It's been so humid that even without the constant threat of showers drying laundry out on a clothesline has not been possible. With relatively dry conditions it takes about an hour or two for laundry to dry on the line. With it being as humid as it is, it can take four or more hours, if it dries at all. Because of this I've had to haul all of our washing to the local laundromat to get it dry. (The Official Weekend Pundit Clothes Drier is kaput.)
I haven't been able to adequately mow the yard at The Manse in two weeks, something I hope to accomplish some time later today, barring any late morning/early afternoon showers. I'm not the only one having problem with mowing, or rather the activities after mowing. Some of the local farmers have lost their first hay cutting due to the constant series of showers. (After hay has been mowed it has to be raked and baled within a couple of days otherwise it loses much of its nutritional value. Wet hay can't be baled or it will turn moldy.) Farms mowed hay in anticipation of some good weather, but the weather didn't cooperate and all that hay is now only good for mulching. It doesn't help that the first cutting is usually the best for feed hay, with subsequent cuttings later in the summer being coarser and less appetizing to livestock.
From what the Weather GuysTM have been saying we're going to be stuck with this pattern for the coming week.
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By way of Maggie's Farm comes this: Health Insurance May Not Make Us Healthier.States Dr. Joy Bliss, “Why would it? Does fire insurance prevent fires? The main purpose of medical insurance is as bankruptcy insurance.”
Indeed.
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Also by way of Maggie's Farm comes a look at the rise of classical education.This is no surprise to any of us who have been paying attention to the quality (or lack thereof) of our public school systems. Our public schools are, for the most part, mediocre institutions of learning, having been dismantled by the Progressives over the past 4 decades or so. They are less about actual education and more about indoctrinating yet another generation in long-discredited social theories and soul-crushing conformity to an ideology that ignores human nature.
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I find the dual standard being applied to Paula Deen and Alec Baldwin to be yet another indication that those on the Left get a pass on the most outrageous behavior (Baldwin's anti-gay slur on Twitter) versus the outrage from the Left about something Deen said almost three decades ago.Baldwin's acting career is unlikely to be affected by his intolerant rants, but Deen has seen over $12.5 million in endorsement deals turn to vapor and her show pulled from the air.
People make mistakes. Deen's took place almost 30 years ago and she has apologized profusely about the use of the racial slur and her ignorance about her attitudes back then, yet her empire is in ruins. Baldwin continues to make them and all we get from the Left is a “boys will be boys” response.
The Left continues to show its intolerance of anything or anyone that isn't 'them'.
Glenn Reynolds also has some takes on this issue, with one bit of advice for Paula Deen submitted by a reader that Reynolds wholeheartedly endorses, that being “Maybe she should self-publish and look to other media ventures and outlets.” As Reynolds remarks, Glenn Beck did just that makes more money than Oprah.
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We've known this since February 2009.Chris Christie slams Obama, saying “He can't figure out how to lead.”
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Add this to the list of crimes committed by the Watermelon Greens.A bird not seen in the UK for 22 years is killed by a wind turbine.
The push for wind energy has been showing one of the major unintended consequences, that being the wholesale slaughter of birds and bats. What did the proponents expect when you have huge blades moving though the air with a lot of force and speed? Did they really think they wouldn't kill flying creatures, great and small?
This is one idea that looks great on paper, but the realities are brutally clear – wind turbines kill wildlife.
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Bogie tells us about a study President Obama commissioned to have the CDC perform a study on guns, hoping to prove how deadly they are and to give him a reason to seek draconian gun control laws. But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.The study didn't provide the results Obama expected, showing that bucket drownings are far more common than mass shootings, guns are used for self-defense hundreds of thousands of times each year (that total includes just showing a firearm, not necessarily firing them), and suicides account for a very large percentage of gun deaths. (I could go into some detail about the last, but some studies suggest that even if guns disappeared tomorrow, many of those who would have used guns to kill themselves will find other means to off themselves.)
FAIL.
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Something I saw at our local discount shopping big box store had me doing a double take.While making my way down the aisle that had whole bean coffee (I like the Eight O'Clock Columbian dark roast) I passed by pallets of maple syrup and maple-flavored syrups. One pallet caught my eye. The half-gallon jugs were labeled thus:
100% Natural Maple SyrupUmm, if it's 100% natural maple syrup it is by definition 'organic'. Sugaring (making maple syrup) does not use trees that are artificially fertilized or use pesticides. The trees grow in a forest, not in nicely cultivated rows like apple orchards.
ORGANIC
I couldn't find an explanation of the 'ORGANIC' label on the jugs, though I may have an explanation of my own: the sugarers used firewood rather than propane to run their evaporators. That's about the only thing I can think of, though I do not believe that meets the criteria for being able to label the maple syrup as 'ORGANIC'. I have seen this ploy used in another area, but it was meant as a joke.
BeezleBub's boss, Farmer Andy, listed cord wood for sale. On the sign it said “Organically grown, solar-dried”. Again, I don't know of anyone who will go out into the woods and fertilize trees, so by definition the trees are 'organically grown'. Once cut and split, the cord wood was piled and left to dry, hence the 'solar-dried'. For all I know he charged extra for the premium wood even though it came off the same pile as the non-premium wood. (I wouldn't have blamed him if he had.)
Maybe it plays to the gullibility of the 'snob' shopper.
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When it comes to the gun debate, it's all about emotions and not about fact. It doesn't help that the anti-gunners really know very little about guns or those owning them....the reason we can’t have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place. Before we even start the conversation, we’re the bad guys and we have to admit it. Without accepting that guns are bad and supplicating themselves to the anti-gunner, the pro-gunner can’t get a word in edgewise, and is quickly reduced to being called a murderer, or a low, immoral and horrible human being.Heh.
--snip--
But when it comes to the gun issue, gun expertise is completely irrelevant to the anti-gunner — people who probably have never fired a gun or even touched one in real life, and whose only experience with guns is what they’ve seen in movies or read about in bastions of (un)balanced, hyper-liberal journalism, like Mother Jones. That a pro-gun person might actually know a lot about their hobby or profession doesn’t stand up against the histrionic cries of the anti-gunner.
How can we “gun people” honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?