Maggie's Farm

Your opinion, please.

New university committee to study why there are so many committees

' Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your...Freebies'? Nearly Half of U.S. Immigrant Households on Welfare

Hochul finally admits economy-killing ‘climate’ law is toxic for NY — she should end it

Olympians Condemn Iran’s Hanging Of Wrestler Saleh Mohammadi

Ukraine’s allies are falling away

Chokepoint Madness: Iran Refuses Hormuz Talks As Houthis Threaten Red Sea Strait

Another bridge to nowhere 

 Voting Laws Around the World – Most Countries Require ID, No Illegal Aliens, and No Ballot Harvesting

TGIF: Bring Them Back from Palm Beach

Oil Rises As Three More Warships, Thousands Of Marines Dispatched To Mideast; Trump Blasts 'Paper Tiger' NATO

UK Teacher Banned For Saying Migrants Should 'Respect Our Laws Or Leave'

Kettlebells are a thing with a Russian history.  It was made for weighing produce.

I use them for swings, farmer's walks, and squats. For squats because my shoulder does not like barbell squats these days.

Your Fault: Baby Birds Having Trouble Surviving From HeatCold

NY Governor Kathy Hochul Now Basically Begging Wealthy People Who Fled the State to Come Back and Help Fund Welfare Programs

Cuba needs help?

Voter ID has wide support. Why are Republicans struggling to pass it?

Why Is the Media Rooting for Iran?

Ignore the media’s hysteria: Iran’s reduced to tactics of desperation

"We Can't Live Like This Anymore!" - Residents Demand Action As Migrant-Linked Violence Spirals In Rome

The Fall of Britain — and the Warning for America

I still live in one.

Paying College Athletes Has Created a Mess. It Was Still the Right Thing to Do.

The Soft Skills Doctors Can’t Afford to Lose

The Great Effeminization of the Academy

How Bad Is It Living In New York?

“These People are Crazy:” Climate Science and the Cult of Self-Loathing

Victor Davis Hanson: This Is A Surreal War, What Is Actually Happening In Iran Is Not Being Reported

Trump Administration Said to Tell Cuba That Its President Has to Go

From Spectator, Iran and the crisis in the European mind:

It isn’t that Europe doesn’t grasp the Iranian threat on some level. Of
course it does: it says it does, its aircraft are downing Iranian
drones, its synagogues dread the next Iranian-terror attack, and its
dead at Iranian hands are coming home. They know it, but that doesn’t
mean they will do something about it. They won’t, because they know who
will.

They know that we will.

California Chased Out Another Billionaire, Bringing the Total Money Lost To...

Why Don’t Democrats Celebrate America?

NYC burning $81K per homeless person — with nothing to show for it

 Illegal immigrants from Africa, India and China are voting in US elections —here’s how they’re doing it

The Cuban Mirage: A Revolution Exposed

Niall Ferguson: This Is How the Iran War Goes Global

It's a long story, but it tells a lot;

What COVID Policy Did To Doctors Who Refused To Stay Silent

 Without The Save Act, We are Living in a Slave State and Our Labor Is Harvested by Crooks.

Chicago careens toward insolvency

Space Force Proves Its Worth as Trump’s Vision Pays Off During Epic Fury, Midnight Hammer

Around the world, who wants more immigrants? 

British Culture Under Attack—by Its Curators

From Nelli Bowles:

Did you know how healthy ice cream is? This is something that gets
reported periodically but I will report it now, since there’s a new
book: Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life,
by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel. In 2016, researchers in the Netherlands and
at Harvard analyzed the available evidence on dairy and diabetes and
found that half a cup of ice cream daily was linked to a 19 percent
lower risk of diabetes. But researchers couldn’t handle the truth, as it
contradicts official dietary guidelines. It can’t be right, right? So
the truth was hidden from us. Countless ice cream opportunities,
deprived. A doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat later found the
same half-cup daily was linked to lower cardiovascular disease risk in
diabetics too. In fact, ice cream has a lower glycemic index than brown
rice. Anti–ice cream bigots have ice crimed you.

The ice cream ends up being healthier for you than whatever lab-rat protein bar you fell for.

Psalm 23

23:1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

23:3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.

23:4 Even
though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are
with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

23:6 Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall
dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

When Government Decides What You Can Read (Part 1)

Because of rent regulation, New York’s rental housing stock is older,
more outdated, and less well-maintained than the housing of any other
American city.

It didn’t take long for the mainstream media to come up with a preferred
story line for Ayman Mohamad Ghazali’s wild terrorist attack at West
Bloomfield’s Temple Israel synagogue.

This story is 100% FAKE NEWS

Donald Trump Checkmates Iran On Day 14

 How Trump Is Defusing Iran’s Oil Bomb - Thanks to the U.S. president’s keen political acumen, the Islamic Republic has lost a key point of leverage. 

It’s time for the US to intervene in Cuba and save the island nation

Cuba libre? 

UK Councils Warn Schools: Children's Drawings Could Be Blasphemous Under Islamic Law

Israel Preparing ‘Massive’ Ground Invasion of Lebanon to Wipe Out Hezbollah: ‘We Are Going to Do What We Did in Gaza’

5 science-backed rules for turning money into long-term happiness

McDonald's new Big Arch burger—here are my unfiltered thoughts

Trump’s decision to fight Iran is historic — but he needs to finish the job

The irrepressible Nigel Farage

'Societal Time Bomb' – Explosive German Police Study Finds Nearly Half All Muslims Under 40 Has 'Islamist' Attitudes

Decades in the Planning, the Islamic Republic of Britain

ExxonMobil Board Recommends Making Texas the Company’s Legal Home Instead of New Jersey

 Yamaha, Exxon's blue-state exits only the latest in money and business fleeing to MAGA states

AI Takes a Dump on Bullshit Jobs - What David Graeber's 2013 essay "On
the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs" gets right and wrong about the
Professional Managerial Class in the age of AI

Price Controls Will Not Help Patients

Free the Nukes!

Will Never-Trumpers Ever Admit They Were Wrong?

Anything left to bomb? 

Italy Challenges EU Carbon Market: Hidden Tax Driving Industry Abroad

An Economic Deal with Cuba Is in the Works

Trump and Rubio Give Final Offer to the Castros and Díaz-Canel:
“Off-Ramp” to Cede Power Without Forced Exile or End Up Like Maduro in
Prison

Starbucks corporate is moving to Nashville

Yamaha Leaving California for Greener Pastures in Georgia

Climate Change -- Where The Experts Make Fools Of Themselves

Are Moderate Democrats Becoming Extinct? No. But their influence on the party is clearly waning.

CNN Deletes Sympathetic Post About Alleged New York City Bombers

Trump is making Cuba an offer it can’t refuse

European Parliament Committee Backs Tougher Asylum Return Rules In Right-Wing Migration Win

Even if the Iranian Regime Is Overthrown, Its Most Dangerous Weapon Will Remain

For decades, scientists were above reproach. Not any more. Joe Nocera
investigates the murky world of fraudulent research, and the sleuths
exposing dishonest science.

One quote:

Failing to confirm a hypothesis is a crucial part of scientific
discovery. But the journals aren’t interested in publishing papers that
document a failed experiment. They only want papers that announce
successful results—the more headline-worthy the better. So that becomes
the singular goal of any ambitious researcher.

It’s Not Your Imagination: Restaurant Menus Have Gotten Shorter

Dark days loom for New Yorkers as climate law promises blackouts, cost hikes

Decline and fall of the expert class

How would you like America to abide by European censorship rules?

Mamdani’s message

How's That Green Net Zero Grift Working Out for You, England?

Freedom Fever Is Catching, and Cuba Might Get It Next

What Iranians Really Think About the War

Do not press that switch 

Brutal Numbers: Schools Spent $30 Billion on Laptops… and They Seem to Have Made Kids Dumber

Is college making people stupider?

Virginia bill would mandate teaching of Jan. 6, 2021 as an ‘insurrection’

"Prohibited Access:" Kash Patel Now Examining the FBI's Dark Files, the Hidden History of the Deep State

How Noem Turned a Popular Issue into a PR Nightmare

Unconditional Surrender: When Wars Are Fought to Win

Two Days Over Iran - Chinese missiles failed, Russian air defenses collapsed, and American air power reminded the world why deterrence still works.

Iranian Drone Strikes Bahrain Desalination Plant As Worst-Case Scenario Unfolds

After Starmer Panders to Muslim Leaders, Britain Braces for ‘Islamophobia Tsar’

UK Government Brands Union Flag A ‘Tool Of Hate’ In Leaked ‘Social Cohesion’ Strategy

BBC Caught Mistranslating Hegseth Speech, After Previously Doctoring Trump Address

The Hidden Cost of Hard-to-Fire Labor Laws: Why European Firms Don’t Take Risks

It is famous for a reason. People come to this one-week event from all over the country. It's not your ordinary flower show - it's a spectacle. One convention floor of displays, another floor of garden-related stuff.

We took the Amtrac from the new Moynihan Station, inside the old NYC Central Post Office building. It has Amtrac and Acela.Very pleasant, clean, lots of helpful people, and without hoboes. The New Jersey train station adjacent has not improved much...

The new Penn Station has a large, and good, food court too:

 A few photos below the fold -

This is an annual reposting:

Just a couple of weeks left to get your new Wood Duck houses up, and, if you want to place your boxes in water, it's easier to do if you can walk on the ice and punch a hole to hammer a post into the shallows. That is, if you have any sturdy ice on your pond or marsh.

The males arrive to their breeding grounds in March, and hunt for nesting boxes and holes and crevices in trees before the gals arrive later in April. 

If you have a stream or fresh water pond or marsh nearby, they will welcome your effort. Remember, there is no limit to the number of boxes you can place in or near a marsh - these birds are not territorial. I try to add one each year.

I place them on dead trees in the shallows of the beaver marsh, and nail a 3' aluminum flashing on the tree to deter coons and Blacksnakes. Some I put on a post in about 3-6' of water with a strong cement base. I always add a few inches of wood shavings on the bottom.

You can also put them in trees near ponds and marshes,

Our piece on Wood Duck here. I won't shoot a Wood Duck unless by mistake. They are highly edible, but too small. My joy is just to see them around, and my worry is just how many Snapping Turtles and egrets eat the young ones.

The best wood duck houses: http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/duck_houses.asp (fixed). I had planned to build a few more this winter, but I never got to it.

Here's the Ducks Unlimited site on building and situating Wood Duck houses.