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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Saturday, September 28. 2013Saturday morning linksRachel Lucas: Damn, I love this country Bulldog reminded me of the Mississippi Bubble Is fashion "art"? Commerce, fantasy, fetishism Huge mess for CT commuters Kimball: Racism Inc. More harm from "disparate impact" Unions: Delay of employer mandate ‘troubling’ Via Insty, Barney Frank Fesses Up: Gov't Shares Blame For Financial Crisis The truth comes out when he's retired University Of North Dakota Says They’re Shrinking Enrollment With Tougher Admissions Standards Obamacare: Destined to flop? Paul Krugman on Plutocracy Chu, Salazar: Everybody can just calm down already with the fracking hysteria Me wishes we had some good shale beneath the farm Green Energy is Hazardous to Birds. Should We Care? The Bad Old Days: Returning Soon to a Gotham City Near You Save a Forest: Print Your Emails Trayvon Martin Case Proved It’s ‘Legal to Hunt’ Children, Univ. Official Says Not edible, too many chemicals in 'em Nairobi Hero: When Westgate Went Down, Civilian Grabbed His Gun and Rescued People Sony Pictures TV Sets Space Travel Series As Space Heats Up As Reality Frontier Friday, September 27. 2013Still looking for a crisis
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Friday morning linksImage via Moonbattery Schools Are Not Parents - Children in Virginia Beach are suspended from school for playing with an airsoft gun at home. VDH: The Late, Great Middle Class - It’s never been harder to find a decent job making something real. 25 Reasons College Is Not At All Like Real Life What Happens When Stores Let Customers Return Whatever They Want? Daniel Henninger: Let ObamaCare Collapse - Congress can't kill the entitlement state. Only the American people can. Detroit Spent Billions Extra on Pensions Now Revealed by Stripper: Booker’s Twitter Messages A Deep Look Into The Shady World Of The Private Prison Industry Are you ready for some “ObamaCare”!? Campus Feminism. Is it forever? Verbal SAT Scores Plunge To Fresh Record Low Walsh: A political turning point?
At One Cosmos' Socialism Would Be Easy If Not for F*cking Creativity (h/t Am. Digest, which has lots of diverting material):
Harsanyi: The Bogus Case for “Compromise” - Conviction is not a political liability Look at the picture of this new trash can. It really is funny... So is this: Brown University to sponsor Naked Week: "The Facebook event page, also indicates that the six-day program will include a clothed event called “Stripping Privilege: Undressing the Isms” on Wednesday which will include discussion on “power, privilege, race, class, gender, ability, and other isms how they intersect with nudity, body image, nudity in relation to (de)sexuality, etc.”" Rigid Campus Feminism: Is It Forever? Thursday, September 26. 2013Thursday morning links 5 Ways to Sabotage Your Marriage Before It Starts Lost cities of the Amazon Basin FDA should regulate e-cigarettes, 40 state attorneys general say No communion for Nancy Pelosi: Vatican court head Yes, Obamacare's Exchanges Will Narrow Your Choice Of Doctors -- And That's A Good Thing After Comeback for the Ages, a Last Dash for America’s Cup A Fantastically Clear, Concise Explanation of Why Traffic Happens with a video from Tom Vanderbilt Dear Hollywood, It’s Time to Stop Obsessing About Race How Jeffrey Sachs failed to save Africa Global warming believers are feeling the heat The husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has been selling post offices to his friends, cheap. Rubio: ‘You lose the American Dream, you lose the country.’ Why the empty planes from Venezuela? K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: NYC Charter Schools Plan Showdown With Future Mayor. Climate campaigner David Suzuki doesn’t know what the climate temperature data sets are Full-Time to Food Stamps: Obamacare Hits The College Student Wednesday, September 25. 2013Statistics
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10:14
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Weds. morning links Wild Hogs Roam Streets, Scare People Near Atlanta The botched execution of the Tsar's family Are Robots Killing The Middle Class? 5 Surprising Things That Have Cow Parts in Them Why the Poor Don't Work, According to the Poor The Affordable Bike Act Was A Complete Disaster - The inevitable consequences of mandates Who is handling your mortgage? Venezuelan Socialists Seize No hurricanes? Well, climate change causes thunderstorms It’s a paradox: voters prefer Republicans on the issues, but still lean toward voting for Democrats. Tuesday, September 24. 2013NCIS: Tonight's the night
For those of you who missed the breaking story a few months ago, you can get caught up to date here. My full series of NCIS posts is here. We shall continue below the fold. Continue reading "NCIS: Tonight's the night"
Posted by Dr. Mercury
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09:30
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Tuesday morning links Ancient Etruscan Prince Emerges From Tomb That’s not autism: It’s simply a brainy, introverted boy Trust me, Wall Street bankers are not Tea Party Republicans. Let’s end the drug war by declaring amnesty on all drug war prisoners currently incarcerated for non-violent drug charges What does the OECD do? The central planning solution to evil Egypt bans the Muslim Brotherhood Six Principles Of Propaganda Lenin Politico: Obamacare: One blow after another Via Insty, Student May Be Expelled for Rest of the Year for Playing With Toy Gun…in His Own Yard Is Ted Cruz’s promised Obamacare filibuster the equivalent of King Leonidas’s stand at Thermopylae? Americans' Belief That Gov't Is Too Powerful at Record Level Monday, September 23. 2013A few Monday morning linksU.S. Not Even In Top 15 Of World's Freest Economies America suffering ills Obamacare was promised to fix Caroline Kennedy sells out Camelot Left Logic: Earth Not Getting Warmer So It’s ‘Time To Act On Climate Change’ Teachers: The Other Dropout Problem in Urban Schools Rahm Emanuel can’t (or won’t) fix Chicago Gruesome Mall Attack Highlights Growing al-Qaeda in Africa Threat Three of the terrorists came from the US Shoot some cruise missiles into Minneapolis-St. Paul? Saturday, September 21. 2013Saturday morning links
I believe Bird Dog and the missus have taken off for the famous Annual Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptist Revival And Used Gun Sale in Woostah, Mass (only true New Englanders will know where that is), so I'm doing today's morning links. Interesting News First off, here's an official 'scoop' for ya. Sites like PJ Media and Hot Air are always linking to the latest Solyndra-type 'green' company going belly-up, with the most recent one being Ecotality, a maker of electric car charging stations. Here's a fresh one hot off the press: Going Green: EPA Puts Brakes on Chevy Volt's Battery Manufacturer
That 'do nothing' link contains this gem:
So, if I'm reading the gist of the article correctly, it's better to be civic-minded than sit around playing video games. I think we can all agree with that sentiment. Speaking of religions, here's a great article demolishing the whole 'sea levels rising' meme: Sea Level Rise: Climate Change and an Ocean of Natural Variability And two articles on the EPA's war on coal: EPA’s New Rules for Coal Accelerate Obama’s Agenda on Climate Change Will Coal Survive the EPA’s New Carbon Rules?
Pope Francis Assures Atheists: You Don’t Have to Believe in God to Go to Heaven Stay tuned next week when the headline reads, "Pope Francis Assures Abortionists: Don't Worry, I've Got Your Back!" No, wait, I got that backwards. The Pope is asking Catholics not to get all worked up about such trivialities as abortion, gay marriage and contraception. Pope Says Church Should Stop Obsessing Over Gays, Abortion
Since atheists are now included in the congregation, I presume he's talking about fringe groups like disenchanted Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists. Look out, Mr. & Mrs. Bird Dog — the Pope is gunning for you! Speaking of religions, you might have read how the professional grievance-mongers want to do away with the Washington 'Redskins' name, because of its obvious horrific racist overtones. You know, along with the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and, especially, the Cleveland Indians, because there's no more horrid and racist word for an American Indian to be called than 'Indian'. Here's the best article I've read yet on the subject.
The last line of the article is one for the books. Speaking of religions, the professional racemongers at CNN are still hard at work. After the Zimmerman trial, I noted CNN's top headline a few days later here. Well, an India-Indian woman won the Miss America pageant last weekend and a couple of lunatics came out of the woodwork making racist comments. Blaring from the CNN headlines the next morning:
What's to note is that not one other news agency mentioned racism in their own articles that day. I'd be willing to bet even money that CNN staffers wrote a bunch of them in order to fit the preordained headline.
The Worst Thing About Hawaii’s Molasses Spill Isn’t Even the Thousands of Dead Fish
Arizona Highways Magazine Accidentally Describes Mushroom as Edible As I write in Of The Moon And Mushrooms, the mushroom in the above article, 'fly agaric', aka Amanita Muscaria, in conjunction with other natural phenomena, might have been the first building blocks of religion. Imagine all those Arizonans eating the things and inventing 225 new religions! On the galactic scene, I mentioned this bad boy about six months ago and here's an update: If The Sun Doesn’t Blast It, Comet ISON Will Soon Light Up The Sky
Stay tuned. Political News Think you have good eyes? Think you can spot a photoshopped picture when you see one? The following image of Putin and Obama is obviously photoshopped, but the question is, what obvious telltale sign gives it away?
President Obama rides sidesaddle. Friday, September 20. 2013Friday afternoon link dumpSultan: Dear Corporate America PHOTOS: The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 Men give up on their appearance at the age of 46 - while women care about their looks for 13 years longer Via Insty, Death of an adjunct - Margaret Mary Vojtko, an adjunct professor of French for 25 years, died underpaid and underappreciated at age 83 Peter Schiff On The Taper That Wasn't Atheists: "Whatever happened to the good old bacchanalian infidels? Why are they now spending all their time doing the equivalent of filing complaints with HR?" "Education": Government Programs Blowing Air into Debt Bubble Tunisian girls return home pregnant after ‘sexual jihad’ in Syria Sheesh. The Moslem kids these days "Lovingly crafted"? Not likely Review of the new Jeep Wrangler
Posted by The News Junkie
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16:57
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A matter of comparison I have an intro to him here. Carry on, Stilty! Friday morning links Inlet Carved Across Fire Island by Sandy Flushes New Life Into Great South Bay Smith student in trouble for liking boys P.G. WODEHOUSE'S ART OF THE COMMA Eating Dirt: The Benefits of Being (Relatively) Filthy Today’s young Americans: luckiest generation in history Granite Countertops, Flat-Screen TVs, Fire Pits: The Surprising Story of How College Dorms Got Luxe Prohibition: Twin Sister of Women’s Suffrage Creepy Obamacare ad hits college campuses and your nightmares A science-based rebuttal to global warming alarmism The 1% are again getting richer. Should the 99% really care? Home Depot sends 20,000 employees into Obamacare Welfare Pays More than Minimum Wage in 35 States: Q&A with Cato's Michael Tanner Obama: 'Raising the Debt Ceiling...Does Not Increase Our Debt,' Though It Has 'Over 100 Times' IRS Surveilled Tea Parties Until Two Weeks Ago Zuckerberg Lobbies Congress on Immigration IRS wins fight to cancel bonuses — for now FPPC approves new rules for political bloggers Thursday, September 19. 2013Thursday morning linksThe cops at Ohio State have an armored fighting vehicle now What are Maxwell's Equations? How a Scottish physicist formulated the equations that showed us how to electrify the world A visit with the very ill but recovering Jim Hoft Gun Free Zones And The Disregard For Human Life A Visit With Jim Hoft Today Federal Reserve sketches a gloomier outlook for US economic growth for this year and next What Economic Recovery? What John Adams Foretold Has Come TrueJust Tommy from Hyde Park - Boston’s Thomas Menino shows how to be a mayor for life. High School AP History Book Rewrites 2nd Amendment Can Republicans become the party of the people? Hollande Turns Against His Own Tax Plan Where's the Coverage? And the Flotillas? Egypt Cracks Down on Gaza Wednesday, September 18. 2013Law Stopped Aaron Alexis From Purchasing Scary Looking Rifle, Instead Bought “Law Enforcement Syle Shotgun”
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Weds. morning linksThirteen killed at Navy Shipyard by a crazy person (and William Jefferson Clinton) New York Times gets it wrong, media obsessed with linking AR-15 with Navy Yard shooter Friends says Navy yard shooter was an Obama supporter Costa Concordia salvage nears final phase Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Lead to 23,000 Deaths a Year, C.D.C. Finds The Myth of Live-and-Let-Live Liberalism Operation Compliance: Detroit's War on Small Business This biofuels boondoggle is yet more evidence that greens aren’t very good policy wonks. Clean up the IRS: Column Congress’s Exemption from Obamacare - Make Congress get insurance the same way the little people do? Hill denizens howl in fury. Sultan: Obama's Youtube wars Franchise owners come to Washington to plead for ObamaCare relief Young conservatives and hipsters, more friends than foes
Tuesday, September 17. 2013Tuesday morning linksNew Plans for Old Avenues in New York City Two new polls tell us Americans are very, very confused about Obamacare Buffett: Scrap Obamacare and Start All Over New IPCC Report Eases Global Warming Prediction The poor: Reagan vs. Obama The Most Interesting School District in America? A suburban Colorado county tests the limits of education reform. Overpopulation is Sooo Over, Explains Biologist in New York Times Monday, September 16. 2013Monday morning links Sky Fall: Gender Ideology Comes to the Schoolhouse How to get a good table in a restaurant What 'Fringe City' Status Means for the Look and Feel of a Community CFPB's data-mining on consumer credit cards challenged in heated House hearing Bankers Groups To Obama: Stop Criminalizing Credit Standards Lomborg: Don’t blame climate change for extreme weather Obama’s War On God Continues: FL Christian Ministry Must Choose Between Jesus and USDA Aid Matthew Shepard, Trayvon Martin, Brandon Darby and the Power of Leftist Mythmaking Texas Food Deregulation Helps the Little Guy USC Student Workshop: White Males are Privileged and Cops are Racist Even Public Workers Know Ailing Cities Need to Change Their Benefits Systems California Bill Allows Nurses, Others to Perform Abortions Defunding the Left, One Union at a Time Child Brides and Too-Early Sexual Activity Kimball: Obama Then and Now: the Rashomon Effect World's top climate scientists admit computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong Cook: Dems Have Reason to Fear 2014 Saturday, September 14. 2013Saturday morning links This Vending Machine in China Sells Living Crabs Why do sugar producers need subsidies? Apple: Ballmer has scribbled the epitaph of his own era Let's Drink...to Getting Rid of the Office of the First Spouse... The case for higher speed limits Alarming number of eagles killed by wind turbines Janet Yellen may soon be a victim of affirmative action CBS exposes unregulated dinner parties Senate Amendment Would Give DOJ Power to Determine Who Is a 'Journalist' What would Tom Paine say? Liberals are not Libertarians Obama Huddles With Union Leaders Over Obamacare Ilya's new book: Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter A reader mentioned a Dalrymple book: Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy Gallup: Public’s trust in federal government to handle problems reaches 40-year low BREAKING: IPCC AR5 report to dial back climate sensitivity Gasp!
CBS New York Exposes…Unregulated Dinner Parties! - See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/09/gasp-cbs-new-york-exposes-unregulated-dinner-parties/#sthash.kQ4sJCq7.dpuf Friday, September 13. 2013Self-insurance
Much to my surprise, it turns out that many both large and small businesses use this same model, as do many large unions. In most of those cases, however, the business or union covers the costs of the deductible, and brand-name insurance companies administer the policies for a fee. From this article: The Attack on Self-Insurance - Liberals want to rewrite Erisa to save ObamaCare:
Democrats clearly want, as a step towards single-payer, one-size-fits-all medical insurance controlled by them. As usual, they want control "for our own good", of course. My approach would be to deregulate medical insurance, and to let a million flowers bloom.
Posted by The Barrister
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13:11
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Friday morning links
A reader found this: About a Boy - Transgender surgery at sixteen. McArdle on Harvard's Gender Bender AFL-CIO Looks to Turn All of America Into Detroit Democratic Strategist: Syria 'One of the Most Humiliating Episodes in Presidential History' Does America's Shrinking Private Sector Signal Capitalism's Unmaking? NYC: Cost of Living Blues The Obama Doctrine has officially collapsed -- Putin is now in charge "So far this year there have been 848,000 new jobs. Of those, 813,000 are part time jobs...." Time Notices That Warmist Hurricane Hysteria Has Failed Vatican Official Opens Door to New Debate Over Celibacy for Priests ...the California coastal corridor still resembles Germany, while much of the interior is becoming Greece. Medicare recipents get $3 back for every $1 they put in US Companies: You Must Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform So We Emails show IRS’ Lois Lerner specifically targeted tea party Obama Wants Your Sexual History Wisconsin’s third-largest school district says no thanks to union representation "... there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.” Pope Francis Praises Jews for Having ‘Kept Their Faith in God Child Abuse Changes the Brain One reason that many Americans believe Medicare does not contribute to the deficit is that the majority thinks Medicare recipients pay or have prepaid the cost of their health care. Medicare beneficiaries on average pay about $1 for every $3 in benefits they receive…However, about two-thirds of the public believe that most Medicare recipients get benefits worth about the same (27%) or less (41%) than what they have paid in payroll taxes during their working lives and in premiums for their current coverage. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/the-problem-2.html#sthash.4KIgRJ0U.dpuf Medicare
beneficiaries on average pay about $1 for every $3 in benefits they receive - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/the-problem-2.html#sthash.4KIgRJ0U.dpuf Thursday, September 12. 2013The Anti-Male Craziness at Yale
More from the lunatics who have taken over the asylum: The anti-male craziness at Yale
The Anti-Male Craziness at Yale The Anti-Male Craziness at Yale
Posted by The Barrister
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Economy: Rules and Observations
Empirical evidence often suggests certain actions may yield desired results, because a rule exists supporting this action. We were told the stimulus would yield, at a minimum, $1.25 for every dollar spent. This multiplier has been seen before, is measurable (to a degree) and conforms to Keynes' prediction of a multiplier. Many people claimed the return on stimulus would be much higher - upwards of $1.75! But Keynes' 'rule' of a multiplier, just because it was observed, isn't necessarily a rule. The truth is, we spent far more than we gained in GDP over the last 5 years. There is a reason for this. While a multiplier may exist, and probably does, the factor may vary. More importantly, it is likely to take place if stimulus is focused on productive activity, not consumption. We have spent the last 4 years pushing consumption, telling people to buy homes, cars, food or anything at all. Keep the access to money cheap and available, provide support ot everyone. But here are the results. It's true this data is for the G-7, but a quick review of data in the US shows just as bad a return on dollars spent. In the 20 years prior to Bush's final year and Obama, the average deficit was roughly $253 billion. In the last 5 years it was $1,215 billion. Over 5 years, we spent $6 trillion more than we collected in taxes to generate....$800 billion in GDP growth. That's a return of 13 cents on every dollar of deficit. In the previous 20 years, GDP grew by $5.57 trillion compared to $5.069 trillion in deficit for a return of $1.10 on each dollar of deficit. At some point, the Keynesians have to admit defeat. Some economists predicted a slow economic recovery. Even Krugman did. But sometimes you can be wrong, even when you are absolutely right. It's all in the context. Krugman is great at twisting context to suit his needs. (It's worth noting the link to the Money article may go some way toward explaining why it's so easy to get food stamps these days. But then again, there are many different ways to look at poverty, which means how we address it needs to improve.)
Posted by Bulldog
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13:30
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Thursday morning linksMowgli children Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven Selling is Service, Service is Selling A Small Business Pitch Investors Can't Refuse Finally! A Movie That Tells The Truth About 1960s Radicals Very different from Robert Redford's terrible The Company You Keep, go see Oliver Assayas's Something in the Air instead. WH Chart of the day: Job-creation stagnation Happiness: Denmark vs. the United States Number Of Reported Rapes Nearly Doubles At Harvard How one woman fought the medical establishment and avoided what most Americans fear: "prolonged, plugged-in suffering” Let’s Do the Single Payer Pivot Wall Street investment banks and mortgage bankers seem poised to get Colorado voters oust Democratic state senators over gun control Is America Ready for Obamacare? RSS global temperature data: No global warming at all for 202 months
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