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.
Maybe Leftism really is a mental illness. I have always regarded that claim as hyperbole, while acknowledging the totalitarian impulses implicit in "Progressivism."
"Who are these people?", as a snobby pal often says in his obnoxious way. But really, who do these people think they are? And why do they think they are better or smarter than me? I do not want to control them, so why do they want to control what I do or read or think? It is strange.
He says:
Sean Hannity says that journalism died in 2008, when the mainstream media discarded even the pretense of professionalism and objectivity for the sake of installing an unqualified, ultra-radical community organizer in the White House.
The latter even offers an Eider recipe: Eider Cape Cod. If you aren't planning to eat 'em, you shouldn't shoot 'em.
Here's one of Capt. Perez' Eider hunts in Cape Cod. These guys are good shots, and make it look far easier than it is even though Eiders decoy readily:
Character is what we do in the dark when no one is looking. It is defining.
Today, there's less darkness and more lights.
That may be a hindrance to some, sometimes justifiably and sometimes not, but that's the way it is, and it is preferable to have more character than less, even if forced by fear of exposure. Character is innate as well as a developed habit.
This is particularly so if one ventures into the public arena, as recognized in both our libel laws and common sense. (See here.)
Many of the NAACP meeting attendees openly expressed racism. Many of the Journolist members openly expressed collusion to suppress news via their positions.
That's free speech, and it carries accountability. Furthermore, those among both conclaves, and others, who don't speak up and out are complicit by their silence or non-exit, red-herrings thrown on the path aside and further condemning. And, Journolist founder Ezra Klein similarly misses the point when he says, "If I had thought there was some deep and dark conspiracy to protect, I can guarantee you I would've been a bit more selective." The point is that he founded and ran a selected "progressive" group of many influentials, and their views - although at times differing - were secretly shared to advance their causes. Klein says they should "assume privacy." Nonsense and sophistry, as usual, from Klein's immaturity of age and character.
Conspiracies of silence are as damning as conspiracies of silencing or nefarious abuses.
Insty's link says it has some, but I very much doubt it. Internet legs maybe, but does anybody expect the MSM itself to take on an expose of itself?
This is like Climategate - just some silly emails. Isn't it?
Add: What a fine "conversation about race" the country is having. I want people to shut up about race. It's a dumb topic. I see no improvement in the level of political discourse.
I saw a study once that in the US in the 1700s about 1/3 of the brides were already knocked up...
You want to do something about Western morality? Forget gays. The bigger hole is adultery and divorce. If we could bring back stoning for adultery and 40 lashes for fornication we might get somewhere. It all started going bad long before women got the vote. But it didn't help.
In a free country, folks are welcome to buy their own quackery if they want, on their own nickel. Most docs privately think of Chiropractic as quackery, but the Chiropractors have a lobby in DC, and I believe there is a legal injunction against MDs terming chiropractors "quacks" in public. They sometimes do help people with sore backs. I am just imagining the debates about whether federal guidelines will include crystal therapy and massage therapy.
American medicine itself has little intentional quackery, but many treatments which are of dubious value. For examples, futile treatments for terminal cancer, or those $15,000 treatments for "Chronic Lyme". Thus far, in America you can pretty much get whatever medical treatment you want regardless of its usefulness for you. Problem is, others are usually paying for it.
My prediction is that government-controlled medical care will be determined by politics and, to some extent, politically- or bureaucratically-oriented docs. That is not good medicine.
Good medicine is individualized, not based on statistics.
Congressional intent and judicial interpretation of the first amendment may conflict. Two recent examples:
The US Senate just passed by unanimous consent the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act, HR 2765 (SPEECH Act). It is expected to pass the House. There’s little reason that the president shouldn’t sign off.
My good friend Rachel Ehrenfeld, doughty immigrant that she is, took our Constitution to heart and waged an at first solitary campaign to restrict “libel tourism” when she was its victim for a book she’d written exposing the enemy-funding financial dealings of a wealthy Arab.She acquired powerful allies, across the political spectrum, until New York State passed a law that required judgments in foreign courts where our level of free speech protections do not rule to meet US standards in order to be enforced in the US.
Below the fold is Rachel’s press release.Here are the APand here the AFP news reports.
In past conversations with Rachel I’ve had some concerns about how US standards of free speech may be interpreted by the courts. Those in positions to know, she says, feel US standards of libel are well-enough defined so there’s confidence in prevailing without undue blockage of the Congressional intent. So be it to see.
Americans -- with their lawsuit culture, their safety obsession and, above all, their addiction to government spending programs -- demand more from their government than just about anybody else in the world. They don't simply want the government to keep the peace and create a level playing field. They want the government to ensure that every accident and every piece of bad luck is prevented, or that they are fully compensated in the event something goes wrong. And if the price of their house drops, they will hold the government responsible for that, too.
The story is being posted all over. This bit at Surber's post:
Nixon had his White House Plumbers.
Obama has his JournoList.
And yes, Obama’s campaign coordinated this. Three-quarters of a billion dollars buys a lot of people, although not all of these schleps had to be bribed.
Hey remember Michael Corleone’s line to Tom Hagen: “Don’t we have some reporters on our payroll?”
This reminds me of a Winston Churchill story that Stephen Fry likes to tell. During Churchill's last stint as Prime Minister, in the fifties, he was regretfully informed that one of his backbench MPs had been arrested the previous night for exposing himself on Hampstead Heath. After a pause, Churchill asked about the weather. Was it not very cold last night? Indeed sir, one of the coldest nights on record. Said Churchill after another thoughtful pause: "It makes you proud to be British."
All the docs are passing around this article from the CSM. "In a landmark Idaho case, the Justice Department forced a group of doctors to accept government price controls."
Is it illegal collusion for docs to pass it around?
It is extraordinary, and I think unprecedented, that a free press has voluntarily transformed itself into something not very different from the controlled press in an undemocratic country. But that is what has happened. There are, to be sure, alternative sources of information and commentary in the US for anyone who seeks them out. (There are often such sources in undemocratic countries as well: foreign broadcasts, "underground" or samizdat circulation, and so on.) But the mainline, and still collectively very powerful, media are overwhelmingly a One-Party media. It needs to be said plainly.
The Phlogistians were not a bunch of cranks. They were serious scientists who helped resolve some of the basic questions of chemistry, by being the devil's advocate against the Antiphlogistians, and by discovering important experiments. And, for almost the entire 18th century, the phlogiston theory was more satisfying than the alternative, in some ways. The Antiphlogistians deduced that combustion was when a substance combined with oxygen (Priestley's dephlogisticated air). But, they could not tell why substances combined with oxygen, or even why all substances didn't just burn up. Phlogiston theory explained why, because some substances were rich in phlogiston, and burned. It was only later that more satisfactory explanations were discovered.
According to this, the problem with Israel’s PR is that it focuses on explaining and, when supported by facts, apologizing. For some, it may come off as whining. And, it is less effective than should be.
It fails to impress, convince or, even, penetrate many educated people, whose antagonism or skepticism toward Israel is entrenched.
The problem: Most believe they are well-informed about Israel, even when not, and are poorly informed about Israel’s enemies.When exposed, however, not to Israel’s side of the story but to the foes’ own words and actions, Eureka! Most of these Western antagonists or skeptics are shocked, enlightened and wonder how Israel can deal with such rigidly violent anti-Western forces so far from our norms of thinking and conduct except by Israel itself being resolute and willing to take the measures necessary in defense, including preemptively.
More of my pics taken last week. Nice little town, Wellfleet. Resident population 2700. Nothing fancy about it. Unpretentious summer getaway with more spots to swim and beach than anywhere I know of, but it is not for those who require warm water.
Scott Rasmussen finds that only 23 percent of voters believe that "the federal government today has the consent of the governed." A remarkable 62 percent of voters say that our government does not enjoy that consent.
America has learned, thanks to Barack Obama's crash course in European-style government, about the titanic force of class differences. The president's determination to transform the US into a social democracy, complete with a centrally run healthcare programme and a redistributive tax system, has collided rather magnificently with America's history as a nation of displaced people who were prepared to risk their futures on a bid to be free from the power of the state.
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic Southport, CT, the annual Pequot Library Book Sale is a blast, and coming up soon. Last year, they had 140,000 used books for sale, all sorted by category by the volunteers.
You can purchase, for a pittance, a year's worth of reading material, and will surely stumble into some serendipitous finds that could enrich your life. It's happened to me at that sale, many times over the years.
They have hot-dogs and soda pop, too. You have to bear in mind that the book dealers get there the first day to grab up the valuable and rare stuff, but the prices go down each day.
You know, I rather think I agree with those poet-and-philosopher Johnnies who insist that a fellow ought to be devilish pleased if he has a bit of trouble.
All that stuff about being refined by suffering, you know. Suffering does give a chap a sort of broader and more sympathetic outlook. It helps you to understand other people's misfortunes if you've been through the same thing yourself. As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my white tie myself, it struck me for the first time that there must be whole squads of chappies in the world who had to get along without a man to look after them. I'd always thought of Jeeves as a kind of natural phenomenon; but, by Jove! of course, when you come to think of it, there must be quite a lot of fellows who have to press their own clothes themselves and haven't got anybody to bring them tea in the morning, and so on. It was rather a solemn thought, don't you know. I mean to say, ever since then I've been able to appreciate the frightful privations the poor have to stick.
From 
Medicine has always abounded with quackery, and 
All the docs are passing around this
For those in driving distance of lovely and historic 
Sex-appeal still counts for something: