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.
Photo: A fair likeness of your News Junkie at Cannon Mountain this winter, with his few remaining brain cells well-protected after a nasty run-in with a hostile tree in early January.
Homeland Sec refuses to use the I word. It might offend, I guess. The problem is that this sort of baloney offends me, and insults my intelligence. Plus I am paying for it.
Members of both government and opposition parties in the Bundestag said there would be no parliamentary support for any financial rescue package for Greece without clear evidence of drastic cuts in state spending. Eurozone finance ministers are due to meet on Monday, but no detailed rescue plan will be on their agenda.
One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits -- a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?
“Laurence Tribe, one of the most brilliant lawyers in America, has said that Barack is the most incandescently brilliant student he ever taught. I think brains count. When you combine it with the kind of international background that he’s had, what’s he’s been through as a black person. It has not made him angry, but he’s rather hopeful by it. He’s an extremely positive person about the future of America. He’s the president I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
"As the government assumes a larger share of health care costs, it is increasingly able to use that as a justification to intrude into personal decisions or private enterprises, whether it's a matter of smoking policy, trans-fats, or salt," we wrote last month. Now the Wall Street Journal is out with an editorial praising Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity, reasoning, "the reality is that U.S. obesity imposes huge costs on taxpayers. In 2006, the per capita increase in spending attributable to obesity was 36% for Medicare and 47% for Medicaid, according to a paper last year in Health Affairs. Many fat kids grow up to be fat adults, and you've got to start somewhere."
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 10 Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
Mrs. BD and I have been engaged in a month-long debate about trips this year (in addition to the usual Cape Cod family reunion and, I think, hunting in Manitoba).
Cruise or car or trains? Scotland? Provence? Vienna and Prague? Venice and Veneto and the south Tyrol? Canary Islands and Madeira with stops in Morocco and Portugal? Turkey (I love that country)? Sailboat down the Turkish coast? Israel and Egypt?
Carpe diem, right? Now, or never. Could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
I am more in a Provence mood (or maybe Sicily again), but I always do love to get on a ship or a boat. It gives me a reason (besides tuitions) to work. (My theory of life? We can relax when we are dead.) Put it on the credit card...
I hate to correct Scott, but Lincoln was not the unanimous choice of the brand new Republican Party - he was the relatively-unknown compromise choice when a contentious convention could not agree on the front-runners - most of whom he put in his Cabinet.
The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the florid language of ancient Rome. The other is Anglo-Saxon, the plain languages of England and northern Europe. The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.
How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in -ion—like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)—or that end in -ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture—somebody doing something. Here’s a typical sentence: “Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”
If only someone as gifted and righteous as The One were able to work freely on behalf of the common good, all would be well. After all, how could America go wrong pinning its destiny to a man that uses the word “elegant” and the phrase “academically approved” in the same sentence? You certainly weren’t going to get that from George Bush.
God save us from "academically-approved."
Noonan: The Off-center President. She asks "How did the president lose the room? How did he lose popularity?"
We think "global warming" is a political movement with quasi-religious overtones. Video via Moonbattery, who comments: "Is the global warming hoax a totalitarian plot? In a word: yes."
If Amsterdam airport had a high-tech body scanner, the Christmas panty-crotch bomber wouldn’t have gotten on board.They’re in use at 19 US airports, so far.For those with privacy concerns about the explicit images they can produce, there is the option of a pat-down search.
Can you visualize the pat-down searches?Do you believe that a pat-down search would be as revealing of metal or non-metallic weapons, plastic or chemical explosives?
The Dutch are now using full-body scanners for US bound flights. “New software, however, eliminates that problem by projecting a stylized image onto a computer screen, highlighting the area of the body where objects are concealed in pockets or under the clothing and alerting security guards.”
Not to let science stand in the way of disarming security, the Figh Council of North America affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America and CAIR protesteth.
"It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women," FCNA explained. The group noted that Islam emphasizes modesty, considering it part of the faith. "The Qur'an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts" and to be modest in their dress.
While exceptions can be made in cases of "extreme necessity," FCNA indicated that passenger body scans do not rise to that level.
I wonder if using them for this purposewould rise to that level?
An Arab Ambassador in the United Arab Emirates is suing his wife for emotional and moral damage after he married her without seeing her face and discovered that she was cross-eyed and had a beard.
...Obama was faced with a fundamental choice. He could either chart a bipartisan course in response to the economic emergency, or he could try to expand government to Western European magnitude as Democratic congressional leaders, elected for years in monopartisan districts, had long wished to do.
The former community organizer and Chicago pol chose the latter course.
To the surprise of many who watched previous presidents present specific administration policies to Congress, he allowed Democratic leaders to design the stimulus package they rushed into law in six weeks.
One-third of the money went to state and local governments -- an obvious payoff to the public employee unions that contributed so much money to Democrats -- and much of it went to permanently increase the baseline spending of discretionary programs, a longtime goal of Democratic congressional leaders.
Who knew? The restoration of Elk to Kentucky has been a huge success. (Thanks, reader.) Now they need their hunting season, since the predators haven't found them yet. No Cougars or wolves seen in KY lately, alas. Wildcats, yes! A wonderful state, but too far from salt water for me.
There used to be forest-dwelling buffalo ("Bison" for purists) throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio, too. How about trying a restoration of them? I do know that they bust through fences...
As Mrs. BD quips, "Lorenzo was sort of a Renaissance Man, wasn't he?" Lorenzo took an active role in designing the Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano, 12 miles north of Florence, in 1485.
The design of this rural Medici farming villa, which so much impressed and influenced Palladio, was revolutionary in several ways, not the least of which were its orientation outwards rather than towards an inner courtyard and its lack of defensive fortifications. (Lorenzo was famously casual about security.)
...as we were speaking, I realized that my friend had wandered into a collectivist view of the value of a life. His value of liberty was not completely based on the principle of individual rights. Because if his values were firmly rooted there, he would realize immediately that the value of a life is not based on how useful to society, or how precious that person is to another.
That friend is a victim of pernicious Utilitarianism - John Dewey's contribution to the totalitarianism of the Left. "The greater good" and all that soul-crushing stuff.
There is no greater earthly good than individual freedom.
By deliberately not crossing T’s and dotting I’s, this government blew your billions, torched your houses, made death traps of others and lured four men to their deaths.
That in a simple scheme just to put insulation in roofs. Now they plan a great new tax to re-engineer our whole economy.
When a sitting president calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender. And if they block his proposals, its “obstinacy” and not political views they hold as strongly as he holds his.
This is limp reportage and does a grave disservice to the Times readership. In the first place, a number of additional allegations have surfaced — some trivial, some more substantial. Rosenthal’s readers come away from this piece with no understanding of why the Guardian ran a commentary headlined “The Case for Climate Change Must Be Remade From the Ground Upwards” or another entitled “The IPCC’s Problems Have Been Exacerbated By Its Imperious Attitude“. They will not understand why in this Guardian report of Monday February 8 (“Climate Scientists Hit Out at ‘Sloppy’ Glacier Error“) climate scientists who worked on the IPCC report are said to be calling on Pachauri to step down. In case any New York Times readers are reading this post, here’s a quick summary of what the real story is and what it means...
Remembering Lincoln 
Something has changed. 
Dog training jigsaw puzzle