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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Monday, August 13. 2007

Monday Morning Links

Slipped on a wet deck in the rain on Friday and cracked my olecranon, which took some of the fun out of our sailing trip. The problem with sailboats is that everything topsides is hard - nothing soft. And it always seems to hurt more when it's wet.

I never saw Merv Griffin on TV, but thanks to the late Merv for inventing Jeopardy. Who would imagine that such a nerdy show would be so popular for so long. I've always loved it.

Organic food produces more CO2. Not that I care.

The latest Reuters fakery. Funny

What does "life expectancy" really measure? Powerline

Dr. Sanity's Carnival was good yesterday.

Are taxpayers subsidizing low-wage employers like WalMart? In a way, yes. Depends on how you look at it. On the subject of subsidies, look at the new Farm Bill. Disgusting.

Dems are demagoguing against free trade, but do they really mean it? Betsy

Fatherless: Much of what is bad and sad about America is a consequence of single-parent - or no parent - families. Malanga on the Newark murderers. In the same vein, look at how much this nice family in Boston costs the taxpayer.

"Comparative Dictatorship 101." Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin, via No Pasaran, in The Economist

NPR Science Writer likes Moslem science. Ace

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:04 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

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why not say the tip of the elbow? it makes you sound so much smarter than your readers. hope it heals quick cause that is "smarts!"
#1 opie on 2007-08-13 09:05 (Reply)
Just quoting the doc in the ER.
#2 The NJ on 2007-08-13 09:51 (Reply)
Ouchhh! That's a bad one. Some relief with a tight Ace bandage, I found back during my rough & tumble days.
#3 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 10:04 (Reply)
Damn NJ. I had to look that one up. Ouchie. Aspirin and ice.
#4 Patina on 2007-08-13 10:22 (Reply)
Patina, congrats to Canada for standing up to the Ruskies over that North Pole business. Deep water port, new icebreakers --that'll set those schemers back on their heels a bit.
#5 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 10:28 (Reply)
highly rec'd the 'fatherless' set of links, as well as the Powerline--which alerts to the all-fronts Dem effort to socialize the US economy.
#6 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 11:56 (Reply)
Would someone please try to explain the relationship between farm land and failing hedge funds? I thik it is a very interesting connection, but am not sure about the details.

Sorry, bout the elbow it makes my eyes water and my elbow tingle just thinking about it!
#7 apple pie on 2007-08-13 13:03 (Reply)
AP, are you talking about prices for farm land? If so, then the connection--broadly--would be in that low interest rates increase demand for assets in general, and this demand-drive puts an upwards bias on prices, all else equal. The mortgage trading hedge funds have up 'til lately, by offering relatively high yields, brought in more capital to the mortgage lenders, thus creating more real-estate demand. This is the current problem in the markets, a much more abrupt than usual--due probably to recent technological leaps in the speed & availabilty of transaction info--shift from that "seller's market" to a "buyer's market".

Every region is different, tho, and raw land has always been sensitive to the local conditions. For example, here in my own area, raw land prices are sensitive to oil prices, as the 'ranchette' market is driven by Houston's (150 miles away) oil industry folks.

Any help, or too general?
#7.1 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 15:16 (Reply)
U.S. Officials Worry About Potential 'Tet Offensive' in Iraq


Accurate assessment....wrong country, try America. They want us out of the ME. A coordinated attack on this country would have the public demanding we bring the troops home to protect America. Thus they would have accomplished two goals ... attacked the Great Satan again on his home ground and forced public opinion to rachet up to the top of the panic scale.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293024,00.html
#8 Anonymous on 2007-08-13 13:33 (Reply)
Ace should be careful when mentioning that Pakistan has only 8 patents to their name. I am pretty sure this is considered "hate speech" now.

Now if he had only said "glorious" and "Bush-Defying" in front of the word "patent" it would all be okay.
#9 phil on 2007-08-13 13:58 (Reply)
Of course they mean it. Free trade leads to prosperity, which is Very Bad for the Democratic Party.
#10 Rufus on 2007-08-13 13:59 (Reply)
Of course they mean it--you don't think they'd sell out a hundred million price-sensitive consumers in order to protect a few thousand union bosses?

Why you don't know Demonomics (that's "Dem" "onomics", not "Demon" "omics").

Of course, they'll need to blame the rise in the cost of living on Bush, but, no problem, with the press we've got.
#10.1 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 14:31 (Reply)
"Dem" "onomics" = "Demon" "omics". Just thinkin'.
#10.1.1 Jephnol (Link) on 2007-08-13 16:24 (Reply)
Buddy, what a difference a Conservative government makes. Even as a minority. The Canadian Armed Forces took delivery of some new planes from Boeing last weekend too. Finally. sheesh.

Here is one possibility regarding Putins recent goofball North Pole gambit....

Putin is working to sow seeds of discontent between Western Allies by pushing, what is in many ways, a non-issue. Russia is not in really great shape and cannot develop the resources that it already has. Putin may just be trying to raise the stakes on the North Pole issue between Canada, USA, Denmark ( and the glowball media helps him).

I think development at The Pole is a fantasy. For obvious reasons, there are no serious plans by anybody to develop the resources under the North Pole. Look on the map at Fort MacMurray or Fort St. John. Developing these resource areas has been immensely costly and challenging. Now look at how far south they are from the North Pole. Nobody is working there and there are easier places to develop

So why push it now? Maybe Russia was looking to increase tensions at the trade meeting in Quebec. Canada is not in shape to actually physically press its interests too hard in the far North but Canadians can get touchy about it too. I
think even Texans tune in to the CBC to find out where Santa is on Christmas Eve. Putins' North Pole gambit brings to mind Pres. Reagan, pushing an arms race that the USSR could not afford. I think the markets are nervous about upcoming American protectionism and isolationism too.

Security wise, I think the only way to patrol or traverse the North Pole is with nuclear subs and the only ones who can do that are Russia and the USA.

The Northwest Passage is a different story but that too has so far been pretty much a 'pipe dream'. Stan Rogers wrote a good song about it. Canadians love Stan Rogers. RIP Stan. Here is a good video of the NW Passage with a montage from the CBC. (love the vacuuming the couch shot).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz6vU1iSA0k

And re: if the Dems are serious about trade sanctions. Ask any BC logger or forestry worker. I met with a sales manager of local saw mill over the weekend. They make beautiful wood products, some of the best I have ever seen and they do not sell in the USA which is 50 miles away.
#11 Patina on 2007-08-13 16:14 (Reply)
Patina, good points all, but remember, Russia is the world's largest petro exporter now, with the world's largest reserves, and looking down the road 50 years, extraction tech will be advanced, and if Russia can merely deny anyone else exploiting the polar reserves, the relative value of their own rises to that extent. A mere sovereignty claim, if the claimant has military power, would be sufficient.

As far as Russia's problems, they are many, but on the plus side (according to research of investment funds TMRFX whose John Conner was just on tv), they have the world's 3rd largest currency reserves, a low flat tax which will have pulled the majority into the middle class by 2010, incomes rising in the double digits annually, almost no debt in the system either business or consumer, and enormous untapped sources of scarce commodities.

Additionally, Putin & the Kremlin are slowly encouraging a Orthodox religious renaissance, centered on a mystical "Mother Russia" patriotism with enormous appeal to the citizenry --which supports all this movement to a very high degree (Putin @ 80% approval, it's said).

Combine this "tomorrow belongs to us" spirit with a continuing demoralization of the West (see "Democrats"), and it's easy to see why Putin staged his demo under the ice.
#11.1 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 16:34 (Reply)
Darn. Couldn't they take the St. Roch out of mothballs and do it again? :-)
#11.2 Skookumchuk (Link) on 2007-08-13 20:28 (Reply)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Roch

"The St. Roch was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, the first ship to completely circumnavigate North America, and the second sailing vessel to...." (read more)

Google has brilliantined my movement through time & space.
#12 buddy larsen on 2007-08-13 23:22 (Reply)

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