Maggie's Farm

Some disturbing observations from an alleged White House insider. A quote:

This White House is the most self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant…they just don’t care to know what they are doing. And when they do it -– consequences mean nothing to them. NOTHING.

The guy calls the O "lazy," too. Isn't "lazy" a racist code word?

I have already posted a plug for Dan Debicella's run against a Pelosi Dem in CT's 4th District.

Now I'd like to support Martha Dean for AG in CT. Impressive lady. I have met her (and Dan, too).

More Christie. The guy is a stand-up guy and a stand-up comic. (h/t Tigerhawk)

About his book, FEATHERED TALES - A Bird Hunter's Grand Slam Odyssey Joe Augustine says:

 "I wrote this book to tell a story -a good, old-fashioned adventure tale about some bird dogs, hunting and the life led while living a dream to complete my version of a 'grand slam' on North America's upland birds."

He did the whole thing without guides. Get it and read it. Amazon does not seem to have it.

Via NRO:

Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

Anything can be justified by "greater good" Utilitarianism. More from John at Powerline.

At TigerHawk. One quote:

He does not, at the moment, have a great deal of public support to draw on, and the level of vituperation from the extremes has reached the level it was with George W. Bush. Where Bush was accused by the extreme left of going into Iraq to increase profits for Halliburton and the oil companies, Obama is being accused by the extreme right of trying to create a socialist state. Add to this other assorted nonsense, such as the notion that Bush engineered 9/11 or that Obama is a secret Muslim, and you get the first whiff of a failed presidency. This is not because of the prospect of midterm reversals — that has happened any number of times. It is because Obama, like Bush, was off balance from the beginning.

Sept 18 and 19, by DU and Cabela's. It's in East Hartford, CT.

Stop by and say hello.

I suppose it does, in a way. J.K. Rowling is one example.

It never makes sense to me for people to be concerned about income inequality - or inequality of wealth. As Dylan was quoted as saying in our link this morning, "The world owes you nothing. Not one single thing."

One reason I feel inequality is a bogus issue has to do with the Ezra Klein quote above:

The top 1 percent, for instance, has gone from capturing about 8 percent of the national income to 18 percent.

"Captured"? Like piracy? That's a childish and fallacious zero-sum view of income. It's not like there is a set number of dollar bills out there to be distributed. J.K. Rowling did not "capture" income - she created wealth out of nothing, which is what wealth-creators do. In the process, she created income for book stores, Amazon, printers, her employees, etc. - along with vast tax income for the UK. Furthermore, she got herself off the dole.

Due to my needs for personal wealth creation, I don't have time today to do a full essay on what is problematic about the concern about income inequality. I will say, however, that I think it's about politics, not economics.

Maybe I will complete my thoughts later, but you have probably had the same thoughts already.

As understood by the USMC:

• BEARING - Creating a favorable impression in carriage, appearance, and personal conduct at all times.


• COURAGE - A mental quality that recognizes fear of danger or criticism, but enables a Marine to proceed in the face of it with calmness and firmness.


• DECISIVENESS - Ability to make decisions promptly and to announce them in a clear, forceful manner.


• DEPENDABILITY - The certainty of proper performance of duty.


• ENDURANCE - The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship.


• ENTHUSIASM - The display of sincere interest and exuberance in the performance of duty.


• INITIATIVE - Taking action in the absence of orders.


• INTEGRITY - Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles.


• JUDGMENT - The ability to weigh facts and possible courses of action in order to make sound decisions.


• JUSTICE - Giving reward and punishment according to the merits of the case in question. The ability to administer a system of rewards and punishments impartially and consistently.


• KNOWLEDGE - Understanding of a science or an art. The range of one's information, including professional knowledge and an understanding of your Marines.


• LOYALTY - The quality of faithfulness to country, the Corps, and unit, and to one's seniors, subordinates, and peers.


• TACT - The ability to deal with others without creating hostility.


• UNSELFISHNESS - Avoidance of providing for one's own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.

A favorite example of mine is the old feminist declaration that men “objectify” women when they respond to female beauty as nature decrees. This particular reframing was not successful over the long term for the same reason that health scares involving coffee have never caught on: no one was willing to give up the stimulant.

Here's an excellent explanation of it. Yes, it's Alinsky/Gramsci-type strategy.

A re-post. This is an important essay about individual freedom. From Peter Saunders

The problem for those of us who believe that capitalism offers the best chance we have for leading meaningful and worthwhile lives is that in this debate, the devil has always had the best tunes to play. Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. It does not set the pulse racing in the way that opposing ideologies like socialism, fascism, or environmentalism can. It does not stir the blood, for it identifies no dragons to slay. It offers no grand vision for the future, for in an open market system the future is shaped not by the imposition of utopian blueprints, but by billions of individuals pursuing their own preferences. Capitalism can justifiably boast that it is excellent at delivering the goods, but this fails to impress in countries like Australia that have come to take affluence for granted.

It is quite the opposite with socialism. Where capitalism delivers but cannot inspire, socialism inspires despite never having delivered. Socialism’s history is littered with repeated failures and with human misery on a massive scale, yet it still attracts smiles rather than curses from people who never had to live under it. Affluent young Australians who would never dream of patronising an Adolf Hitler bierkeller decked out in swastikas are nevertheless happy to hang out in the Lenin Bar at Sydney’s Circular Quay, sipping chilled vodka cocktails under hammer and sickle flags, indifferent to the twenty million victims of the Soviet regime. Chic westerners are still sporting Che Guevara t-shirts, forty years after the man’s death, and flocking to the cinema to see him on a motor bike, apparently oblivious to their handsome hero’s legacy of firing squads and labour camps.
Environmentalism, too, has the happy knack of inspiring the young and firing the imagination of idealists. This is because the radical green movement shares many features with old-style revolutionary socialism. Both are oppositional, defining themselves as alternatives to the existing capitalist system. Both are moralistic, seeking to purify humanity of its tawdry materialism and selfishness, and appealing to our ‘higher instincts.’ Both are apocalyptic, claiming to be able to read the future and warning, like Old Testament prophets, of looming catastrophe if we do not change our ways. And both are utopian, holding out the promise of redemption through a new social order based on a more enlightened humanity. All of this is irresistibly appealing to romantics.

NYT: Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits.

That might be good advice. I am not sure. What always worked best for me in college and in law school was a ration of 2hrs/studying in the library to 1/hr discussing and mutual quizzing with somebody in the course.

From the latter, I learned to interrogate my own understanding after I read anything. It's become a habit for me. If I can't explain back what I've read after I have read it, I've gotten nothing from it.

That's Mead, on America in autumn, 2010. A quote:

Fall has always struck me as the most American of seasons.  This isn’t just about football and the world series.  Fall is the Puritan time: we are less interested in gathering rosebuds than in storing up nuts; winter is coming and we need to prepare.  Enough of the lazy consumerism of summer; it is almost with relief that Americans roll up their sleeves for the start of a new working year.

This particular rentrée does not, however, find the country in good spirits.  According to the Real Clear Politics average, more than 61% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction.  With unemployment at 9.6% and underemployment double that, almost one out of five Americans who want full-time jobs can’t get them.  Trillions of dollars in home equity and stock market value has disappeared since 2007, while the federal debt has skyrocketed.  China and India are growing blazingly fast; even Germany is growing faster than the United States these days.

- Jacobson says:

...when I think of Obama's pathological obsession with the top 2% of the population, I think of someone in an ideological death grip.  And he is dragging the rest of us down with him.

The O admin hates people like me, professionals and small businessmen. They want to rape us to pay for crap we do not want and yet guys like Obama and other limo Libs have far more money in the bank than I have. I spend most of what I make, after paying my taxes and feeding my pension. (Not happy about that, but that's the way my otherwise wonderful life is right now.)

- Via TigerHawk's storm tab dump:

Ross Douthat pens another excellent column in yesterday’s New York Times. He observes that “obsessing about the paranoia of the masses is often a way for American elites to gloss over their own, entirely nonsymbolic failures.” For example, “Today, establishment liberals would much rather fret about the insanity of the Republican base than reckon with the unpopularity of Barack Obama’s domestic program.”

Yup. Douthat's column is well-worth reading for a number of the points that it makes about paranoia in American politics.

Sorry about the above link - the greedy capitalist pigs at the NYT want you to pay for reading Douthat's piece. Pay for Douthat? Gimme a break.

- A fine Krugman bash at American Thinker: Public Nuisance at the New York Times. Does anybody take Krugman seriously anymore?

- Cooley in Forbes: Why framing the wrong problem killed the summer of recovery.

- How is insulting your readers a good business plan? The dead tree press has killed itself by condescending to their readers, as if journalists were some sacred font of wisdom and virtue.

- Obama Underwrites Irresponsibility — Again. It's about housing prices. I oppose the mortgage interest deduction, myself. Get rid of that and all the other government distortions of the housing market, and find out what houses are really worth. What's wrong with renting, anyway? Everybody with a mortgage is essentially renting from a bank, albeit usually in a heavily-leveraged and risky manner arranged such that you take the risk, and the bank gets paid (normally).

Politicians of all stripes hate free markets, because free markets aren't political. Free markets are just the expression of the free choices of free people.  In daily life, free markets are more of an expression of a free people than is voting. Government interference with markets distorts values and pricing, mainly to buy votes so politicians can keep their easy jobs and perks and egos. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

In The Economist, In America and Britain governments hope that a partnership with “social entrepreneurs” can solve some of society’s most intractable problems.

Dream on, rainbow-pony dreamers:

POLICYMAKERS on both sides of the Atlantic are keen on a new approach to alleviating society’s troubles. On July 22nd Barack Obama’s administration listed the first 11 investments by its new Social Innovation Fund (SIF). About $50m of public money, more than matched by $74m from philanthropic foundations, will be given to some of America’s most successful non-profit organisations, in order to expand their work in health care, in creating jobs and in supporting young people. 

Let's face it: this is all about jobs for people who work for non-profits. They vote too - for whoever gives them the bucks which they feed on. I don't know what Europe needs (besides a spine or two), but I know what America needs more than more non-profits: more lower-skill but decent-paying work from successful businesses, and better parental examples of adult responsibility.    

Kimball. One quote:

Ms. Feldman is an extreme specimen of the breed. And she specializes, as anyone who wants to excel in the new anti-cultural cultural world must, in the non sequitur:

“We live in a more global, multicultural society that cares about diversity and inclusivity. We're thinking about how we increase our service to the community.” 

“Service to the community,” eh? Well, if you are President of the Association of Art Museum Directors, how about serving the community by making sure that museums are exhibiting the best art in the most appropriate way?  Just a suggestion.  But really, does every institution have to become a sort of social worker’s outreach program?  Can’t we have the museum as repository of politically correct thinking over here while still holding onto the the art museum as a place where great art is treasured?

So now museum directors are community organizers. It's a pleasant rant.

A freebie for Conservatives:

"Do you want a representative from (here), or do you want a representative from San Francisco? ... because my opponent has voted with Nancy Pelosi (x %) of the time. I want to represent you, not the people of San Francisco."

Our friend Roger asks:

Is four years at Yale (or Harvard, Princeton, or any other “competitive”  college) worth $53,000 x 4 plus annual tuition increases for a grand total (assuming you are entering right now) of roughly a quarter of a million dollars?

This is a question that, to the consternation of academic administrators, more and more parents — not to mention responsible teenagers — are asking themselves.

Yes, it is a bubble, a scam, and a rip-off. And the government subsidizes it too, adding to the problem. As it always does.

Related: Retired Prof VDH has an amusing yet penetrating rant about academics: We Are Ruled by Professors. He concludes:

So why again the above rant about academics?

We are presently governed by academics. In an era in which university people proliferate in this administration and seem to make things far worse for the rest of us, we need to be reminded why we should not look to the university for answers. What I hear coming out of Washington reminds me a lot of what I once heard coming out of the philosophy or English department. And that is a scary thing indeed.

You see, that tribe is more likely to embody the illness rather than the cure, and this time 300 million are paying the price.

Related, from Barone: The Higher Education Bubble: Ready to Burst? Quote:

Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point people figure out they're not getting their money's worth, and the bubble bursts.Some think this would be a good thing. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray has called for the abolition of college for almost all students. Save it for genuine scholars, he says, and let others qualify for jobs by standardized national tests, as accountants already do.

"Is our students learning?" George W. Bush once asked, and the evidence for colleges points to no. The National Center for Education Statistics found that most college graduates are below proficiency in verbal and quantitative literacy. University of California scholars Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks report that students these days study an average of 14 hours a week, down from 24 hours in 1961.

The American Council of Alumni and Trustees concluded, after a survey of 714 colleges and universities, "by and large, higher education has abandoned a coherent content-rich general education curriculum."

They aren't taught the basics of literature, history or science. ACTA reports that most schools don't require a foreign language, hardly any require economics, American history and government "are badly neglected," and schools "have much to do" on math and science.

ACTA's whatwilltheylearn.com Website provides the grisly details for each school, together with the amount of tuition. Students and parents can see if they will get their money's worth.

The daughter of a friend, who I spoke with in August, will be a college Freshman about now. She complained to me about being required to take Algebra in college. "I don't do math," she said.

"I don't do windows." Guess what? I do windows whenever She Who Must Be Obeyed asks me to.

My men's Bible study group had a good discussion about prayer and worship early yesterday morning, but we ended up focusing on how we do, or fail to, make space to let God into our daily lives, and to open the door for guidance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit.

We discussed how, in Acts 13, they fasted and prayed as a way to invite the Holy Spirit to guide their missionary intentions. We discussed how quieting the mind and turning off the Blackberry can be a sort of "input fasting."

The discussion reminded me of what a friend once advised me when I felt my prayer wasn't "working" (I don't mean I wasn't getting the right answer: I mean that I didn't feel I was in communion). My friend wisely said "When conversing with God, you need to STFU some of the time. You're talking too much to be able to listen. That's not a relationship."

And it reminded me of this piece by Dr. Bliss: Try turning off the radio: Obsessions, distractions and diversions.

I am not a child. I do not need to be told what to do in life most of the time (except by She Who Must Be Obeyed, on occasion. eg: "Call the vet," and "Take your BP meds," and "Bring hence some mint from the garden," and "You can't go to town in those filthy wrinkled pants."). But I do want and need God via the Holy Spirit as my co-pilot to give me light in the tough times, to lift me up in the good times, and to help keep my life aligned, as best I can discern it, with God's will.

So I need to clear out the junk and make more mental space for that. Fall Cleaning. Otherwise, I'm just another animal, controlled by desires and interests, and constrained and regulated by ordinary reality. It's all really His space, isn't it?

The relationship of humans with dogs is an astonishing thing. Author Thomas McGuane understands and loves his dogs. A quote:

On a bright and cold October morning in Montana, my dogs Abby and Daisy, The Pointer Sisters, are in my closet helping me select my clothes. On the left end of the rack are everyday clothes; on the far right are coats and ties for the occasional urban jaunt; and in the middle, clothes for sport, especially hunting. Here sit the two girls, tails whisking the floor between the shoes. They moan, grumble and pant wishfully while my hand hovers over the coat hangers. I shouldn't do this as dogs don't enjoy being trifled with. They know where the thorn-proof pants hang, since the red suspenders dangle to eye level for them, but they watch my hand. I don't move; Abby turns to stare at my boots with such longing she must think they can scoop me up and take me into the hills. Finally, Daisy can't stand it and barks at me: I pull the hunting pants from their hanger and with a cry of triumph they scramble out of the closet to watch me dress. Let others withstand the elliptical trainer, the rowing machine and the NordicTrack. Mama wants two partridges for tonight's table and I will walk long miles hoping to get them.

Read the whole thing in the WSJ. (Photo from the article. Where's his blaze orange?)

- A reader reminded me of Salt. I cannot remember whether I read it, or just meant to read it. I'll check have to check my hard drive. Just combine Alzheimer's, ADD, and Asperger's: that's Maggie's Farm. A Triple A website. Please ignore any moderate and medicinal alcohol use, because Quadruple A doesn't work.

- Alejandro Zambra's The Private Life of Trees. h/t, Tyler Cowen - who reads a lot.

- Something got me wondering what good old Doug Yule is up to these days. He is building violins. I think this was him singing, but I'm not certain. Anybody know who that little drummer girl is?