clueless who was leading them, still clueless I might add.

Interesting juxtaposition that the American communists are still active funding most of the demonstrations against Trump and the conservatives. Antifa is a communist group as are the pink pussy hat marchers. And of course the Democrats, no not all of them, perhaps only 25% of our elected Democrats are connected to or actively communists. But 100% of the Democrats march to the tune the communist backers are playing. This is a serious and deadly game they are playing. If I were Trump I would not ride in any convertibles. Trump is a real pain in the ass to those who would like to take over our government.
#7.3 Anon on 2018-06-11 19:05 (Reply)
Re: Free market ideology

The free market, as is said of democracy, is the worst possible way to run things, except for all the other ways that have been tried. Decry the "race to the bottom" all you want, the big heartless corporations didn't run friendly neighborhood Mom and Pop out of business by offering lower prices minus the service and the local connections, it was Mom and Pop's customers who decided Mom and Pop's friendly service wasn't worth paying an extra nickel for. You want to whine about everybody else doing the same thing you're doing - trying to get by the best they can. They just make choices you don't agree with. It's absurd to argue that free market supporters are akin to Marxists in their view as Man as an economic animal - Marx was right and Man is an economic animal. It's just that the cost of something - as is pointed out in the very article itself - isn't measured simply in dollars and cents. What else is it saying if not that the cost we're paying for saving a few dollars is too high a price - and how is that not an economic argument? So the only question is: who gets to decide what "too high a price" is? You leave people to their own devices and you wind up with a bunch of people shopping at Walmart and a bunch of people whining about how people shouldn't be shopping at Walmart because they're too stupid to know what's for their own good. The alternative is somebody or some group of somebodies deciding they know better what's for your own good and having the power to enforce their opinion on everybody else, and thousands of years of history should teach us that that never ends well. Me? I shop at Walmart. You're free to shop at Mom and Pop's all you want. Now go away and stop pestering me.
#8 Jerryskids on 2018-06-11 15:46 (Reply)
The free market is best understood as an impersonal force, like gravity. It is not the only force in the world and with enough energy can be offset, much as an airplane can fly on the basis of its expended energy. That doesn't mean that gravity has stopped working.

People can invest energy in other things that are not the free market. They can support families, be generous to others, try and preserve culture, or a thousand other valuable things. That does not mean that the free market is not still operating, only that it is being offset in some way. Libertarians and conservatives are not unaware of this and do not claim that the free market solves everything. They merely respect its existence and take it into account, knowing that it does not stop working just because we would rather some other reality to be true.

BTW, I never use the term capitalism anymore except to correct it. It is an inaccurate name perpetuated by the left to give the impression that money can only be made by pre-investment by rich people into businesses, which thereafter merely collect money from helpless customers. This was not half true even in the age of the robber barons, and is far less than half-true now.
#8.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-06-12 10:10 (Reply)
Re: Manhattan Dr sues patient for negative online reviews.

Good for him.

I don't think it's a good idea to give much credibility to online reviews. There are too many idiots out there who love to complain and gripe.

I felt bad for a company here in Maine that provided overnight sailing excursions that went out of business when someone wrote a bad review. All of their business came from online bookings and the review kept popping up.
#9 LP on 2018-06-11 18:09 (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.