Maggie's FarmWe 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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Tuesday, May 9. 2017Tuesday morning linksI got rid of the fake image. New one is real The Days of Big Berkshire Gains Seem Like They're Over What squirrels teach about feminism Duke really ought to be paying people to put up with this kind of crap. Ontario man given three tickets by ‘the smoke police’ for having a cigarette alone in his SUV The speed limit really is just a number on a sign, and it has very little influence on how fast people drive Her (now-private) Facebook post reads like an Onion parody of political correctness. Even After Colorado’s Teacher Evaluation ‘Revolution,’ Fewer Than One in 1,000 Rated Ineffective Isle of Indebtedness - Washington provided Puerto Rico with all the wrong incentives; disaster ensued. One of the remarkable aspects of the managerial class is they don’t seem to learn much from their errors. Adam Gopnick says Trump makes him wonder about the American Revolution Trump, Jackson, and the Civil War Hysterics over Healthcare Bill, Just Like Everything Else Monday, May 8. 2017SweetFew shade garden plants are as sweet, subtle, and sentimental to me as the diminutive Lily of the Valley. A clump of 20 in a dry shady corner or under a shrub will spread a bit via rhizomes, and, like Bluebells, create a patch of cheer in early May. Monday morning linksPhoto is the famous Magnolia Bakery, where we bought The energy generators inside our cells reach a sizzling 50°C (120 degrees F) Another Arctic ice panic over as world temperatures plummet Climate change now causing global cooling due to global warming. Now I am getting scared...and more confused. Two Cheers for Monarchy and Prince Philip Honoring a Hero Who Defied the Nazis Fifty years ago, they were the most famous four people in the world. Today, the Beatles are even more iconic. We’re better off than John D. Rockefeller Here’s why women have no idea what to wear France bans extremely thin models Europe bans anything the elite dislike or disapprove of. No freedom ethic. Londonistan=>Muhammed Most Popular Baby Name in London, 2nd Most Overall Across UK Scientific Journal Proclaims It Is “Ethically Inappropriate” to Regard Breastfeeding as Natural "My doctor had a picture on his wall in which he was posing with a Ferrari — one of his Ferraris. I was driving a Saturn VUE at the time." Stephen Hawking is a genius, when it comes to scamming people WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CLIMATE, IN ONE CHART 10 Incredible Things Hotcoldwetdry Will Do To Create Doom Or Something The Washington Blob Goes After Ben Carson The New York Times and Upper West Side Segregation Trump effect: Economy added 211,000 jobs in April; unemployment dips to 10-year low Young women are more likely to find a job than young men In the Trump Era, More Americans Are Stressed Out by Political Discussions at Work Krauthammer: Trump: Normalized, but scary Every US Marine a rifleman no more? Sunday, May 7. 2017When Dostoevsky faced a firing squadAt the Firing Squad: The Radical Works of a Young Dostoevsky. " In the eyes of most literary circles, Dostoevsky was just a one-hit wonder."
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Vacation: No TV, radio, or WiFi - with bird list
We had the privilege of birding last week with ornithologist and author Scott Weidensaul. He is a fine congenial fellow who knows everything, and while he is there he gives a splendid talk on some ornithological topic every evening after supper. This is a photo travelogue of our second visit to Little Saint Simons Island on the Georgia coast for this year's birding week there. I'll post my bird list at the bottom of this post. Little Saint Simons is not for everybody. It's a barrier island nature preserve, Southern Maritime Forest habitat and vast salt and brackish marshes. It's rustic and therefore not inexpensive, and you have to entertain yourself unless you partake of the planned outings (ie kayaking through the marshes, birding, fishing trips. Booze and family-style meals included. You can take a bike, kayak or motor skiff out anytime you want, or fish and swim on the ocean beach. The self-serve bar is open 24 hrs/day. There are 3 excellent naturalists available all the time for hikes. The bugs weren't too bad this year but I did donate my share of A+ blood to the cause of mosquito conservation. Two innovations have been adding a/c to the cabins, and revamping the unheated pool with a gator-proof fence. It used to be a downer to find a 6' gator in the pool. An unwelcome innovation (for me) is the "healthy eating" trend instead of the traditional Southern fare that I love. I like to stay at least 6' away from kale, cilantro, organic produce, and veggie wraps or I break out in a bad case of annoyance. Cool things about this very special place with photos, below... Continue reading "Vacation: No TV, radio, or WiFi - with bird list"
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From today's LectionaryPsalm 23 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 23:3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. 23:4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me. 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.
More Bob photosSaturday, May 6. 2017Saturday morning links
Photo from 1945-1960 - Todd Webb's New York My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year School Evacuated after Kid Wears Darth Vader Costume to Class Colgate President: Possible Racial Bias Over Glue Gun Lockdown Of University Class focused on great Greco-Roman books may be changed after students complain it’s too Anti-vaccine activists spark a state’s worst measles outbreak in decades Not From The Onion: Florida University To Award Trayvon Martin A Posthumous Honorary Degree UC Santa Cruz Students Occupy Building, Shout Anti-Semitic Slurs, Admin Caves In to Demands Meanwhile, the sane students are studying in the library American leftists celebrated the venerable Communist holiday of May Day in the traditional fashion. Portland grad students, who have never worked a day in their lives, marked International Workers Day by smashing the windows of local businesses. Surprise: Yet Another Hate Crime Blamed On Trump Turns Out To Be A Hoax In Meeting with Ivanka, Cecile Richards Shows Her Hand on Abortion Modern liberalism and the technocracy Hubris is the problem Hillary-Voting NY Daily News Writer Tells Her: 'Shut The F**k Up And Go Away' Saying good riddance to Obamacare Obamacare? Trumpcare? Get Rid of it All It might be too late for that Z-man has a dislike for Kevin Williamson The Resistance changes its attack from “Russian Puppet” to “Trump is Crazy” - Which Works Best? Lefty greed: Hillary’s ‘Onward Together’ Resistance Group Smells Like Scandal It's the Jesse Jackson business model Continetti is trying to make too much out of it. Not enough people liked or trusted Hillary. Biden could have won and he is loony too. An Honest Question to Progressives: When Does the Proportion of Tax Money Claimed By Government Workers Get Too Large? In Venezuela, food is so scarce people padlock the refrigerator What Caused Venezuela's Collapse Is No Mystery — Except To Economically Illiterate Journalists French people adjusting to Muslim terror Italy update: CAUGHT ON VIDEO=> Female Reporter Is Sent Out to Cover Poor ‘Refugees’ – Gets Assaulted Two new bird booksFriday, May 5. 2017Friday morning linksPhoto from The Taco Wall of Cinco de Mayo Related, Cultural Appropriation: A Modest Proposal I enjoy this site: Hunter-Angler-Gardener-Cook “Exercise-in-a-pill” boosts athletic endurance by 70 percent (h/t Insty) Apple Is Now The World's Largest Bond Fund California plans to tax space travel by the mile 8 Lessons to Learn From the Failure of Common Core Puerto Rico Declares a Form of Bankruptcy Connecticut Laughs Ruefully As Its Tax Haul Collapses 25 Years After Income Levy Driving business and the prosperous from their state Hillary Clinton Warns of a 'Handmaid's Tale' Future Here we go: Hillary launching “Onward Together” PAC next week to rebuild her political influence Charles Krauthammer: We’re Now ‘Less Than Seven Years’ Away From Single-Payer Health Care Trump is Realigning the parties Young Donald Trump Walks Out On CNN Crank: “You’re Very Negative… Do It With Somebody Else” President Trump Realigning Geo-Political Alliances, and Few Paying Attention… From Roger Simon's Colbert, Trump, and the Roots of Liberal/Progressive Rage
Thursday, May 4. 2017A Fitness Maintenance questionEvery person has his (or her) own ideas - and goals - about fitness. Here's another question for our readers: Let's say you're an over-40 or over-50 or over-60 year old guy or gal who has put in the time and discipline for two years to get back in good shape after the child-rearing years of self-neglect and over-working to save for tuitions, etc., etc. You've done your weights, cardio, and calis religiously. Worked hard at fitness 6 days/wk, suffered, strained, sweated, and endured aches and pains especially when you didn't feel like doing anything but reading a book. You tried to eat enough protein to rebuild muscle. You found time to do it all even when you felt you had no time or energy. Now you are trim and light on your feet, the belly is gone, you have muscles you haven't had since you were 21 or maybe never had, you look pretty acceptable nude (even if not an underwear model), you have a military posture, your sex drive is up, you can pound out 30 minutes of intervals on the elliptical or sprints on the track, you can jump and lift stuff and you don't get fatigued at the end of the day. You have settled into a routine of eating right and sleeping right, and your body and mind now have gotten into the habit of demanding some effortful physical work every day to feel fully alive. In other words, your animal self likes what you have achieved because you have done justice to one of God's gifts to you. You are a happy middle-aged Spartan, ready for whatever life brings. While you can always improve regardless of age, you feel sort-of ready to lay off the aggressive daily boot camp effort and aim for smaller gradual improvement but primarily for maintenance of your fitness because, after all, apoptosis is the enemy. I just call it entropy. For example, I do not feel a desire to run any 10K races anymore (but I could), or deadlift twice my weight (but I would like to and I am getting there), but I think I am reluctantly concluding that we can't ramp it down much because, with each year of age, we are swimming upstream against a stronger current. Regardless of what we do to keep body and mind youthfully vigorous, sooner or later the current will win and sweep us out to the cosmic sea. I'd like the opinions of readers on this.
Body fatThursday morning linksWhy Sled Dogs Never Get Tired (video) One million bucks just isn’t what it used to be Harvard Poll Finds that Millennials Basically Live in Bubbles Trump boots Michelle Obama lunch standards — finally What good is food if nobody will eat it? Experts warn tick-borne virus worse than Lyme disease is on the rise McArdle is wrong about the estate tax How Bret Stephens energized climate debate Dialing back the 10 foot hype – NOAA Tide Gauge Data shows no coastal sea level rise acceleration Obamacare Implosion: Last Major Healthcare Provider Pulls Out Of Iowa Leaving No Options In 2018 Courage and Cowardice in the Vietnam War’s Final Hours How about the 78% percent reduction in extreme world poverty from 1981 to 2015. Berkeley op-ed: ‘safety of marginalized’ more important than free speech How did the word "marginal" become the term "marginalized"? CT update: Income tax revenue collapses; Malloy says taxing the rich doesn’t work Is “contemporary liberalism” dying? No. It moved to the Republican Party THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED WE’D SEE OPEN RACISM RETURN TO AMERICA. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Colbert, Trump, and the Roots of Liberal/Progressive Rage Trump’s Presidency Is Reviving Jacksonianism Antifa Chick Goes to Turkey With Muslim Loverboy, Gets Raped and Beaten A multicultural experience The Truth About the Palestinian Hunger Strike Wednesday, May 3. 2017Wednesday morning linksThe Shipping and Handling of a Gigantic Space Telescope Is protein powder safe? What every athlete should know (h/t Insty) I use them after every weight workout, in a banana smoothie. I can't eat solid food in the morning. Tiny Robot Can Fly and, Amazingly, Rest Schwab Sector Views: Is Retail Really Dead? Affordable Housing is a Supply Problem Numbers don’t lie: Germany’s Energiewende has had zero impact on emissions – at best New York City Public School Throws Out Its Books Have you hugged a fracker today? Colorado Climate March Postponed Due to Heavy Snow Annals of Academic Fatuousness, Yale Edition, Part 9876 The Disease of the ‘New York Times’ Mind The Know-Nothing Campus ‘Protest’ Movement - This is not pouting; it is fury and menace. Conservative Student Speaks Up About Campus Intimidation Living in a Progressive theocracy means the framework of civic debate is always going to be a Progressive framework. Thomas Sowell: Tax Lies For The Gullible ILLEGAL ALIEN DAY - The Left used May Day to push its open-borders agenda this year. Can gender-fluid non-binary poetry slams help Democrats take back the Rust Belt? Hillary Clinton: "I Was On The Way To Winning Until Comey And 'Russian' WikiLeaks" COULD TRUMP DESTROY THE DEMOCRATS FOR A GENERATION? Germany: Migrant Crime Spiked in 2016 Tuesday, May 2. 2017Reminder: Third Annual Maggie's Farm Urban Hike Sunday, May 7We will meet at 10 am at the fountain in Lincoln Center, rain or shine. There is a Dunkin Donuts (and a Starbucks) nearby if needed. We'll have some dumb balloon for recognition. Join us. We're friendly dogs and do not bite. Not a large group, I think, so good for conversation. Weather should be rain-free and cool. Our leader Bulldog will lead us from there, wandering around the West Side, maybe all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge depending on time. Lots of things to see along the route he has planned (see below the fold) -
Continue reading "Reminder: Third Annual Maggie's Farm Urban Hike Sunday, May 7" Tuesday morning links5 common American gestures that might insult the locals Tyler Cowen's favorite book this year: Dreaming the Beatles Hilarious Customer Reviews for the Sigma 200-500mm Lens on Amazon The Path to Higher Education With an Intellectual Disability - The number of degree-granting institutions with options for these students is growing. Would an intelligent person pay a penny more for 'organic' food? School takes unusual (and heartbreaking) step to protect illegal immigrant students Immigrant Workers Stunned To Be Fired After Skipping Work For Protest Inner California Will Soon Be Beachfront " What’s surprising is that operations like ESPN have an audience at all. Their “news” converge is mostly jock-sniffing and their created content is so out there on the Progressive fringe, it borders on madness." New Frontiers in Microaggression: It's Unethical to Call Breastfeeding Your Infant "Natural" Because It Reinforces the Cultural Stereotype That Only Women Have Breasts Aussie not happy after transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard achieves New Zealand sporting first Bret Stephens just trolled the left with his supposed climate change denialism Trump haters may think they've got him this time, but look ahead a few moves for once. Your smug arrogance is blinding. Author Reveals How CIA's Enhanced Interrogations Helped Find Bin Laden The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower Victims of Communism Day 2017 Monday, May 1. 2017Two musicians at the end of lifeA few Monday morning linksJust a few links this morning - thanks a lot United Airlines. Do you guys have any flights without 6-hour delays? Bob Dylan's Early Days in New York: 17 Intimate Photos Why clapping is now deemed offensive Why Aren’t People Rushing To Buy My Art? Holding elections is not freedom California Squashes Its Young - The Golden State’s suffocating economic policies are driving out a new generation. Here’s Some Evidence ESPN’s Politics Are Impacting Its Audience Eight False Pretenses Liberals Use to Frame an Argument The Arrogance of Blue America - If you want to see the worst impacts of blue policies, go to those red regions—like upstate New York or inland California—in states they control. What Democrats won't admit about Trump's first 100 days How Hungary Managed To Erase Illegal Immigration In Just A Few Months Sunday, April 30. 2017Why to embrace your inner monster
and other related riffs on life from Prof. Peterson
Posted by Bird Dog
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The plight of the American Eel
Painting: William Sidney Mount's Spearing Eels in Setauket (1845) Eels are very cool fish with remarkable life histories. They are also good to eat. Eeling, like crabbing, used to be a major cottage industry along the North American coast. The first time I caught an eel, as a kid, I thought I had caught a snake. Unlike snakes, Eels are slimy and difficult to get a grip on. Damming of rivers and streams is the likely cause of the drop-off of eel populations, just as with other anadromous fish. Magnetic Maps Behind one of Nature’s Craziest Migrations BRINGING BACK AMERICAN EELS IN THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER
Love MeFrom today's Lectionary: Breaking of the breadLuke 24:13-35
Glass Gem Corn"Rare heritage" corn. That's called marketing. I'd call this Krazy Korn. Sort of cool, though. Seeds via Amazon of course. Thomas Eakins
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Saturday, April 29. 2017The Shapes of StoriesAn appealing narrative arc is always useful whether truth or fiction. Usually they are fictional, though. Raw truth doesn't lend itself to compelling narratives.
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