Of course, this really isn’t a family farm - it is a corporation. But the methods used here can be and are being adopted by small dairy farms.
I would like to see them reduce the grain ration and move toward intensive grazing, but they are at least being good stewards of the land in their organic cropping scheme.
From Tuesday Morning Quarterback:
Can’t spare the time to string those holiday lights? Why not hire Christmas Dvàcor, “providing professional holiday and event decorating services since 1986.” Christmas Dvàcor will deck the exteriors of homes or businesses; “we also offer complete takedown and storage services.” Gwendolyn Bounds of the Wall Street Journal reported that Christmas Dvàcor charges a few hundred dollars for simple home lights, but has billed as much as $30,000 to decorate mansions of the rich. Hey rich people who live in mansions: if you have $30,000 to spend on Christmas lights, Jesus would tell you to give the money to the poor. (”Whatsoever you do to the least of them, you do unto me” — not that Jesus has anything to do with Christmas!)
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader noticed an interesting article on the news wire and decided it needed his commentary. Here is the article: Hangman Is Finally Learning the Ropes.
It appears as though Sri Lanka has had a hangman on their payroll for the past three years, although until last month, the death penalty was illegal. And frankly, the death penalty has been dormant for 30 years.
Think about that for a moment. The government of Sri Lanka has a person on their payroll to do a job that no one had done for 30 years. Your Maximum Leader has to ask, “Does that job come with civil service benefits?” If so, damnit what a fantastic job.
Regardless of that, the government of Sri Lanka is either stupid (for having a hangman with no one to hang) or remarkably filled with foresight (for having a hangman on the ready in case someone needed hanging - and in your Maximum Leader’s experience there is ALWAYS SOMEONE who needs hanging).
Well Mr. Suranimala (not his real name), your Maximum Leader doffs his bejewele floppy hat in your direction and offers you best of luck in your career. And if you need some rope, write, your Maximum Leader has plenty.
Carry on.
Recently at a family dinner, I sat down at the table prior to the meal. I noticed that Styrofoam/paper coffee cups had been set out for the guests to drink out of. A bit odd, but not totally out in left field. As I went to get some water, I noticed that my cup was not only dirty, but it had faint traces of lipstick around the rim, as well as what appeared to be coffee stains inside it. So I had been given a used disposable cup.
Ewww.
Same meal later, the hostess has served salad. A particularly nasty salad. The host made light of the fact that noone was eating. He said
“eat up, or I’ll be eating salad all week.”
The hostess then said indignantly
“it’s better when it ages a few days anyway.”
And, you know, I think she was serious. Aged salad. What a thought. Let it sit for two or three days. BigHominid came up with the best term to describe aged lettuce: Raped Seaweed. Yummy.
Ewww.
Recently, Family Member A was caught re-gifting. A gave B a Christmas present that B had given A several years prior. Now, granted, nobody told A that she had been caught, but still.
So what is the general take on re-gifting? Personally, I think it’s tacky. I don’t think you should ever repackage a gift.
I will admit that I may have been guilty of it in the past. In going to a party (particularly of the holiday or house warming variety) I have brought along the traditional bottle of wine, that may itself have been a housewarming or holiday gift. Since I am not a big wine drinker, and my wife doesn’t really drink as a rule, wine only ever gets consumed at our house during parties, or when I’m out of beer and not in the mood for whiskey. As a result, we have a dozen or so bottles of wine at home. These bottles have been either purchased for a party, and not opened, or been given to us as gifts. So if we find ourselves in need of a gift, there you go.
Re-gifting, to me, says “You aren’t worth my time or effort, so here you go.”
I did peter out a bit - work and family intervened (not to mention the drunken bachanalia that I had to break up in my hayloft last night - darn that Sadie!). But 30 posts t’ain’t too bad, even if some were rather anemic.
I hope that the recent output justifies my recent post to Panjamdrum. I’m designing my ne uniform now. One word for our minions: Braid. Lots and lots of braid.
Plus shiny bits.
Smallholder hereby calls for a law declaring it to be illegal for municipalities to construct ballparks for the primary purpose of housing public teams.
This is a perfect example of a good use of the interstate commerce clause (unlike the atrocious stretching of the Constitutional elastic underway in Ashcroft v. Raich). Ballparks [Ballclubs - ML], a private enterprise, threaten to move out of state in order to force concessions from local governing bodies.
It has to stop.
Baseball does NOT need the subsidies. Players command huge salaries on the basis that they ought to share the wealth that their team generates. If a team paying for its own stadium would force economy on the payroll, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for a guy making eight million annually to play a game being forced to take a 50% pay cut.
Let’s do the math. Say a stadium costs $300 million. A team finances it at 10%. So $30 million a year of the team’s revenue will go to debt service. So player salaries fall by a portion of that amount and the team owner pays the rest out of other revenue streams.
The law has to be national. If a state or locality enacted such a law, other cities would be more than happy to poach teams.
Green Bay has it right. Let the fans own the team. There was no blackmail when Lambeau needed to be updated.
UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Alas, the Smallholder’s attempt to be the Peyton Manning of bloggers appears to have petered out… And his great exertions of the day seem to have affected his memories. While your Maximum Leader full agrees that professional sports franchises do extort money from localities; he must say that Congress need not get involved in stadium financing issues. And your Maximum Leader must also point out that Lambeau Field improvments were jointly financed by both the Packers and Brown County, Wisconsin. Not solely by the team.
UPDATE: Thanks for the correction, Mike. My faulty memory told me that the stadium was paid for by selling more stock - the same stock issue that allowed you and Vater Smallholder to become shareholders. I stand corrected.
My wife and I, whilst wrapping presents*, discovered that over the last few months we have purchased close to forty books for our daughter’s third Christmas.
She’ll get some other toys as well, but the vast numbers of books astounded me. Emilie already has more books than most adults in our country. And she loves them.
We must be doing something right.
* Okay, okay, my wife was wrapping. I’m not a wrapper - except about Hominid Attire.
Sadie is now calling herself “Denver Girl.”
Is she indicating that she too has been rejected by the unattainable font o’ testosterone thatis Kilgore Trout?
Is she usurping our sweet Betsy? Methinks the Maximum Leader will have to discipline her.
And we all know that he wants to.
But who is this Mocha that Denver Girl nee Sadie talks about? Sounds like a stripper name…
We need more farmers like F.W. Owen.
Don’t listen to the salesmen who say that farmers have to “get big or get out.”
Don’t listen to the ignorant environmentalists who say commercial farming is unsustainable.
Don’t listen to the animal rights yahoos who think that all farm animals are, by definition, mistreated.
There is a path that keeps farmers in business, protects the environment, and treats animals well.
If they only read Naked Villainy’s insightful posts about toad sexing, they wouldn’t have looked so foolish.
I mean, come on, everyone should be able to tell the difference between two-headed mutants and toads l’amour!
The very wise Mr. Morhart, my AP European history teacher, once gave me this koan:
“Love in high school is hell. You have the apparatus to feel all the emotions, but none of the experience to put it all in perspective.”
Indeed.
When the Berlin Wall came down, all sorts of communist paraphenalia hit the market.
The Maximum Leader got a Makarov and a cool East German border guard overcoat.
I wanted a statue. When I win the lottery, I’m going to purchase and ship over one of those ubiquitous Lenin Exhorting The Masses sculptures anchoring the square of every little one-horse hamlet in Eastern Europe.
I’ll plant it in the garden, on it’s back, exhorting arm thrust skyward, and plant red-blooming flowers all around it.
The red garden will be featured on the Home and Garden channel. Writers from the Smithsonian Magazine and New Yorker will opine on the triumphant symbolism.
You all can come visit.
A friend from college days - a history professor beloved by Mike and I, just became a father.
His wife had twins.
He is 61.
I struggled to cope with newborn-induced sleeplessness at 31.
He will be 79 when his kids graduate from high school.
On the other hand, he will be able to retire in a couple of years and be a full-time dad, a job I would love to hold.
Fatherhood is cool. I welcome Big Jim to the fraternity.
