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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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
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Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
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Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
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Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
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Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Monday, September 9. 2019

Monday morning links


Does guzzling diet soda lead to an early demise?


I am skeptical 


 68% of the World’s Population Will Live in Urban Areas by 2050. Can Cities Adapt?


 Howard Zinn's American Holocaust


Coddling college campuses and a crippled culture - If the snowflake insanity persists, so will the demand for 'safe spaces'


High gasoline prices: Isn't that what the left wanted? 


Chick-fil-A opens first international store as eager customers step over bodies of 'die-in' protesters


 TRUMP HONORS JERRY WEST, NEW YORK TIMES IMPLIES RACISM


At Am. Thinker:





It may come as news to the #MeToo generation, but women have sexual power over men.  It's so potent that in some societies (Muslims et al.), it is brutally reined in.  This sexual power has to be acknowledged and respected, and it is precisely what civilization arose to hold in check.  We're not talking about some playful, casual one-off, but rather the volcanic energies surging deep within the human psyche.  As with all powerful natural forces, it can engender great beauty in addition to great savagery.





 Joe Biden in New Hampshire: “I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuel” …Idiot Leftists Clap Like Monkeys


 20,000 new NYC homes/businesses NEED natural gas before winter but pipeline blockades won’t allow it…climate activism/energy ignorance roll the dice with thousands of lives at stake




 Soccer Team Tells Couple Flying Betsy Ross Flag: Take It Down, It's A Symbol Of Hatred And Intolerance


Since when? 


Via Ace,   What happened to universities in the '70s?


 Kamala: Forcing Gun Owners Into Buyback Programs? Count Me In!


 De Blasio wants to snuff out charter schools — the bright light of NYC schools


Save us from the pointless burdens of the TSA


I am still annoyed they took my dangerous jar of Amish mustard at the Columbus airport


 6.2 Million Americans Drop off Food Stamps Under Trump — Saving the Country $750 Million Annually


That sounds good 


 Baltimore On Track For Record Homicides As City Descends Into Chaos 


City needs a Giuliani 


 Climate Experts Want More Nuclear Power. Sanders And Warren Pledged To Eliminate It


 The Russia Hoax: What Obama and Brennan knew, and when they knew it.


 Anti-Trump dossier played role in launching probe, contrary to Comey, FBI claims


 Democrats Preparing to Resume Push for Impeachment


For what is unclear 


 IT'S NOT A STORY UNLESS THERE'S A TRUMP-BASHING ANGLE


Yep. 


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:10 | Comments (25) | Trackbacks (0)

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I've been seeing Chick-Fil-A billboards for years without giving a moment's thought to patronizing their restaurants--until all this nonsense erupted, which has made me curious. I still haven't run into one of their restaurants, but when I do I'll surely try them out. Ditto the Betsy Ross flag: it never before occurred to me to fly one, but now I'm motivated. Anyone who's offended by my flag should consider it the moral equivalent of my taking a knee. You don't like my symbolic expression? Oh, is that a thing now? As Dave Chappelle says, "If I'm wrong, maybe we're wrong." Time for one of those uncomfortable conversations, ready when you are.
#1 Texan99 on 2019-09-09 07:39 (Reply)
My kids now fly a BR flag at their house. A lovely flag.
#1.1 Bird Dog on 2019-09-09 07:55 (Reply)
They opened one in our city's original mall back in the mid-70s. My office was close to the mall, so I tried a Chick-Fil-A. Too bland for my 40ish taste, and I never went back. Both my office and the mall have been gone for well over 20 years; don't know whether there's still a Chick-Fil-A in town.
#1.2 William E. Harris on 2019-09-09 10:45 (Reply)
Get the nuggets, not the sandwich. They're fine. Not to die for, but it's fast food, and something that is "just fine" is actually excellent in that context.
#1.2.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-09-09 16:23 (Reply)
I've never been a huge fan of chicken sandwiches, but theirs was good.
There's one not too far from us--but when I'm that close to home I tend to just go home to eat. Local fast-food places don't get a lot of our business.
#1.2.2 James the lesser (Link) on 2019-09-09 20:49 (Reply)
So for Democrats -

They're going to eliminate fossil fuels. (But NOT go nuclear.)
Mandate vegetarianism.
Force gun buybacks to take care of a nearly nonexistent problem, turning us all into Chicago or London.
Attempt to push population control on other countries.

Yeah, that's gonna get them a win.
#2 JLawson on 2019-09-09 08:27 (Reply)
Re the food stamp story, as usual with the media the arithmetic doesn’t work. Story says average benefit is $121 per month which with 6.2 million people is c. $9 billion annually not $750million.
Your site is wonderful and brings joy to many every day. Few people can say that of their endeavors.
#3 RickinJax on 2019-09-09 09:17 (Reply)
The story is OK: $750MM/month or $9BB/year. The tagline here just mixed the monthly and annual figures.
#3.1 Texan99 on 2019-09-09 12:47 (Reply)
Ending fossil fuels? Besides the obvious loss of heating oil, killing transportation (good bye food supply), do those clapping for fossil fuel demise, understand how many products are derived from petroleum? These people are scary ignorant. And they’ll vote for this crap in droves.
#4 B. Hammer on 2019-09-09 09:19 (Reply)
Quite right, B Hammer.

The elimination of fossil fuels would be nothing short of catastrophic. . . . . And yet these people cheer the idea.

It leads one to wonder if they got complete control of the government, would really pull the trigger and ban fossil fuels? It would be national suicide. Has our culture become so self-loathing that we would actually do that?

It's worrisome to think they might.
#4.1 feeblemind on 2019-09-09 09:33 (Reply)
there won't be any food TO transport with no fossil fuels.

Fertilizer is derived from oil refining. The only reason that less than 1% of the population can farm and feed the country AND a large part of the world.
#4.2 fjord on 2019-09-09 10:16 (Reply)
Just like they would vote to ban DHMO (di-hydrogen monoxide).

https://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
#4.3 Jim (Link) on 2019-09-09 15:50 (Reply)
Those clapping would not be survivors...everything that happened after a ban would be a surprise to them and they can't handle surprises. They only handle safe spaces.
#4.4 indyjonesouthere on 2019-09-09 16:30 (Reply)
re High gasoline prices: Isn't that what the left wanted?

This is a typical politician's response to high prices. Ignore the confiscatory tax rate and blame the suppliers for price gouging.

One wonders how many people, even in California, believe this after all the recent heft gas tax increases.

However, the voters put these people in power. They have no one to blame but themselves.
#5 feeblemind on 2019-09-09 09:43 (Reply)
feeblemind, you got the answer to ALL of the above in your penultimate sentence. The voters who keep electing all of the idiots in congress, and mayors, and all the rest of government. And, no, they don't have a clue where their choices will lead. Not that they would care, anyway. Some one else will pay, they think.
#6 mary on 2019-09-09 10:19 (Reply)
I think I've seen a Chick-Fil-A store, but I've never been in one. Don't have one anywhere near where I live.

Black Rhino story: Strengthens my distrust of the media.

Kamala: Forcing gun owners into buyback programs? I don't have any "assault rifles", but I do have some "assault screwdrivers" and "assault wrenches", and somewhere I have an "assault hammer"...OH, and "assault screws", too!
#7 Sam L. on 2019-09-09 11:12 (Reply)
Hmmmmmmmmm . . . .

Detective Who Led Epstein Investigation Died After “Brief Illness” At 50

https://dcdirtylaundry.com/media-blackout-detective-who-led-epstein-investigation-died-after-brief-illness-at-50/
#8 feeblemind on 2019-09-09 14:01 (Reply)
26% increase in diet soda death? That could be as simple as in increase in from 1 in a 80 people to about 2 in a 80. Would an increase like that actually bother anyone, even if guaranteed proven? Maybe, maybe not.

What is important to know here, in ALL of these moronic studies is the relative risk compared to absolute risk.

They simply report the figure that makes the title of the clickbait look the best, or worst, depending on the goal.

The second most important thing is to look at who paid for any study. A study saying gum chewing is good paid for by Wrigley would have less value than a study saying gum chewing is bad paid for by Dentists.

I found all this out when the Dr started me on statins and I had a bad reaction. Relative risk, absolute risk, and in medicine number needed to treat. Understand them all.

Time frame matters too. According to The NNT Group, statin drugs given for five years, in order to prevent heart disease in people who have no history of heart disease, is 104. That means that 104 people have to take statins in order to prevent one extra person from having a heart attack. The NNT Group calculates the number needed to harm (NNH) as well. According to its findings, one in 50 people on statins develops diabetes and one in ten experiences muscle damage as defined as rhabdomyolysis. Undiagnosed muscle pain, such as myalgia, wasn’t included.

In comparison, the Mediterranean diet has been studied in a large randomized trial and is included on The NNT website. When followed for five years, the Mediterranean diet has an NNT of 61 for preventing stroke, heart attack or death with no harms noted. So, according to The NNT, the Mediterranean diet appears to be a better choice than statins for primary prevention of stroke, heart attack or death.

I was one who ended up with a severe myalgia that took a year to go away, almost taking me out on disability. I risked the chance it might NEVER go away but thank God it is 98% gone. And who knows, after 20 years I might have been another lucky diabetic........ all for a less than negligible benefit, if any at all.
#9 LibDis on 2019-09-09 14:33 (Reply)
"68% of the World’s Population Will Live in Urban Areas by 2050. Can Cities Adapt?"

Good way to kill off a far number of the world's population. Very little of urban infrastructure has to fail or stop being enforced for disease to run rampant.

There is the problem that cities promote group think and the suppression of the freedom of thought.

QUOTE:
Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are catchpenny phrases. There is much of the former, but very little of the latter. Speech is generally the result of automatic thought rather than of ratiocination. Independent thought is of all mental processes the most difficult and the most rare; habit, tradition, and reverence for antiquity unite to forbid it, and these combined influences are strengthened by the law of heredity. The tendency to automatic action of the mind is still further promoted by the environment of modern life. The crowding of populations into cities, and the division and subdivision of labor in the factory and the shop, and even in the so-called learned professions, have a tendency to increase the dependence of the individual upon the mass of society. And this interdependence of the units of society renders them more and more imitative, and hence more and more automatic both mentally and physically.
—Charles H. Ham, Mind and Hand: manual training, the chief factor in education (1900)


And city government doesn't lend itself to republican governance. Fiske theorized this was due to the nature of the intimate services the cities provide, for which the citizen must trust the "expert" often to their regret. We've seen similar impact at the federal level in the 20th century as the presidency is often more like a super-mayor with a squabbling super-city council in Congress.

QUOTE:
City governments thus constituted are something like state governments in miniature. The relation of the mayor to the city council is somewhat like that of the governor to the state legislature, and of the president to the national congress. In theory nothing could well be more republican, or more unlike such city governments as those of New York and Philadelphia before the Revolution. Yet in practice it does not seem to work well. New York and Philadelphia seem to have heard as many complaints in the nineteenth century as in the eighteenth, and the same kind of complaints, of excessive taxation, public money wasted or embezzled, ill-paved and dirty streets, inefficient police, and so on to the end of the chapter. In most of our large cities similar evils have been witnessed, and in too many of the smaller ones the trouble seems to be the same in kind, only less in degree. Our republican government, which, after making all due allowances, seems to work remarkably well in rural districts, and in the states, and in the nation, has certainly been far less successful as applied to cities. Accordingly our cities have come to furnish topics for reflection to which writers and orators fond of boasting the unapproachable excellence of American institutions do not like to allude. Fifty years ago we were wont to speak of civil government in the United States as if it had dropped from heaven or had been specially created by some kind of miracle upon American soil ; and we were apt to think that in mere republican forms there was some kind of mystic virtue which made them a panacea for all political evils. Our later experience with cities has rudely disturbed this too confident frame of mind. It has furnished facts which do not seem to fit our self-complacent theory, so that now our writers and speakers are inclined to vent their spleen upon the unhappy cities, perhaps too unreservedly.
--Civil Government in the United States (1902), John Fiske
#10 JK Brown on 2019-09-09 15:05 (Reply)
Ask Bill Nye the Science Fraud how much he got payed to be the spokesman for his scam Activeion water ionizers (which are essentially $329 water bottles).
#11 Rusty on 2019-09-09 15:28 (Reply)
Howard Zinn. So he wasn't accurate, did no research, and had a political agenda. Why does anyone at MF think that matters? So retrograde.
#12 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-09-09 16:27 (Reply)
There are too many Howard Zinns in education...they act as the administrative state. The Zinns keep poisoning the minds of students along with the education schools. Government can not be trusted to run education or health care.
#13 indyjonesouthere on 2019-09-09 16:44 (Reply)
"The Russia Hoax: What Obama and Brennan knew, and when they knew it."

QUOTE:
"The scope and magnitude of what Durham is actually investigating will shock the conscience of most Americans. It reaches back to at least 2012. It goes well beyond FISA warrants."


I'll believe it when I see it. That being said, it has always seemed to me that Roberts was compromised when he wrote the decision upholding Obamacare. He had to ignore a lot of basic constitutional law to get to the conclusion he came out with.
#14 Jim on 2019-09-09 20:56 (Reply)
re TRUMP HONORS JERRY WEST, NEW YORK TIMES IMPLIES RACISM

This would be consistent with the recent NYT staff meeting where Pinch suggested they connect every article about Trump to racism.
#15 feeblemind on 2019-09-10 00:04 (Reply)
"Mets Split Doubleheader, Cite Trump Racism."
"China Faces Pork Shortage Following Racist Trump Tweets."

Babylon Bee could have a good time with this.
#15.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2019-09-10 13:41 (Reply)

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