Maggie's Farm

It has been debated for a long time.

 Why decluttering your home can save your mental health, according to a doctor

 Harvard doctor says animal products are essential for mental health - in blow to veganism: 'The brain needs meat'

 Time spend playing video games is not associated with anxiety or stress among college students

Just a stupid waste of time 

 Eliminating Standardized Testing Was a Disaster

 Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over Transgender Competitors in Sports

 California: We Need Another $100 Billion for High-Speed Rail

 Canadian Police Advise Leaving Car Keys in Front Door to Deter Break-Ins and Minimize Conflict with Thieves

Why a Berkeley Professor Is Sleeping in His Office. The Rise of the Latino Evangelical. Give Stephen Glass a Break.

 TGIF: I Serve at the Pleasure of Barbecue - The ACLU gets uncivil. Biden goes rogue and Shaun King goes Muslim. Trump flip-flops on TikTok. Elon Musk and Don Lemon go kaput. And much more.

Joe Biden seemed ‘normal’ in 2020, but then came his nothing-normal presidency

 The View from Gaza

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an “obstacle to peace” 

 NATO's 'Welfare' States: Treating The US As 'Room Service'

It's a sort-of odd essay: Do we have a patriotic duty to get off our couches and exercise?

The author quotes Socrates:

 It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.

No more "Honor, Duty, Country"

Why? 

 Trans Activist Furious That Britain's 'Far-Right' NHS Banned Puberty Blockers For Kids

  Devastating Study Blows Up the Entire Transgender Movement

 Nearly 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ, Gallup survey finds

Urban Agriculture? 

 Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse

 The Folly Of Rent Control In New York City 

 Private K-12 programs ditch classics for race-obsessed classes, woke activism

 Metropolitan Opera Slaps Trigger Warning on Puccini’s ‘Turandot’: Rife with ‘Racial Stereotypes’

 NYC Warmists Could Force Pizzerias Out Of Business

  How Pelosi’s J6 Committee Was Used for Politics and Lawfare

 There's Literally Not One Single Way Illegal Immigration' Impacts Anyone's Life in Any Way

Bari Weiss:  Reflections and videos from my time on the ground in Israel.

My great-uncle used to like Haiti for winter vacations. It was a tourist place, like Cuba was.

Like so many places on earth, it's now a gangster place. Call it a "country" if you want to. Nothing new about that. Seems to me that not being a gangster place is the exception. 

I've known a couple of Americans who tried to "help" Haitians. They gave up, just like the Clintons did. It has no modern legal structure, same as Somalia or Gaza etc. etc. Lord of the flies.

Haiti news – live: US State Department warns Americans not to travel to Haiti amid gang takeover

Trump might term such places s-hole countries, but it's historically normal.  

 Eliminating Developmental Math

 U.K. National Health Service to Stop Prescribing Puberty Blockers to Kids

 The "Gender Pay Gap" Is a Myth That Won’t Go Away

 Journalism Has a Religion Problem

Stuart's  Wednesday Potpourri

 Mr. Garland, Can I Vote In France And Spain?

" Importing tens of millions of third-world people with no skills and no money into a first world nation with an enshrined welfare state, does not benefit the people of that nation, as the latter are forced to foot the bill."

Re-posted cuz St. Patrick's Day is this Sunday. I don't have any known Celtic blood, bit I sure have lots of Irish relatives via marriage.

Just wanted to set the record straight on the historical facts. Even worse, his name wasn't Patrick.

He was an England-born slave of Irish raiders. Since England was still Roman in 400, he really was a colonial Roman.  

The "snakes" he drove out of Ireland were the pagan beliefs. Ireland never had real snakes.

Who was Saint Patrick?

The Irish do not cook Corned Beef and Cabbage - except for American tourists

What is Irish? Shepherd's Pie is.

I happen to love corned beef and cabbage (plus potatoes) - as long as there is plenty of horseradish mustard and beer.

The real name of the meal is New England Boiled Dinner. I cook it all together in a giant pot. If the pickled beef needs a knife, it's underdone. I think it should almost crumble.

I make some for family, including my Irish father-in-law, yearly. No Guiness, though. It really does not go with food in my opinion. Heck, it's a meal in itself. In Irish pubs, they throw one or two raw eggs in it, stir it up, and call it breakfast.

(Our kids are 25% Irish, 25% Southern Italian, 40% English, and 10% Scandinavian probably via the Norman invasion. In other words, all- American. Genetic mongrelization worked well for our kids, cuz I am 90% English, around 10% Scandinavian and thus overly-inbred in New England since the 1600s.) 

Manhattan Contrarian wonders why some state, like Vermont (I'd suggest Colorado, but whatever), doesn't ban fossil fuels.

No wood-burning either because that is worse for the trees and the planet. 

Environmentalists Blast Offshore Wind as 69th Dead Whale in Less than Year Found Dead on Atlantic Coast

 People Hate Daylight Saving. Science Tells Us Why.

 Academics embrace new ‘deficit framing’ concept to justify unprepared, underperforming, or immature students

Sheesh 

Tik Tok in China vs USA 

 Global Population Crash Isn't Sci-Fi Anymore. We used to worry about the planet getting too crowded but there are plenty of downsides to a shrinking humanity as well

VDH:  The Anti-Democratic Democratic Left - The defense of those destroying democracy is that they are doing it to prevent others from doing what they would do, should they have been on the receiving end of exactly what they are now doing.

Dershowitz:  Who Will Prosecute the Prosecutors?

 Joe Biden is losing to Donald Trump because of a dirty little secret: Donald Trump is actually the moderate in this race.

 Trump is a threat to Democrats, not democracy

 Haiti Descends Into Chaos

 Biden’s Gaza Floating Port Plan Generating Concern Among Military Professionals. “I don’t know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders.”

 Sorry, Al - Hudson Bay Polar Bears Mostly Fat and Happy

 New York And California Getting Totally Lost With Energy Storage

Are you privileged?

I am privileged to be an American 

 Giving DEI the Pink Slip - Major institutions have started rolling back their diversity bureaucracies.

 Why Attempts To Control Opinion Cause Opinion To Diverge

Armed citizen patrols start in Hartford amid violence concerns

 The Democrats Praying for an Open Convention

 We Could Use a Man like Calvin Coolidge Again

 Will the West Defeat Itself?

 Can Turkey Negotiate Peace in Ukraine?

 Pope Francis Says Ukraine Should Surrender, Urges Zelensky to ‘Show Courage of the White Flag’

Well, just negotiate and get this over with. It's my money.

 How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers

Truth disappears during war 

We had a not-charming drive through Paterson, NJ on Saturday while trying to map out plans for my father-in-law's funeral events.

I told my brother I would not drive through that city (pop 157,000) again without a firearm and/or a police escort. This once entirely safe and prosperous east coast city (like Bridgeport, Hartford, or Waterbury CT) has become a frightening and dangerous place. Filthy too. Garbage on streets, emply storefronts, stumbling addicts, and worse.

OK, I am a privileged white guy with a nice car with out of state plates. It is interesting how quickly these medium-sized cities met their downfalls. I'm not sure I can even blame politicians for it. Economics. Mrs. BD said it's like a 3rd world place and I said it was worse than Haiti. 4th world. Tons of Moslem immigrants, but they are not the problem although I noticed the storefront Moslem places collecting goods for the Palestinians. OK - I get tribalism. Normal. I did not dare take a photo, but I was driving anyway - to Totowa.

There are large parts of New Jersey that are comfortable, even lovely suburban and rural areas, but sheesh. Montclair is very pleasant, and only minutes from NYC by train.

Poet and physician William Carlos Williams wrote his masterpiece Paterson, of which Book 1 is the most worth checking out. It is termed "imagist" writing, but what writing is not?

The Mozart effect mutated into borderline lunacy. 

Of course it did. However, I am a fan of the idea of adults letting their kids hear "classical" music from the earliest.  I think it gets the brain used to processing complex music.

Nothing wrong having with folk music either. I think of Pop music, Jazz, Blues as subcategories of folk music. 

Best thing? Give kids a chance to learn to sing or play some instruments. Odds are they, like me, have no talent but it's a good thing anyway. 

My experiences with Task Rabbit have been excellent.

Answer below the fold - 

 How to Cook Salmon So It Always Comes Out Perfectly - Roast, poach, sear, or grill: when it comes to cooking salmon, you've got a lot of options. Here are our top ten.

I am tired of salmon, done with it.  Mrs. BD had Arctic Char last night, and was happy. Char is a salmonid.

 America’s Loneliness Epidemic Comes for the Restaurant

 Harvard, in a Dramatic Development as Antisemitism Engulfs the University, Asks Bay State Taxpayers for a Bailout

 Identity Satiation - Some rarely discussed phenomena can shed light on why the focus on identity and introspection has coincided with a rise of mental health issues, including identity disorders. 

Now, Ivy League colleges like Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have decided to stop publishing the Dean’s List – a recognition of those students who worked hard to achieve academic excellence – to reduce “stress and competition.”

 Brands faced consumer backlash over Black Lives Matter support

How  DEI killed the CHIPS Act

Stuart's  Saturday Miscellany

 Victor Davis Hanson: One Angry Biden Lie After Another

Cease-fire? 

An eagle nest, live. Still snowy but big birds including owls lay their eggs in winter.

 Polar bears and coral reefs are doing just fine

 "The WPATH Files prove that gender medicine is comprised of unregulated and pseudoscientific experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. It will go down as one of the worst medical scandals in history."

 AI is poised to destroy and replace search as Google defined it more than 20 years ago. 

 English Is Still The World's Most-Spoken Language

 John Stossel Calls the Southern Poverty Law Center a ‘Scam’. “Looking at their map of hate groups, you’d think hate groups were everywhere.”

 Was it a Mistake to Mandate COVID Vaccines? What seemed obvious at the time might have caused greater harm in the long run

 Giving DEI the Pink Slip - Major institutions have started rolling back their diversity bureaucracies.

Stuart's  Wednesday Potpourri

 How to Save Our Cities - Lessons from a previous American tumble

 Brown University Returns to the Use of Standardized Testing for Admissions

What is misinformation? 

Why Is It So Hard to Build an Airport?

 How universities killed the academic - Flamboyant brilliance has been purged

 Renault Award: Plastic Makers Lied About Recycling for Decades

 Electric cars release MORE toxic emissions than gas-powered vehicles and are worse for the environment

 AI model distinguishes male and female brains with over 90% accuracy

California: It is hard to understand how there can be a political movement in favor of more crime, but there you have it

 WaPo Writer Makes It Official: Shoplifting Is Just Reparations

 Mayorkas Accused Gov. Abbott Of ‘Trying To Wreak Havoc’

 Justice Barrett Explains the Message Americans Should Take Away From the Trump Ballot Ruling

 Democrats Jump at Chance to 'Revive Legislation' to Kick Trump Off of the Ballot

 Gearing Up for ‘Biden’ Versus Trump: Not If, But When and How to Replace Biden

 How Abortion Became ‘the Defund the Police of the GOP’