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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Friday, May 13. 2011A few Friday morning linksToilet paper: Over or under? Over 30 Major News Organizations Linked to George Massachusetts: The Canary in the Coal Mine for ObamaCare Book review: Kissinger on China An Interview With Warren Farrell, The Author Of “Why Men Are the Way They Are.” Who’s your boss? Uncle Sam. Nearly $1 in five of income is paid by the government On Green Energy: Plainly Not Helping Spain WSJ: Romney’s worrisome philosophy of government As if on cue–AGW group doctors sea-level numbers Illinois can't bribe every company that wants to leave A quote from here: “When you look closely at the climate change issue it is remarkable that Thursday, May 12. 2011Or You Could Wait Around For FEMA To Write You A Check In Thirteen Months
Posted by Roger de Hauteville
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Thursday morning linksHistoric topo maps of New England and New York Social Security Benefits, Finances, and Policy Options: A Primer Navy to chaplains: never mind NJ Police Union 'Outraged' White House Celebrates Rapper Who Glorifies Cop Why the Left doesn't understand (or want) American exceptionalism Commentary: The Other Rosenberg Case Bullying and the bullying state Obama pushing return to sub-prime mortgages What could go wrong? Survey: 85% of New College Grads Move Back in with Mom and Dad Do Mom and Dad want that? SEALS reportedly used an HK416 in bin Laden assault Via SDA: But he made that decision to go without telling Pakistan and that tookRelated at Iowahawk: One Day in the War Room. Related, pic below via Doug Ross: The SEALs are the heroes of the story. It is rare for us to get even a glimpse into what they do on their jobs. Wednesday, May 11. 2011Weds. morning links
Know what a Newfie accent sounds like? Satire meets reality Has James Hansen lost it? He's an ordinary crank Jacobson: Is your BA really BS? Why Pastors Should Get Their Heads Examined - Young Has Hillary Clinton gone neocon? Barro: Dodging the Pension Disaster Long essay, spells it all out The Politics of Protection - The battles over the Endangered Species Act are all too human. Climate change 'could disrupt wi-fi and hit power supply' Never stop being afraid League of Women Voters is a partisan org How are they a non-profit if they are? 'Maybe he was looking for the bathroom': Family defends Yemeni He says militant Quakers but I say Presbyterians California Balks at Public Display of American Flag - It’s an impermissible “public expression.” The End Of The Sarah Palin Fanboys (And Girls)? Study: Conn. Resident Overtaxed - State Ranks No. 1 In Taxes Onion: Team Owners Object to MLB's New Run-Sharing Agreement Bruce Thornton: The Wages of Appeasement: ...there is no greater example of the power of duplicitous negotiation Noam Chomsky, Osama Bin Laden's Fellow Traveler CA lifeguards can make over $200,000/year and the chicks for free... Tuesday, May 10. 2011Tuesday morning linksEgypt: Situation Deteriorating Badly and Rapidly Guess we made the right decision to skip Egypt this year. I don't think they like me anymore - or any tourist dollars. Their loss. Mayor Mike weak on budgeting RomneyCare's bad outcomes keep coming. Us vs. Them: The Idle Rich vs. the Working Rich Subsidizing College Education: Why it Might Actually Increase Income Inequality Duh. Introduction to Labor Studies: My first-hand account The hostility of labor to capital puzzles me. Where would the jobs come from? From the Chronicle of HE: Totems in America:
Monday, May 9. 2011Monday lunchtime linksMoore's Law still going strong Moms, ‘Myths’ and Cultural Marxism Barnes: On Spending Cuts, Democrats Give Voters the Brush Off Republicans will not be killing 350,000 women a year by de-funding Planned Parenthood. SEIU drops mask, goes full commie (h/t, Tiger) Nearly Half Of Detroit's Adults Are Functionally Illiterate, Report Finds Obvious solution: more money for schools! From VDH's Thoughts on a Surreal Depression:
and
Is government spending what makes the US great? Is every driver in Russia drunk? Good for giggles Government offers payouts to Hispanic, female farmers who claim discrimination
Horrible!… Juan Williams Claims the US "Pulls Out Teeth & Eyeballs" of Terror Detainees (Video) Even Some Liberals Horrified by Ethnic Studies Agenda AP IMPACT: China's spying seeks secret US info Drug thugs called greatest security threat in the Americas Rare rally tests Vietnam's religious tolerance Emotions run high on days of Remembrance and Independence Bamboozled: Two Recent Biographies Shed New Light on Liberal Icons. It begins:
Sunday, May 8. 2011New horizons What made it particularly intriguing is that you know the author wanted to put a negative slant on it, i.e., the lavish benefits and pensions the guards receive are further proof of this once great state's demise — but she just couldn't. The numbers were simply overwhelming. The only logical summation one can arrive at upon finishing it is that only a moron would go to an Ivy League school, or even college in general. Why bother going through all that, when you can expend a tenth the effort and end up in a cushier position when you retire at an earlier age? But wait. Before you send your boss that angry "I QUIT, ASSBITE!" email and head for the nearest California Prison Guard Academy, let me toss out another golden opportunity (they don't call it the 'Golden State' for nuthin') that you might find even more attractive. We'll use a photographic display to help you decide. The scenario: You're at your job, tending to people's needs, when suddenly you're confronted with one of your young charges in distress. Of the following two choices, please pick the person in distress that you'd most like to see before you: If you chose 'B', be sure to check out this amazing job opportunity!
Oh, to be young again! Saturday, May 7. 2011Saturday morning linksFrom the royal wedding to this: VIOLENCE BREAKS OUT AS HUNDREDS OF ISLAMISTS Hold Mock Osama Funeral at US Embassy in London Wake up, England. You should know what we do with countries that harbor terrorists. Remedial History Student Lawrence O'Donnell Gets Schooled By Condoleezza Rice Models Say Climate Change Has Already Whacked Grain Yields Since when are models facts? Stanley Thornton, Liberal Avatar We all sometimes want to retreat back to childhood... Life's a bitch Finding good in bad girls The rise of tablet computers They do seem to be taking over. Something Wonderful: "Jersey Shore" Gone Wilde The Wonders of Reality Discipline Old Mr. Reality is always the best, but harshest, teacher What If Everyone Had a California State Pension? - A thought experiment on how much more bankrupt we could be Deaf Fan Sues U. of Kentucky for Football Game Captioning I'm more worried about the rights of the blind UK fans Eat Your Veggies - Why the broccoli argument might backfire in the ObamaCare case Shortsighted utilitarianism has ruined the Cal State system The Hudson River Destruction Project - How the EPA is harming nature and ruining communities Good Grief: PC Police Says Children’s Books Are Sexist… Obama: Don't get between my wife and a tamale That's a good way not to get lucky tonight Friday, May 6. 2011"I"Via VDH:
If you listen to the Lefty pundits, you'd think he was a battlefield hero now. Right decision for sure, but also a no-brainer if there ever was one. "Let's send some guys to kill Bin Laden, OK?" "Well, let me Legal beagles at Volokh discuss legality of assassination. Friday morning linksCarpe: What Can Onions Teach Us About Oil Prices? Conservatives Should Look to the Founders to See How to Fight for their Ideas There is no autism epidemic I Thought Affirmative Action Was a Good Thing Matt Miller hopes the O will use his poll bump to "go big" Harry Reid wants Rubio to be more Hispanic (ie Liberal). Rubio responds The overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports the safety of myriad chemicals in use today. Optimism Turns To Fear In Libya's Rebel Stronghold Surber on Sesame St., etc: Cut the damned funding off and figure out how to have a society where half the people are uneducated. The Great Society programs have ruined the nation financially and socially. At Moonbattery: Huffington Post Readers Respond to Osama bin Laden's Demise Related, Euro media and Archbishop react in predictable manner. A quote from the piece:
Krauthammer: Evil does not die of natural causes House GOP Throws Down the Gauntlet on Energy NPR hires firm to lobby for its taxpayer funding Good investment ideas: Six Scottish windfarms were paid up to £300,000 to stop producing energy, it has emerged. Thursday, May 5. 2011It's always something Well, there isn't much to do at that point except get the dang thing back on the ground and glue on another wing. No big deal. My conspiracy theoryAll sorts of stories are going around. Here's my conspiracy theory: After ten years of work, last summer the CIA believed that they tracked down bin Laden to an old ISI safe house in a city just north of Islamabad. After collecting all of the data they could, a SEAL team was trained for the killing job. When the government finally gave the OK, they secretly choppered in from Afghanistan in stealth choppers and shot up the place, while nabbing bin Laden's corpse and a pile of computer stuff. Then they left after 40 minutes without a scratch, but after blowing up one downed chopper. But who could believe a crazy story like that? SEALs could believe it, because it's the sort of thing they do routinely. I think this turned out to be an easy job. The dog
The SEALs had a dog with them. h/t Neptunus. Too bad the dog's identity is secret.
Thursday morning linksThe Martini is 100 years old What were they watching in the situation room? Probably I Love Lucy reruns. Conspiracy Theories on Death Start to Spin Pundit Press: The Shale Gas Shock The Bin Laden caper, and a plug for Costco Mrs. BD says "Of course. Everybody goes to Costco."
Wednesday, May 4. 2011Greenie Monbiot: "We lost"
One quote from the (Liberal) Venerable Mead:
He quotes Monbiot: “All of us in the environment movement, in other words – whether we So many people refused to drink the Kool Aid. I'd like to see the enviros and greenies get back to the sorts of rational conservation efforts which prosperous societies are the best at doing - and truly do care about. Conservation, minus the Socialism and totalitarian aspirations.
Posted by Bird Dog
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18:38
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Talk about self-centered...
h/t Theo. How many times do you have to tell some people "It's not about you" when they want everything to be about them?
Posted by The News Junkie
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11:43
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Repeat 1990s?: The Fate of Afghanistan and US Foreign PolicyIs it all about the 2012 election or about national security? Without a doubt, the domestic economy will weigh most heavily. But, the question and peril in the background will be whether matters abroad make the US safer or not and whether our leadership is up to the challenges. President Obama is, to say the least, conflicted between his leanings toward disengagement from prior foreign commitments and realities on the ground. Potential Republican candidates are, to say the least, also conflicted between Republicans’ ordinary strong suit of sticktoitness abroad and most Americans’ war weariness. The restrained, many say half-way and too weak or too unfocused, administration path in Libya has highlighted the divide. It comes down to attitudes of do the least, or if doing it do the job. Not even doing the least in Syria, comparable to a comparatively stronger involvement in Libya, further argues for the weakness at our helm. Nonetheless, the potential Republican candidates as well as the administration’s loyalists continue to spin their PR as if the choices are similar to the 2008 election, if not the 2006, in the case of the Democrats wanting withdrawal, or not important enough to take a strong stand, in the case of Republicans. Let’s step back, then, to President Bush’s courageous decision to surge in Iraq in 2007. This game changer accomplished our core objective, to set up an Iraq that would not be a sanctuary for terrorists or home of WMDs. President Obama reluctantly approved a surge-light in Afghanistan while at the same time announcing a quick drawdown and withdrawal. What the American press has presented the public with since is the bravery of our troops operating under highly restrictive rules of engagement, the corruption and backstabbing of Afghanistan’s Karzai, and the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. No wonder most Americans want free of the mess. News reports (Washington Post, for example) have the Obama administration using the death of Osama bin Laden, though anymore a figure-head, as justification to speeding our withdrawal from Afghanistan. But, our core objectives are not met by that, setting up an Afghanistan that isn’t a source of terrorists or a Pakistan whose real nuclear weapons won’t fall into the hands of evil doers. Peter Bergen, who has long studied bin Laden, national security analyst for CNN and the liberal New America Foundation, delivers a read-it-all analysis in the liberal New Republic of where we’re really at in Afghanistan, “Can We Win in Afghanistan.” Bergen’s article is full of useful background and current information.
Bergen believes that President Obama will stay the course. His article was likely written before today’s reports of the Obama administration trying to speed disengagement. Regardless of whether Bergen will fall into line with this latest Obama administration gambit, his article stands as strong argument why President Obama more hastily trying to retreat should be confronted by those who care more for the US national security than pandering to war weariness for 2012.
Posted by Bruce Kesler
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11:34
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Weds. morning linksOn Green Energy: Plainly Not Helping Spain Who shot Bin Laden? Autism: Faciliated Communications update (h/t, Dr X) Is there anything government doesn't want to control? Canada update: Upset of the year. Details here Hope they get rid of their ridiculous long gun registry Is there an app for self-control? Al Gore Tells Time Magazine Global Warming Skeptics Just As Dim As Birthers We are dim, Al. We pray for global warming, too, just as you seem to, but we do not expect it 70 hot virgins could help with that White House Insider: Panetta issued orders while Obama dithered. A quote:
Sounds like the grown-ups took over. I wonder whether that report is accurate Tuesday, May 3. 2011Telecasting from homeWhy getting new medicines is so difficultMegan McArdle discusses in Why Don't We Have Better Birth Control? You can sense, in the question she addresses, that childlike yearning for a scientific and medical utopia from which, presumably, unfair forces are excluding us. I call them Edenic fantasies. The comment thread is interesting in that regard as well.
Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss
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16:34
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Tuesday morning linksCool - we got mentioned at the Village Voice site (but negatively) The Secret Team That Killed bin Laden Bin Laden Leaves a Scattered, Diffuse al-Qaida Bin Laden death reax: The shameless and stupid Osama bid Laden’s killing puts national security front and center Monday, May 2. 2011One heck of a job, SEALsFrom here:
It sure would be interesting to be on the team which is reviewing those things. More Academize Attack On Israel From Brooklyn College Martyr To Academic FreedomThe appointment at Brooklyn College of an adjunct, Kristofer Petersen, to teach Middle East politics in the Political Science department was defended as academic freedom. This was despite his involvement in touting Gazans as virtual lambs and Israel as a beast, and his heavily slanted reading list. He continues. In brief, Petersen tells us, Israel is limited to some degree in its oppression but it is “beyond the threshold of atrocity,” and Israel’s oppression of Gazans is largely to maintain its own false identity “myth”, to create cohesion within Israel by creating and demonizing an “Other.” Is anyone in Brooklyn College’s administration seeing, and is the Political Science department embarrassed? We’ll see, if he is re-appointed. Kristofer Petersen’s latest is his posted draft of a paper he is to deliver at the American Political Science Association. Petersen asks that his draft not be quoted or cited without his permission. Sorry, Kris, but you posted it and there is a legal concept called “fair use.” Wrapped in a discussion of two radicals' views of nationalism, Petersen’s piece titled “Beyond The Threshold Of Atrocity: Nationalism, Biopower and Israel’s Occupation of Gaza” offers us this:
Thus,
In his other utterances, Petersen does not support terrorist acts by Hamas. But, Peterson does defend the Gazans who perform them. Rather a thin veil for, in effect, supporting terrorist acts. I’ve read almost all I can – or can stand -- of Petersen’s comments and writings I could find online, and nary a critique of Gazans. Rather he concentrates his focus on single-minded attacks upon Israel. Israel did not create an “Other” nor does Israel oppress Gazans to serve its racist, colonialist needs. Let’s see, now, according to the Red Cross Deputy Director in Gaza, last month,
Let’s see, now, today “Hamas condemned on Monday the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden as the assassination of an Arab holy warrior”. Brooklyn College, indeed any even semi-credible academic, should recognize that Kristofer Petersen represents the rot within that must be reversed if academia is to retain any self-respect or respect from society or taxpayers.
Posted by Bruce Kesler
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12:39
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A few more Monday linksWe are pleased with the killing of Bin Ladin, the murderer of so many of our neighbors and neighbors' family members here in the Northeast. It had to be done. Whether it makes a difference or not, only time will tell. Let's hope so. In praise of Paul Ryan 91-Year-Old Grandma Sells Suicide Kits To Help Terminally Ill Die With Dignity FDA victory in the War on Raw Milk! PJ O'Rourke: Our Kind of Class Warfare President Obama's Mushy Announcement That Osama Bin Laden Is Dead (Updated and re-updated)President Obama takes over all the TV networks and other media to tell us that Osama bin Laden is confirmed dead. Osama bin Laden is reported to have been in a mansion outside Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Yaaay! And, what difference did it make when we captured Saddam Hussein? The evil had metastasized. And, Hussein was hiding in a hole in the ground. In this case, as if any more evidence is needed, the evil metastasized into Pakistan's highest levels. -- Why the US Acted Alone The credit is owed to the perseverence and dedication of those in our extraordinary intel and military in the region. -- And, getmo' Gitmo, or wherever they're being held, some of the intel came from detainees. The question is whether President Obama has the intestinal fortitude and focus to follow through, and deserve credit. The Pakistan government has loudly complained about US actions, but has been playing both sides, including some help to the US behind the scenes. The double-play must end and not be tolerated, and the sanctuary of Taliban in Pakistan's border with Afghanistan be more heavily penetrated by US and Afghan forces. The Pakistan sanctuary is key to the prolongation of the war in Afghanistan. Pakistani ISI intelligence has been critical to the Taliban's emergence from out of the mujahideen that fought the Soviet Union, and often shelters its deemed asset. Al Quaeda is much diminished, but its tentacles and their plans for terrorism in the West continues. Western security forces are on alert. Islamabad should be on alert for far less tolerance from the West. Instead, there's speculation that Pakistan offered up bin Laden -- a figurehead, anymore -- as a sweetener to speed US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Charles Krauthammer just speculated similarly, on Fox, that President Obama may well use OBL's death as an opportunity to decare victory and withdraw.)-- Actually, administration officials say the US did not tell Pakistan before going in. -- I'm purely guessing that's cover for Pakistan's government to so many Pakistanis who supported bin Laden. -- Hope: Pakistan better get hopping in the NW provinces; Reality: Don't hold breath. -- Confusion about Pakistan. -- Afghanistan's Karzai points finger, at US and Pakistan. President Obama takes credit, saying he directed our CIA to make the taking or death of Osama bin Laden our priority. That had been a priority before his presidency. Typical Obama. Followed by President Obama reminding us that we are not at war with Islam but with mass murderers. Those mass murderers hide among a sea of many Moslems who smile at the murders. American power, not words, impress. Some details. And more. Info on the intel and raid. A suggestion: embalm Osama bin Laden, no cosmetics, and display -- next to a urinal -- at the memorial at the World Trade Center. -- Muslim "scholars" say burial at sea only benefits the fish. I say, flushing his ashes is another way to the sea. I feel sorry for the fishes. Update: More operational details. The guy was truly hiding in plain sight, next door to a police station.
Here's Obama's Osama death announcement. Commentary: A Moment Beyond Politics, but One that Changes Obama’s Presidency Killing brings anger and relief in Arab world Osama's NYT obit Potemra: Good work, Mr. President and America
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