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.
We have become a soft people. Kids once might walk great distances to school, men marched a hundred miles to fight bloody battles, and, believe it or not, for most of history, no one had modern medical care. Now a winter storm means we hunker down as if a Viking raid is nigh.
Insty: "Despite their superficial attachment to multiculturalism, our elites don’t really want to think of other cultures as, you know, thinking differently, for fear that it might somehow be racist to take that into account."
Wasn't even a storm, much less a blizzard - just an ordinary New England winter snow dump. No ferocious winds, no 2-3 feet of snow. No big deal, a nice treat for the ski areas but a bummer for those with flights planned.
Who do you blame for all the stormophobia these days? Drudge? Weather Channel? What?
The pols over-hype these things so they won't be caught being wrong. The news over-hypes them so you will keep your TV and radio turned on. Of course it does make sense to try to keep drivers off the roads for a few hours with big snows so the plows can do their work efficiently.
The driving is fine out there this morning. Everybody without a government job is going to work this morning.
Obama, the Committed Income-Redistributionist (Though the Media Swore He Was No Such Thing!) Now Expressly Going After the Middle Class' Education Savings to Shower Money on His Constituents
Hey - stock up on terlet paper and canned goods! NYC grocery stores cleaned out. Sheesh. Where do these weenies come from? If you run low on caviar, go to a restaurant.
I wasn't angry at all, Dr. Dean, but that comment did annoy me. Saw the movie last night with friends. It was ok, not a great film by any means from a film or drama standpoint, repetitive, I thought, but certainly exciting at times. Cowboys and Indians, on steroids. I have heard from those in the know that it does capture the reality of what Fallujah was like so they did have some good advisers on set. Urban combat in a hostile and sneaky environment in which nobody can be trusted except your buddies.
The film is not about politics at all. It's just about a certain kind of warfare through one man's eyes. Sultan said this: "Hollywood tried to “Vietnamize” Iraq in the popular imagination. American Sniper shows they failed." Well, I dunno. We won in Vietnam, then we gave it away. We sort-of won in Iraq, but they couldn't keep it without us. A lot of these crazy, unstable places in the world are tar babies. Is it worth it? You tell me.
I would have been interested in what Kyle's PTSD was about, but I didn't read the book. It would have been good to include more about sniper rifles, windage, distance shooting, etc. Perhaps what I left thinking about most was that these servicemen in the movie, SEALS, Marines, etc. - the sharp end of the spear - do not so much do heroism as they do a professional risky job for which they are highly-trained in body, mind, heart, and soul. Yes, I think that feeling of professionalism and trust in buddies is accurate, and is what most stuck with me.
Don't be surprised if Maggie's servers go down tonight or tomorrow. If so, it will be because of the wind, not the snow. It's the wind that breaks things with a Nor'easter.
The global cooling we are experiencing inspired me to consider some truly fine cool-weather all-white breakfast eats which are not easily found in Yankee-land. The good stuff that sticks to your arteries ribs and warms you from the inside.
Creamed chipped beef on toast is the fine old Yankee version of the southland's biscuits 'n gravy. Both have done wonders for warming the hearts and narrowing the arteries of generations of American boys. Add some potatoes and you have the perfect meal for a lumberjack or hunter.
While apple pie is an old-time Yankee breakfast staple, it has been replaced long ago by eggs, toast, and bacon, maybe a chunk of fruit, and preferably home fries with ketchup on them. Not Heinz 57, though - it's not my job to feed John Kerry.
Some people eat cereal for breakfast. Why? Because Dr. John Kellogg, a health-food charlatan in the 1800s, told them to. Zero nutrition. Breakfast cereal is a fraud and a scam, unless it's plain grits or cream of wheat or oatmeal. The crunchy granola stuff? Well, I thought the guy who discovered that you could sell people plain water was a genius, but the people who decided to sell guinea pig food to humans was his creative equal.
(At Maggie's Farm, we are also fond of fish for breakfast, like the Brits. Kippers. Or a lighty sauteed trout someone has caught early, sprinkled with parsley. Or left-over broiled salmon.)
The chipped beef was always a boarding school standard, and half loved it and half barfed to look at it. It does look like vomit, but it's great stuff. It's a gourmet's delight, but nobody makes it anymore.
When I did my time south of the Mason-Dixon, a local favorite was hot dog gravy on biscuits. Grits on the side, of course. Everything white. Not a refined breakfast, just gravy made with supermarket hot dogs instead of sausage. A truly revolting flavor unless you grew up in the hills and hollers, but it will fend off hunger for hours. I prefer my Sabretts on a bun at Yankee Stadium. But other sorts of southern gravy, made with ham or sausage, are just fine. I won't presume to offer a biscuit 'n gravy recipe, because every Southern Mom has her own. Well, here's a Virginia one from someone's Grandma.
Biscuits 'n gravy, and grits. Serious food for the soul.
Image: New Hampshire chipped beef on English muffins - with home fries. They don't do grits up north (except in Italian homes and restaurants, where they like to call grits "polenta") and it's a damn shame. Good stuff.
In AARP Magazine (!), the not-retired Bob Dylan Does the American Standards His Way - In his first interview in nearly three years, the legendary singer-songwriter talks about his new disc, ‘Shadows in the Night,’ his love for Frank Sinatra and about life in his 70s
Goldberg: "The “Life of Julia” was nothing more than an argument for the federal government to replace the functions once performed by family and community. "
Gorn is a graduate student at Columbia University... Her "areas of work" are "geography from the perspective of Marxist philosophy, social movements, autonomous labour movements, health, and the environment..."
Whew. She must be really, really smart. Wonder what department she is in. Moonbat Studies?
Dylan's recording on Empire Burlesque is better and deeper than this one with Patti Smith, but this is all I could find.
The remarkable lyrics:
Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide I live in another world where life and death are memorized Where the earth is strung with lover's pearls and all I see are dark eyes.
A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.
They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is But I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized All I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes.
Oh, the French girl, she's in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel Hunger pays a heavy prize to the falling gods of speed and steel Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.
How about if we put 100,000 people on treadmills hooked up to a generator? How many jobs would that “create”? 100,000! Well, sure, the government would have to make someone pay for them…
The Muslim community has been constructed in the West as a special entity deserving of politically correct sensitivity, in the manner of privileged groups on campus that continuously suffer from psychodramatic “micro-aggressions.” That Muslims abroad and in the West practice gender separation at religious services or are intolerant of homosexuals wins greater exemption from the Left than a Tea Party rally. If the West were to treat satire, parody and caricature of Islam in the fashion of other religions, then eventually the terrorists would learn there is no advantage in killing those with whom they disagree. Once Westerners treat Islam as they do any other religion, then the Islamist provocateurs will be overwhelmed with perceived slights to the point that they are no longer slights. The Muslim world needs to learn reciprocity: that building a mosque at Ground Zero or in Florence, Italy, is no more or no less provocative than building a cathedral in Istanbul, Riyadh, or Teheran.
5 things Steve Jobs said Apple would never do - and Apple is doing
For six years financial markets have been drugged into zombiedom by maniacal central bankers who have violated every known rule of sound money and financial market honesty. In expanding their collective balance sheets from $5 trillion to $16 trillion over the past decade, for instance, they have midwifed a planet-wide fiscal fraud.
1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."
1:44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth."
1:46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"
1:48 Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."
1:49 Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
1:50 Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these."
1:51 And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
The Metaphorical War - Conceptual metaphors determine how we view the
world, and what we think is even possible. It’s time for conservatives
to upgrade theirs.
Why
the Republicans are finding it hard to reform Obamacare - See more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/01/why-the-republicans-are-finding-it-hard-to-reform-obamacare.html#sthash.m6bq3f0P.dpuf
The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane. The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again.
As the moon's soft splendour O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender To the strings without soul had then given Its own.
The stars will awaken, Though the moon sleep a full hour later To-night; No leaf will be shaken Whilst the dews of your melody scatter Delight.
Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling Are one.
Shelley was not a typical Maggie's Farm sort of fellow.He was a fan of all of the hip and rebellious ideas of the early 1800s: vegetarianism, free love, atheism, (and anti-monarchism and related radical politics of the time), and he always seemed to be chasing 16 year-old girls.
Wasn't even a storm, much less a blizzard - just an ordinary New England winter snow dump. No ferocious winds, no 2-3 feet of snow. No big deal, a nice treat for the ski areas but a bummer for those with flights planned.
Don't be surprised if Maggie's servers go down tonight or tomorrow. If so, it will be because of the wind, not the snow. It's the wind that breaks things with a Nor'easter.
The global cooling we are experiencing inspired me to consider some truly fine cool-weather all-white breakfast eats which are not easily found in Yankee-land. The good stuff that sticks to your 
Is your 
Archaeologists May Have Found the Oldest Copy of One of the Gospels - A mummy's mask contained a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that dates back to the first century.
Inside a Porsche 
5 things Steve Jobs said Apple would never do - 
The 
Toon stolen from 
The keen stars were twinkling,