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.
Along with Washington and Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge is in our presidential pantheon.
At Maggie's Farm, we reject the notion that the "greats" are those who expanded central power in Washington. What's so great about that? America was designed in opposition to centralized power. Is "freedom" a dirty word?
Unlike today, if tech companies were generally run by conservatives, the liberal MSM would treat this like the Scandal Of The Decade.
As it stands, I can almost guarantee you this will be the only time you'll hear of it.
Enjoy the moment.
So to speak.
The other day, a commenter in one of my global warming articles (I wouldn't want to mention any names, but his initials are Z.A.C.H.R.I.E.L.) and I were discussing the issue and I asked him if some of the stuff coming out of the AGW debate wasn't just a little bit embarrassing for his side.
Me: How about the EPA declaring your breath is a toxic gas?
Z.A.C.H.R.I.E.L.: Animal respiration is carbon neutral.
Now, I will admit that he's half-right:
The intake part of your breath is carbon neutral.
But the exhalation? As every good-thinking, earth-hugging person knows, your exhalation is a deadly planet-killing toxic gas, verified by the greatest and most impartial collection of scientists on the planet, the respected (some might even say revered) Environmental Protection Agency.
So, wishing to fortify my point with a link, I cruised over to Google and did a search for "your breath is a toxic gas epa".
I came up with zip.
In the first 20 hits, I didn't come up with one article mocking how the EPA had just turned breath into a toxic gas. It was nothing but how bad, bad, bad that evil CO2 is for all living creatures and how the EPA is the only thing standing between you and being boiled alive by an angry rising sea.
Thinking this a tad strange, I went over to Bing and tried the exact same search. In the first 10 hits:
The next 10 hits yielded another three articles along the same lines, which is about what I had originally expected. Given the formidable opposition, getting 3 out of 10 links is probably doing pretty good.
Okay, so what about Google? Would you like to guess how many articles Google displayed before linking to an article that even remotely criticized the EPA's ruling?
When I cook this, I do it in my largest stovepot, 10 or 15-quart. Usually 2 hunks of corned beef and 2 cabbages, plus the rest. I've never included rutabaga. Parsnips are always a good idea but you have to remember that they cook fast. Parsnips are delicious with their menthol tang.
I like to overcook the meat a bit until fork-tender. Serve with abundant Dijon mustard and Horseradish mustard on the side. And beer.Mrs. BD got us some Wasabi Mustard this year.
But not so much beer than you cannot go out and plant your peas. It's the day to plant peas in Yankeeland, regardless of the weather. Snow Peas.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
First, I think she is mainly talking about Manhattan real estate. There is a lot of NYC outside of Manhattan, and the prime fashionable neighborhoods of Manhattan (and Brooklyn) will never be "affordable" to the middle class because, given the barriers to new construction, demand will always outstrip supply. Even so, there are reasonable neighborhoods in places like Inwood, Harlem, Washington Heights, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy.
Second, there are few free markets in housing in NYC except at the higher end (ie condos in the 2+ million range). Even there, it's not really a free market because the barriers to entry for builders are so high (legal, regulatory, community review, architectural boards, time, political dealings, etc). Donald Trump, with his huge legal teams and political connections, can get that sort of thing done, but there are few of him and, even so, supply will never catch up to demand.
Third, NYC's approach to "affordable" housing since WW2 has been housing projects for the poor and rent control and/or entire rent-controlled developments (eg Stuyvesant Town or Tudor City) for the middle class. The former destroyed neighborhoods and was a catastrophe, and the latter (ST as an example) is bankrupt. Furthermore, rent control, instituted temporarily as a post-war adjustment, now has a huge and vociferous constituency (of course). The more recent efforts are to require some time-limited below-market rentals in new construction.
Altogether, many things conspire to keep rental and condo prices high, even out in the boroughs. Since massive deregulation will never happen in NYC, supply will never catch up with demand because NYC is a world-wide magnet for the energetic, the prosperous, the young, and for those who just want a toe-hold in the greatest and most interesting city in the world. (And if supply ever did catch up with demand, a lot of people would lose a lot of money.)
Government helped create the problem - if it is a problem. The Dems want to fix their problem with even more controls and takings. Typical.
My final thought is this: High prices mean high demand. That's a problem few city centers have these days. It's a good kind of problem to have. It's like when I hear people complain about parking in my village, and feel I need to remind them that there are tons of towns where you can park anywhere downtown - but would you want to live where nobody wants to go?
It is a mystery as to why Planned Parenthood seems so much in favor of single teens raising children. Seems obvious to me that the "root cause" is kids having sex and not going to Planned Parenthood. One quote from MacDonald:
Even were it the case that poverty indeed causes teen pregnancy, crime, or any of the other destructive behaviors that the advocates claim are economically determined, surely it is better to tell children and teens that they have the power to determine their own fate through hard work and self-control, rather than sending the message that society expects them to fail.
The gun-control activists drew the wrong lesson from Newtown as they drew the wrong lessons from WW2 and September 11. The lesson is not that weapons are bad, the lesson is that people in the grip of evil ideas are capable of unimaginable horrors regardless of the tools at their disposal. A single man can kill a classroom full of children with a gun and a few men can kill thousands with a few box cutters. It isn’t the tool that matters. It’s the man.
One of my intrepid skiing friends took a long weekend to Alta last weekend. It's a quick and easy trip from the east coast.
This guy likes to hike and traverse off the reservation to find untracked powder and challenging spots. Attracted to signs saying "You are outside the ski area." Seems happy to hike uphill with the skis on his backpack.
There are several wonderful things about legal training, but the best is its versatility. Legal training is a useful background for almost any ambitious endeavor.
Under Obamacare, more and more doctors are becoming employees of large hospitals, where there will be more control over how they practice medicine. Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas fears this will cause a brain drain in medicine. "Really smart people want autonomy, and when you take that away it's naive to think you're going to get really bright people becoming doctors," says Atlas. "The best doctors could excel at any profession, so why go into medicine if they won't have the opportunity to be their best?"
The people interviewed practice the same way I, and plenty of my colleagues, practice. No insurance, and thus no back office staff and low overhead. No boss, practice exactly the way I want to as I decide with my patients.
Apparently Chagnon's field research did not support Marxist interpretations of stone-age tribal behavior, so he was attacked and smeared. Is there a Marxist interpretation for academia's tribal warfare against Chagnon?
Of course, Edward O. Wilson got some of the same treatment, but not quite as diabolical, for his work on sociobiology. There are lots of Thought Police in academia.
The Cruelty of the Hook-Up Culture - At least one Duke University staff member is acutely aware of the problems of casual sex on campus.
First World Financial Problems: Do college or retirement savings come first? How much of my huge cash stockpile should I spend while working on a startup?
Although curbing obesity is the official rationale for restricting beverage servings, the city planned to make exceptions for drinks that have more calories per ounce than soda, such as fruit juices, milk shakes and beer. The exemption for milk-based beverages meant that Starbucks customers could order, say, a Venti White Hot Chocolate with whole milk and whipped cream (640 calories) but not a venti black coffee with four teaspoons of sugar (60 calories). A 20-ounce Coca-Cola, which the city would ban outright from food service establishments, has 243 calories.
The tenured radicals turned learning into a political enterprise of propaganda for young, malleable minds. It is disgusting, deceitful, and has nothing to do with education.
It's time for us to humble ourselves with our quarterly request that people who enjoy Maggie's Farm, all around the world, send the link to our site to all of their friends, relatives, neighbors, enemies, clients, bosses - heck, send it to your entire email address list. Some of them might enjoy us.
And if you have a website, feel free to let your readers know we exist. As readers already know, our only reward for our effort is a growing readership.
We cover all sorts of topics: food, natural history, politics, hunting, conservation, art, movies, economics, books, travel - you name it.
Besides being an eclectic and relatively-meaty site, we are not mainly a political site. We tend to post whatever is on our minds. We are freedom-oriented, for sure. Why some people view freedom as "right-wing" is beyond our comprehension because we were taught that freedom from State power was Liberal.
I think people of any political persuasion - especially Communists - can benefit from our rock-ribbed, independent, skeptical, and well-armed New England Yankee view of life which always questions authority and its motives, and always trusts the good sense of the common folk of which we proudly count ourselves members.
Sad to say, we are blocked in China. Subversive? Us? The Chinese mandarins could learn things here.
Photo is one of the Maggie's fact-checkers on siesta break in the hayloft. Greenies would also surely appreciateour home mini-nuke power plant in the basement of the farm.Bought it at Home Depot, fresh yellowcake fuel from Libya, via FedEx. Our enslaved field mice run the thing and it is protected by fierce Woodchucks armed with Pop Tart firearms.
Unlike today, if tech companies were generally run by conservatives, the liberal MSM would treat this like the Scandal Of The Decade.
When I cook this, I do it in my largest stovepot, 10 or 15-quart. Usually 2 hunks of corned beef and 2 cabbages, plus the rest. I've never included rutabaga. Parsnips are always a good idea but you have to remember that they cook fast. Parsnips are delicious with their menthol tang.
Fatal Distraction: Teen Drivers And Passengers Are A Deadly Mix
Photo is from 
How to win 
The Obamacare Revolt: 
It's time for us to humble ourselves with our quarterly request that people who enjoy Maggie's Farm, all around the world, send the link to our site to all of their friends, relatives, neighbors, enemies, clients, bosses - heck, send it to your entire email address list. Some of them might enjoy us.