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.
For some reason, these guys never followed up on all the stories about Obama hanging out in gay bars in Chicago. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
One of the Bird Dog daughters, and my lad, know that it is easy to please Dad with a selection of stinky, strong, expensive imported cheeses from The Grand Central Market in NY. At Sunday's Mom's Day cookout we had a killer cheese platter. Even a goat brie, which was a first for me.
All present were lovers of rare and strong cheeses. Since I have heard Steve Jenkins interviewed on the radio a few times recently, I began to pontificate about what I had learned from him. (He is the cheese-buyer for Fairway, the world's most prominent cheese pro, and author of the Cheese Primer.)
Jenkins preaches serving cheese with fruit, nuts, or honey - never without. To demonstrate his correctness on the topic, I pulled some hot pepper jelly (like this) and some fig preserves out of our dying fridge. Fresh fruit is good too, but I am partial to the preserves. I think everybody present was converted.
Our error was in offering the cheese board before the steaks, instead of after. The savoury course. Well, nobody's perfect.
The Feds are always eager to stick their hands into places where they do not belong. I disagree with Mead that the intentions are good, but I agree that it's a nutty idea. For one thing, college is not job training. For another, the data would be meaningless.
By the way, what is Rubio's name doing on this idea?
A look at the text of the health care law reveals that much of it consists of amending the Internal Revenue Code to give the IRS more power. When Obamacare goes fully into effect in January, every American will have to prove to the IRS that he or she has "qualifying" health coverage, meaning coverage with a list of features approved by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That will be done by submitting a document to the IRS, something like a W-2, to confirm coverage...
In addition, the IRS will keep track of even the smallest changes in Americans' financial condition. Did you get a raise recently? You'll need to notify the IRS; it might affect your subsidy status. Have your hours been reduced at work? Notify the IRS. Change jobs? Same.
For five years, this president has been making the case that a growing and activist government has good intentions and can carry these intentions out with competence. Conservatives have warned that government is dangerous, and even good intentions get bungled in the execution. In different ways, the IRS uproar, the Justice Department leak investigations, the Benghazi tragedy and the misleading attempts to explain it, and the growing problems with implementation of health care reform all bolster the conservative worldview.
As you've no doubt heard, despite mankind's best efforts to fight off the peril of Natural Global Colding, at this point the relentless advance of ice continues:
BISMARCK, ND (AP) Mrs. Emma Dodson of Flatbush simply doesn't understand. "I gave to them Greenpeace folks over and over agin' and they said they'd take care of ever'thin'!," she exclaimed.
Despite such claims, the impending menace of global colding is right now happening in our own back yard as the relentless wall of ice advances. Below is a video as the Schwartz family of Flatbush gives their beloved home a final farewell. "I just can't believe it," said Mr. Schwartz. "I gave a buncha money to them Sierra Club folks and they promised me they'd fix the dang thing!"
Despite such claims, the video evidence simply cannot be refuted. Viewer discretion is advised.
Here, now, is the peril that you, too, will one day face.
Salt is one of those things that drive dietary cranks, control-freaks, and ignorant do-gooders nuts.
There really is no reason for that. Most of us docs have been saying this for years and I have made this point here in the past. Salt is an absolutely necessary nutrient for all animals, and very low levels of sodium chloride can make you sick or dead.
The average, normal human body contains around 50 quarts of salt water.
The reason people used to advise "low-salt" diet is because excess dietary sodium is a bad idea for people with kidney failure and congestive heart failure, and people with uncontrolled high blood pressure (with its associated higher risks of heart attack and stroke).
However, salt does not cause those things.
Significantly-high blood pressure is easily dealt with these days. Heart failure will likely kill you in time regardless of what you do (barring a heart transplant), but it is treatable with medicines and some salt restriction.
If you have high blood pressure, get it under reasonable control with your doctor. If you have organ failure (eg kidney or heart failure), or have some other ailment, do whatever your doc says. If you're healthy, enjoy your salt. It makes food taste better.
One recipe tip: I always season a salad with salt and pepper. It makes rabbit food taste almost good. Don't get me on the topic of whether green salad is "healthy." (It's neither healthy nor unhealthy. It's just filler.)
And, given that this allows anyone with access to a 3-D printer the ability to produce a lethal, non-detectable weapon, it's no surprise that people are wondering Should Congress Impose a Ban on 3D Printed Guns?
Well! You can bet the conservative blog sites didn't take too kindly to that. After all, the word "gun" is involved, which means it's a good thing — whatever the actual specific subject is.
Speaking for all of right-wing blogdom, here's Mary Katharine Ham from Hot Air:
...are the ways liberals are already dreaming up to thwart the 3-D gun.
Because, as everyone knows, anyone who opposes any aspect of guns is a dirty, rotten, scumdog liberal.
The battle over these plans touches on the Second Amendment, of course
Because, as everyone knows, what the Second Amendment is really saying is that every American has an equal right to kill any other American.
but the distribution of 3-D printing plans is a First Amendment issue
In other words, if I want to post plans on how to produce a dirty nuclear bomb in the comfort of your own kitchen, that's a First Amendment issue??
John in the comments enhanced the point:
It should also be noted that this isn't what is commonly referred to as a "gun control" issue, because those guns are detectable. A lethal, non-detectable weapon more properly comes under the heading of 'public safety', like your dirty bomb scenario.
Which is how the bloggers are viewing it, as just another gun control issue. But it's clearly not.
As long-time readers of this site know, I'm famous notorious for reducing complex issues down to a single question or two, and this subject is no different.
1. Would you trust your family's health to a printed plastic gun?
2. Okay, then who would use these things?
I can tell you who wouldn't:
— You, because, come that desperate moment, you're going to want a good, solid metal gun that you know will work.
— Me, because as much as the average geek would love to play with the technology, the exorbitant price of the printer puts it far out of reach.
— Common criminals, because the store owner they're trying to rob would just laugh in their face.
And who does that leave?
Really bad guys.
Bad guys who will somehow get hold of a 3-D printer because they desperately need a gun that evades metal detectors.
You know. Those types of bad guys.
As of last Friday, the CAD (Computer-Assisted Drawing) file had been downloaded over 100,000 times. In typical Internet fashion, it was on such notorious pirate sites as Pirate Bay by the time the boys from State pulled on their pants that morning, so removing it from the home site obviously didn't do much good at that point.
Nor can you blame the guy, as he's been publicly working on it for over a year, so the Feds certainly had plenty of advance notice. And he certainly wasn't the only one tinkering with the idea. His was just the first to successfully fire a bullet without also blowing off the hand of the shooter.
So, it's kind of a sticky wicket, isn't it? It appears to boil down to that old confrontation, principle versus practicality. If we assume this is, by far, a bigger boon to airline hijackers than common homeowners, then the right-wing bloggers are standing by the principle that all guns, no matter what the situation, are good.
My question is, is that really what conservatism is all about?
Big storms are on the horizon, headed towards Washington DC.
The mainstream media, after over five years of protecting, insulating, glorifying, romanticizing Obama and his administration, is beginning to realize that, if they continue on that same path, they will be left behind. With the MSM running interference for the admin., perhaps they felt invulnerable in Washington.
I recall Michelle Obama once bragging about that. No longer. Now the election is over.
I suspect the MSM and talking heads feel torn between doing their job and protecting their political hero and Leftist ambitions in general. Probably many Dems in Washington are feeling the same way this week.
This administration is dead in the water, will need to be towed to harbor, will not recover even with MSM help. Too many problems, with maybe more to come, and the MSM has already focused on constructing a Hillary narrative as the next savior.
But how likely is it that Americans would elect two Chicago Alinskyites in a row?
Only gummint could be this stupid. Last I heard, Spotted Owl is just a subspecies of Barred Owl. So they are killing the Barred Owls? I like Barred Owls.
Readers know that we do not approve of using mental health terms as ad hominems against those with whom we have honest disagreements on political, or other, topics. I have been guilty of sometimes opining that "big, benign government types" are indulging in infantile fantasies of ideal parents, and I should not do that.
World-views differ, as do views of human nature. It makes life interesting and interestingly-contentious.`
At some point, one needs to grow up. The fact is, the human quest for salvation, whether personal or social, cannot be left to the reckoning of children. Given the perilous condition to which progressivist utopianism is taking our country, its pubescent psychology deserves to be even more carefully scrutinized. The soft-focus, Pollyanna attitude of the left, which has come to be known as the therapeutic perspective on the world, is often accompanied by unmitigated savagery. Even if the assault on culture is not physical but legislative, its effects are almost universally devastating. The historical register shows that the effort to improve the world by revolutionary violence or by comprehensive and indiscriminate cultural revisionism — therapy gone wild — is practically guaranteed to cause far more misery than it attempts to alleviate.
Addressing the tough realities of the real world, and the depressing limits of one's own self, are the best vitamins.
We are seeing the greatest wave of economic transition since the mechanization of agriculture reduced the percentage of the labor force engaged in farming from more than half the American labor force in 1890 to less than two percent today.
I am sure that the energetic and ridiculously-productive (blog, books, newspaper opinion pieces - plus a day job teaching) Prof. Glenn Reynolds would enjoy having a law named after him.
A reader reminded us of Reynold's Law. Good comments there, too.
1. Dang compressor died in our icebox. Replacing it would be a few thousand $, half the cost of a new one. OK, get a new one. The KitchenAid lasted 20 years. Nice timing, it died 2 days before our Mother's Day party and cook-out. Ribeyes on the grill for 12. But why, I wonder, does the 55 year-old Frigidaire at the farm still work fine? The very pleasant, amusing, and smart refrigerator repairman (retired NYC cop on 75% salary) explained that it's because the old ones were low-tech. He said KitchenAids are the best, and Sub Zeros are just for show, not worth the $. He said modern refrigerators require surge protectors. Besides the cost, worst thing is that the failure defrosted my year's supply of frozen cranberries.
2. Gwynnie always tells me I need to get out more. Mrs. BD drags me out constantly for social events. Whenever I go, I meet charming ladies and guys who are far smarter and more accomplished than I am. That is life-enriching and humbling. At a cocktail party on Friday nite, besides touching base with old pals, I met a guy who builds nuke plants around the world and a physicist who loves modern dance and speaks intelligently about Thomas Nagel. He kept pressing me on whether I was a materialist (in the metaphysical sense), but his lovely wife said he had had too many gin and tonics. I kept saying "I don't know," which made him think I was smart.
3. Worked on the vegetable garden yesterday, with the lad. Deconstructing parts of it to make it smaller. It just got too big to keep up with. I realized that all I really care about growing are tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, and herbs. Everything else is just as good from the store, and no weeding required. In the afternoon, I split logs from a tree we took down in the winter. I ache all over. The good kind of ache. Some days I feel like I'd like to bring back slavery, but it just wouldn't be right in today's political environment. I don't mean black slavery - any color would be fine.
4. This morning, we had a Mother's Day wren in the bedroom. The house painter had not put the screens back on the windows. I figured it was a good luck thing of some sort. At least it wasn't a rabid bat. It was indeed a House Wren. Kind-of funny, because I saw this morning that a pair of Chickadees are nesting in one of my wren houses. We love to house the homeless here at Maggie's HQ. Still hoping that a pair of owls will use my Screech Owl house. I've heard them around a couple of times in the early morning, but I am not sure that they like my placement of the thing. My experience is that they seem to like their houses in full sun.
S
One of the Bird Dog daughters, and my lad, know that it is easy to please Dad with a selection of stinky, strong, expensive imported cheeses from The Grand Central Market in NY. At Sunday's Mom's Day cookout we had a killer cheese platter. Even a goat brie, which was a first for me.
Salt is one of those things that drive dietary cranks, control-freaks, and ignorant do-gooders nuts.
Well, you might have been wondering about 
Big storms are on the horizon, headed towards Washington DC.