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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Monday, May 4. 2026

Monday morning links

Nature vs nurture: How much of our personalities are determined at birth?



"Limiting food and water has been used to hasten death in people dying at home since long before it had a formal name."


Yale Class Day speakers: Only 1 Republican over span of nearly 50 years


Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI


Starbucks flight: Seattle chooses decline


TGIF: A New Tux on the Dirty Hilton Floor


Heavy on sarcasm 


Jonathan Turley vs. the Mob


Now That’s How You Get People Off Food Stamps!


Guess Who’s Big Mad They Can’t Buy Junk Food With Your Tax Money Anymore

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:06 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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The heritability article is welcome and gets a good deal of it right, but makes some common mistakes. Polygenic traits are an important modification to our older idea that a few big-ticket genes made you "musical," or "athletic," or "even-tempered." Thousands of things go into making you taller or smarter, for example, including energy processing and genes turning other genes on and off.

But noting that 40% of something is heritable does not mean that the other 60% is environmental in the usual sense. Most (some would say all) of it is random. Who your childhood friends are is not that malleable by the parents. The people in your age cohort in your town are who they are. What book you pick up, what field trip you go on, what musical instrument you choose can remake who your friends are in a year. There are a thousand tiny accidents every day, and we don't know which will be important. Shared environment - that is the environment that your parents intentionally design for you - has diminishing effect as long as you live with them and falls to very little afterward. Our retrospective evaluation of what we learned from our parents usually overlooks that it is what we chose to learn, or even happened to learn. Our siblings were right there, but learned something else.
#1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2026-05-04 08:50 (Reply)
Good points - since you're the only one to comment on the genetic article, I'll add this friendly, periodic reminder here:

NO genetic cause has ever been found for homosexuality, lesbianism, or transexuality.

NOBODY is "born that way".
There is no justification for sexual indoctrination in schools.
There is No Such Thing as a child who must be "protected" from their traditional-minded parents and handed over to "affirming" counselors and educators - which is often just thinly-veiled grooming.
#1.1 BenDavid on 2026-05-05 05:55 (Reply)
BenDavid: NO genetic cause has ever been found for homosexuality, lesbianism, or transexuality.

No single gene has been identified that determines heterosexual attraction, just as no single gene has been identified that determines homosexual attraction. Like intelligence, human sexual orientation appears to be polygenic.

When did you first notice your heterosexual attraction? Would you say you were "born that way"?
#1.1.1 Zachriel on 2026-05-07 09:42 (Reply)
What amazes me about communists is their undying devotion to lies. Their devotion to big government is the best government because all the truly smart and noble people control the levers of big government. Big government is incapable of doing bad things, making bad decisions. Big government knows best how you should live your life. Big government can stand no decent. Because big government is all the truth you need. And big government is true democracy. Anyone that denies these truths should be dealt with in the harshest terms possible. A death sentence is usually prescribed. Death to the nonbeliever is suitable punishment. Our Democracy demands and depends on it.

“Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims.”

— Thomas Sowell
#2 B. Hammer on 2026-05-04 11:08 (Reply)
B. Hammer: Their devotion to big government is the best government because all the truly smart and noble people control the levers of big government.

While the greater efficiency of market economies is often cited as an argument against communism, the concentration of power in a central government—even if exercised democratically—is a much greater threat to society than economic stagnation. Private property is an important bulwark of liberty because it helps distribute power.
#2.1 Zachriel on 2026-05-04 12:06 (Reply)
Communist governments are centralized government which is why they micromanage their societies and then wonder why they are failed experiments.
#2.1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2026-05-04 12:33 (Reply)
Distribution of power is not why private property is a bulwark of liberty. That's Marxist nonsense.

But, if you have a plan for the federal government to auctioin off all of its property to private individuals, then I'm willing to listen.
#2.1.2 jack walter on 2026-05-04 12:52 (Reply)
jack walter: Distribution of power is not why private property is a bulwark of liberty.

You're not actually being clear in your objection. Having a private sphere acts as a counterbalance to government overreach. Without it, government controls all spheres and you have to go to the government for everything. It concentrates too much power, so even with democratic oversight, it devolves into corruption. It's the push and pull of distributed power, as frustrating and uneven that it is, that keeps autocracy at bay.

Power in modern democracies is widely distributed: federal, state, and local; legislative, executive, and an independent judiciary; churches, political parties, clubs, families, neighborhoods, individual liberties, private property, and so on.

If you mean that private property, as with freedom of speech and conscience, is deeply rooted in human nature, that is very much true. They still act as bulwarks of liberty, each right helping guard the other rights.

jack walter: But, if you have a plan for the federal government to auctioin off all of its property to private individuals, then I'm willing to listen.

That suggests the other extreme, of course, where government has no property at all, so no military bases, post offices, courthouses, jails, rights of way, territories, parks, and roads. The extreme where government is too weak also devolves into corruption and autocracy.
#2.1.3 Zachriel on 2026-05-04 13:27 (Reply)
Sigh, Zach-GPT. Stop being so pedantic. Just because you are obtuse does not mean everyone else is.
#2.1.3.1 eeyore on 2026-05-04 14:05 (Reply)
The parasites vote and also have plenty of time to protest the nonparasitic. All while embracing their victimhood.
#2.2 indyjonesouthere on 2026-05-04 12:28 (Reply)
" They Can’t Buy Junk Food With Your Tax Money Anymore"

That was funny! Was it intended to be comedy. That 350 lb lady saying "no soda! No Ice cream! What are we supposed to do?" That can't be real can it! Wait! I know! Maybe this is a lesson in self awareness and she is a 350 lb actor showing how stupid it is to make believe you are gonna starve if you can't get your sodas and ice cream. Kind of a public service announcement to let fat people know how stupid they will look on the internet complaining about the ban on snacks. That's it! Right! Right?
#3 OneGuy on 2026-05-04 11:18 (Reply)
Dey mad cuz dey can't get dey purple drank and Cheetohs and sheeit!
#3.1 Maniac on 2026-05-05 09:12 (Reply)
All people have a sense of the supernatural. Call it Spiritual Intuition. (There are no atheistic societies. Only individuals.) This sense has to be filled with something bigger than self. God, gods, demons, cults, and/or Big Government all serve to meet this spiritual need/appetite. This need/appetite if not met with wholesome food, will be satisfied with poison.
#4 Blick on 2026-05-04 11:47 (Reply)

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