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.
I’m not saying that parents should take their toddlers into the wilderness and leave them there to hike their way out. What I can’t understand is how our society has lost the ability to distinguish between that and letting your pre-teen hang out in the car for a half-hour or spend some time in a nearby park. As Jessica Grose says, if this had been illegal in 1972, every single mother in America would have been in jail. Yet millions upon millions of us lived to tell the tale.
To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance, and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense.
In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, Hamas’ depravity begins to make sense. This is a world in which the Munich massacre is a movie and the murder of Klinghoffer is an opera — both deeply sympathetic to the killers. This is a world in which the U.N. ignores humanity’s worst war criminals while incessantly condemning Israel, a state warred upon for 66 years which nonetheless goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid harming the very innocents its enemies use as shields.
How did the old assimilationist model work? Brutally and effectively. In our grammar schools during the 1950s and 1960s, no Spanish was to be spoken on the playground—officially at least. Groups of four and larger were not allowed to congregate at recess. When we were caught fighting, nontraditional kicking instead of the accepted punching earned four, rather than two, spankings. A rather tough Americanism in class was rammed down our throats—biographies of Teddy Roosevelt, stories about Lou Gehrig, a repertory of a dozen or so patriotic songs, recitations from Longfellow, and demonstrations of how to fold the flag. “Manners” and “civics” were taught each week, with weird lessons about not appearing “loud” in public or wearing glittery or showy clothes, and especially not staring down strangers or giving people the “hard look” with the intent of “being unpleasant.” Our teachers were at times insufferable in their condescension as they disclosed the formula for “making it in America”—but make it in America the vast majority of these immigrants did.
Two images from around the web this week that, I think, capture how many see this:
It's not simply to hide their results, it's because each client might have different goals. For many people, the goal is simply to not lose money to inflation.
How
Obama Lost Friends in Europe and Influence Globally - See more at:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/07/14/How-Obama-Lost-Friends-Europe-and-Influence-Globally#sthash.iWq2cXFg.dpuf
I think this is intelligent (or I would not link it): How to Think about Immigration- The U.S. government is generally expected to act in the interest of the people of the United States.
Early Saturday, whistles and signal calls echoed in the night air from across the river and in our midst, the clandestine communication of coyotes and cartel members using the border crisis to profit. As we moved, on foot or by car, through the thick brush toward the river or down the rocky path, we heard them all around us, moving with us, at some points frighteningly nearby.
Here's a list of the Phoenix VA Hospital administrators and their salaries. There are no doctors in this list (wrong). This is what you get when the government runs health care..... via http://www.openthebooks.com/search/?PensionCode=840&F_fiscalyear=2013&F_Station=Phoenix&F_Name=&perpage=100
Correction -
That list did seem implausible. Sorry for conveying erroneous info! Sloppy of us.
The border crisis isn’t Obama’s Katrina – it’s worse
The nation is getting furious about this, and I know why. First, they are showing contempt for our sovereignty and our laws from the start. Second, somebody invited them to come and Mexico is complicit. Third, these people are jumping the queue and exploiting the situation and exploiting the US. Fourth, many of these "children" are violent gang members. Well, I could go on.
I don't care what age these immigrants claim to be are or where they try to sign up for high school - they are not children and I do not want them in my neighborhood:
Of course they did. Mexico bans any immigration. It's a crime in Mexico. (Almost forgot - it's a crime in the US too without papers.) Nobody enters Mexico unless the government lets you. The southern Mexican border is fully-armed with federales and those federales are not kind-hearted, gentle fellows. Their northern border is not, of course.
It's not likely that anybody would get a Pulitzer for reporting on journalistic malfeasance.
Most journalists have two natural biases that influence and limit their work; no science training, and a determination to push their institutional and personal bias on society. Stories about climate, and they are mostly stories, devolve to sensationalism. Balance and objectivity are virtually gone in the media. Fox News’ slogan “fair and balanced” should be a redundancy, but became a proud and almost unique claim, albeit tokenism. Nowadays, news reporting is almost always an opinion or an editorial.
Been there, done that. The tough old-timers I knew felt they were doing the devil's work, seeking unpleasant truths, rocking all boats, and creating chaos, but the modern young ones think they are doing God's work. Silly people. Still, as the old saying went, it's tough to argue with people who buy ink by the barrel.
Our southern border has been openly breached by our good neighbor Mexico and Central American corruptocracies, working hand-in-hand with the Sinaloa Cartel, La Raza, people smugglers (including children) and Valerie Jarrett, who has met with the Children’s Crusade organizers --- who are not allowed to talk to the media. Obama only shrugs --- the situation is beyond his control, it’s just a human flood of poor kids being let in without parents, but with a lot of teenage thugs grabbing their crotches for the cameras. And Obama just keeps smiling as he runs fundraisers only hundreds of miles away from the crisis.
Confessions of a Computer Modeler - Any model, including those predicting climate doom, can be tweaked to yield a desired result. I should know. (WSJ paywall)
A central bank which aims to improve on the “performance” of the macro-economy is the enemy of the free market. In order to manipulate and target economic outcomes like GDP, jobs, housing starts, consumer spending and capital investment, an activist central bank must perforce destroy the financial markets which are at the heart of capitalism.
And “destroy” is not too strong a term because at the end of the day there are only two options. On the one hand, the monetary politburo in the Eccles Building can set the price of money, debt, the treasury yield curve and the host of financial assets which are valued with reference to them. In the alternative, they are the spontaneous result of “price discovery” in which millions of traders, investors and speculators find market clearing prices for financial assets and instruments–even ones that are not pleasing to PhD economists promising unicorns and unwavering prosperity.
I like Guggenheim S&P500 Equal Weight (RSP). For equities, I prefer it to S&P 500 funds, which are weighted by market cap, but I keep my equity money to a relatively small % of my modest pile of financial assets.
My Godfather was one of the original inventors of mutual funds. At the time, he only sold his funds to rich guys.
His first fund was simply to sell shares of his own portfolio from his inheritance from his family. He had done well with it, and had sold the family business.
When I was a kid, he would tell me that he was certain that, in the future, retail funds would be a big business, diluting risk. I didn't really know what he was talking about. He was slightly ahead of his time but made enough money to build a custom 92-foot sailboat which is all he ever dreamed of.
Guy did not leave me a penny, but left me the memories of his companionship and the example of his Christian faith which has been a great gift indeed. I never told him that before he died at his desk in his office, aged 88.
I do not care to pay for actively-managed money. When it comes to investing on the retail level, I have always said that one can never get rich that way unless one is blessed with the same combination of recklessness and luck that wins the Powerball. Like investing every penny you had in Microsoft when it first went public in 1986. Some office secretaries did, though, just like all the regular citizens of Omaha invested in Berkshire 40 years ago just because they knew Warren from around town.
Over time, however, one can hope to maintain one's financial assets and keep up with inflation and sometimes exceed it. Public equity markets are a sophisticated casino. Over the years I have gotten some very good tips, but a prudent person without inside info never wants to risk enough for it to make a meaningful difference in the end. I will confess that I own a few individual stocks.
It's those occasional base hits in bullish markets which keep retail citizen dopes like me coming back to the casino, while the people making big money in markets are those who construct and sell the financial products we little people buy, and the people in the non-public markets (eg venture capital, hedge funds, etc).
I am still waiting for a major market crash or correction. I have cash waiting in my "retirement" account, but that ammo is getting rusty.
Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to
10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering and other corruption
that spanned his two terms as mayor — including the chaotic years after
Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
...farmers harvesting hay may be exempt from needing a CWA permit only if they follow NRCS Conservation Practice Standard No. 511: four pages of criteria covering timing of the harvest, moisture content of the hay, length of the cut hay, stubble height and much more.
Up here in the northern hemisphere, July and August tend to be slow times for websites. It's vacation season. Nevertheless, it's a good time to ask our readers to spread the word about Maggie's Farm. As we say, a growing readership is our main reward for doing this. You don't have to be a Libertarian-Conservative to learn from, and to enjoy, our eclectic site. We may sometimes piss off Liberals, but Lefties need to see other points of view just as we do.
Anyway, please help us get the word out - or we'll shoot that dog.
It is fashionable today to view the Revolution as one might a traditional war between foreign powers, but, in truth, the break of 1776 was the latest in a series of fallings out between brothers — a civil war fought by men who were separated by an ocean but not by a history. Reading through the extraordinary profusion of pamphlets and gripes that the crisis produced, one cannot help but be impressed by how keenly the revolutionaries hewed to existing principle. Thomas Paine, perhaps the most radical of the agitators, may have believed that he could start the world all over again, but the colonists who marched with him mostly definitely did not. Instead, they sought a restoration of their inheritance, the Constitutional Congress asserting in 1774 that British subjects in America were “entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural- born subjects, within the realm of England.” In the same year, William Henry Drayton, a lawyer from South Carolina who later served as a delegate to the Congress, fleshed out the claim, establishing in a tract of his own that he and his countrymen were “entitled to the common law of England formed by their common ancestors; and to all and singular the benefits, rights, liberties and claims specified in Magna Charta, in the petition of Rights, in the Bill of Rights, and in the Act of Settlement.” With this popular sentiment, Drayton and his acolytes set themselves up as the Roundheads of the New World, linking spiritual arms with the parliamentarians of the English civil war, with the seditious architects of the Glorious Revolution, and with all who had established colonial outposts in the name of English freedom.
Why do we have them? Indians are just people, just Americans. I am one myself, technically, and it worked out for my family that the squaw Jane left the Indian ghetto to marry my ancestor farmer in Norwalk, CT.
The assumption of natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence can be summed up by the following proposition: “first comes rights, then comes government.” According to this view: (1) the rights of individuals do not originate with any government, but preexist its formation; (2) The protection of these rights is the first duty of government; and (3) Even after government is formed, these rights provide a standard by which its performance is measured and, in extreme cases, its systemic failure to protect rights — or its systematice violation of rights — can justify its alteration or abolition; (4) At least some of these rights are so fundamental that they are “inalienable,” meaning they are so intimately connected to one’s nature as a human being that they cannot be transferred to another even if one consents to do so.
American dream or American myth: Should all high school students go to college?
Image via 
Photos via Drudge: 
Are bikinis 
I like Guggenheim S&P500 Equal Weight 
Is the 
Up here in the northern hemisphere, July and August tend to be slow times for websites. It's vacation season. Nevertheless, it's a good time to ask our readers to spread the word about Maggie's Farm. As we say, a growing readership is our main reward for doing this. You don't have to be a Libertarian-Conservative to learn from, and to enjoy, our eclectic site. We may sometimes piss off Liberals, but Lefties need to see other points of view just as we do.
Beer: It's Good for Your Health