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.
Here's some art: This is Truth and Repentance, a detail from Botticelli's allegorical The Calumny of Appelles. Interestingly, this was Sandro's last secular painting. He became a Renaissance reborn Christian. How that happened I do not know.
If surveys conducted by physician recruiting companies accurately reflect current trends in the job market, the news is very good for psychiatrists—and less promising for many patients with mental health disorders. Chief among those who may not receive the psychiatric care they need are children and adolescents and people who live in areas that are not densely populated.
Also,
The Bureau of Health Professions predicts that demand for general psychiatry services will have increased nearly 20% between 1995 and 2020. The Bureau also foresees a 100% increase in the need for child and adolescent psychiatric services during that period.
I think one of the reasons that fewer American medical students are going into Psychiatry these days is because it is turning into more of a pill-pushing and check-list diagnosing specialty than the "understand the whole person in depth" specialty that I became interested in.
Although it seems to have been overlooked by the media, it is hard not to conclude that Islamist acts of terror are not usually preceded by specific threats, and Islamist threats are not usually followed by attacks. This is basic psychological warfare, and usually works well – authorities in target states must not ignore the threats, and defending against the threat of attack for an indeterminate time frame is costly as well as stressful.
Principles are what counts. So stop trying to outdo us by rushing to the microphones with a silly plan to solve every social ill this side of halitosis whenever our pet frogs in the media croak about a new “crisis” in the daily news feed. In fact, forget about programs completely. Just say no! And if we call you out and demand to know — which we will, you can bet on that, it’s part of the playbook — the details of your “plan,” laugh and tell them to shove it and start talking about principles.
To do otherwise is to accept our premises, which means you have already lost. Instead, stick to the big picture: liberty, self- reliance, faith, freedom. Those concepts are to us like a crucifix to a vampire, but heed not our squeals. Instead, keep brandishing your integrity and have the satisfaction of watching us collapse, writhing, on the floor into a puddle of putrescent malefaction, just like Christopher Lee in all those great Hammer movies.
One of the most interesting features of the show was Dylan the DJ, or his persona as a DJ. He never denied who it was behind the microphone, dropping, here and there, little jokes or anecdotes about his life as a musician among musicians. With his choice of themes, listeners learned, among other things, that the Bob Dylan who decades earlier wrote a song about the New York Yankees pitcher Catfish Hunter remains very much a baseball fan, enough so to offer his own a cappella singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” on his show entitled “Baseball.” But Dylan also took on a role, as a disc jockey from out of the past but also as instructor of music appreciation, biographer, comedian, commentator, and dispenser of recipes, household hints, and other bits of useful information.
It must be some failure of multicultural education in the West when we imagine that other people in the world want what we want. Things like peace, material well-being, freedom, etc.
Munich in particular illustrates the dangers of projecting one’s own motives or goods onto an aggressor. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain failed to imagine that Hitler and the Germans, fired by revanchist passions and the lust for recovering lost prestige and power, were eager for conflict and had spent most of the interwar period preparing for it. Worse yet, this ignorance of true motives puts one at a disadvantage when dealing with an aggressor, who can conceal his aims under the pretext of diplomatic negotiation (as Hitler did), thus buying time and misdirecting his adversary by the duplicitous endorsement of ideals he knows are important to the West.
Yes, you could make a case that the Sudetenland was part of Greater Germany - Austria too - but that's not what it was about.
Thornton's piece is mainly about militant Islam. In the West, we often prefer to be in denial of the evil intentions of others. I'm sure there is a psychological explanation for that. To me, it just seems like a pleasant Edenic fantasy.
In 1939, about 5,000 copies of a book offering hopeless drunks a spiritual path to recovery through 12 steps were released by a fledgling fellowship of alcoholics.
"The enthusiasm gap is real," said Rodd Freitag, UW-Eau Claire political science professor. "I think younger voters may be experiencing the frustrations of seeing our political system at work, of not getting everything you want immediately. The euphoria has gone away."
McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul.
The move is one of the clearest indications that new rules may disrupt workers' health plans as the law ripples through the real world.
Judged by his own standards, however, Obama has good reason to take pride in his record. For his presidency already has accomplished a historic transformation of American government. Thanks to his victories on the bailouts, health care, and financial regulation, government's size, cost, and agenda have swelled enormously and are set to expand further over the long term. Obamacare may be controversial, but it's the law now. He's succeeded in what many liberal commentators and politicians, and most conservatives, too, thought impossible—launching a fourth wave of liberal social reform, adding to the storied legislative accomplishments of the New Freedom, the New Deal, and the Great Society.
and
Among its other effects, this act marks a new stage in the decline of constitutional government in America. One sign of this was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's remark, "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." After shepherding the equally massive financial regulation bill into law, Senator Christopher Dodd was moved to say something very similar: "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works." In late August, Senator Max Baucus, Finance Committee chairman, chimed in: "I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill....We hire experts." These statements make both an epistemological and a political point. The first is that these bills are so long, complicated, and unreadable that no one who isn't an expert can possibly decipher them. That implies, in turn, that no amount or quality of democratic deliberation can clarify them to citizens, and in most cases to legislators, in advance. Indeed, Pelosi suggests that political debate itself, "controversy," mostly dims public understanding by generating "fog." The second point is that neither she nor Dodd nor Baucus is especially troubled by this breakdown in democratic accountability. With this kind of legislation, they imply, there's no choice but to trust the experts—not merely those who patch the law together, but perhaps more importantly those who implement it. For the truth is that this kind of bill, almost 3,000 pages long, will mean what the bureaucrats say it means.
Or if one wants to be generous, this kind of bill will mean what the bureaucrats, in conjunction or conspiracy with their congressional overseers, say it means. In short, these bills are not so much laws as administrative to-do lists. They are contrivances fit only for the modern liberal state, ambitious to regulate all local and state affairs from the center, which means through a bureaucracy of experts or so-called experts. The result is not a government of laws but of men, albeit men who think themselves wise.
Read the whole thing. It is clear that the Dems were and are willing to risk losing any or all control in Congress in exchange for getting this done. As Kesler says, they are playing the long game, and this version is just a beginning. It's meant to fail, and they will rescue it with their next step. If they had been more clever and had chosen a less circuitous route, they would have simply planned on Medicare For All. People love their Medicare.
It's worth losing a battle or two to win a war. For the Left, it is war and they really don't mind the short-term sacrifice of some pawns and a bishop this November. It's just a predictable bump on the road to utopia, and I do not think they really care too much about it. They already have the golden fleece: our bodies.
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the Lobster Pot (still fun and crowded as usual, but maybe not as good as it used to be) in P'town.
Here's how I make this rustic, home-cookin' meal:
1. Thickest filets you can find of Cod, Scrod, or Haddock.
2. The stuffing (you don't need to stuff the fish, just put it as a bed under the filets, skin down): Plain bread crumbs mixed with chopped onion, shallot, shrimp, crabmeat, lobster, chopped clams, whatever. Obviously you sautee those added things in butter first, then soften the stuffing with clam broth or fish stock. Salt and pepper, and parsley.
3. The sauce: Sautee in plenty of olive oil: chopped onion, chopped garlic, maybe chopped leek, some chopped red or green pepper, then add chopped plum tomatoes, some tomato paste, white wine, oregano, a little rosemary - and cumin to taste. The comino is the key. I use plenty of it. Some salt and pepper, of course.
4. Dump some of the sauce into the baking pan. Shape the stuffing as a bed to fit under each filet, and mound it on top of the sauce. Place the filets on top. It is normal to top the filets with onion and green pepper slices. Salt and pepper, and a shot of white wine to moisten.
5. Bake 25-35 minutes at 400, depending on thickness of filets, until they begin to flake properly. Never overcook a nice hunk of fresh Codfish. Baste with pan juices or white wine while baking.
Make sure each plate has a good dose of sauce, with the stuffed cod on top. Serve with pan-roasted potatoes or boiled potatoes with parsley. It's often served with spaghetti, but that makes no sense to me. And no vegetables, please. Vegetables cause cancer - but everybody knows that. But if you have to add a vegetable, I think a sauteed sliced yellow summer squash might fit in well, along with some bread to soak up all the sauce. Bread is a healthy vegetable, isn't it? This hearty dish deserves a red wine, not a white. (Whites and champagne go with shellfish, but not with real salt-water fish.)
If you are dieting, make it the same way but forget the stuffing. It's almost as good that way.
We have no "insurgency" in the US now. What I think we have is a reaction to governmental overreach - an overreach which, as I posted yesterday, will only with time ratchet ever upwards until it breaks.
What did the guy say? "Tighten the bolt until it breaks, then back off a little."
Being a Constitutional Conservative is a depressing role.
The American government has become a gigantic regulatory juggernaut. It decides the fate of individuals, businesses, whole industries, and entire regions. A few lines in a statute, or a paragraph in one of the many administrative codes that enmesh our productive lives, can mean wealth or ruin. This is a huge, unchecked, and increasingly unaccountable power. Where there is such power, as our Founders knew, it will be abused. Picking better people won’t solve the problem, because where such power exists, it will corrupt the people who have access to it. This is a political law almost as universal as those of Newton and Maxwell in the realm of physical phenomena. A regulatory state this powerful will necessarily be corrupting, venal, and suffocating.
OK, sure. But people voted for that stuff. What can anybody undo? Even Ronaldus Magnus could not take on the ridiculous and useless federal Dept. of Education. Megan McArdle mulls over government coercion, and exposes the straw man of Somalia. A quote:
Unfortunately, I don't have a Grand New Theory with which to replace it; I think of "society" as a chaotic system, within which government, like corporations, are necessary evils that will only ever imperfectly perform the idealized roles to which we would like to assign them. As such, I can't generate any neat sound-bytes like "Taxation is theft!" or "Why don't you just move to Somalia, huh?"
Nobody is advocating nihilism. I do have a grand theory, from Thomas Jefferson: "That government which governs least, governs best." A light hand. The Constitution remains a good idea, and it worked pretty well for a long time. We had a country of self-reliant, strong men and women and kids who took nothing for granted except that their lives were in their own hands, and God's.
And Matt Taibbi snarkily notes the Medicare Tennessee Tea Partiers in their government-paid scooters. I think that Medicare should have been means-tested, but that fight is long gone. The Liberal youngsters are going to pay my medical bills in a few years - if they can find a job. The joke is on them because, the way things are going, I have far more assets than they will ever have. Too bad it's not a joke.
I want to see old people. I want to see babies. I want to tell people their ugly children are beautiful. I want the ballgame to be on TV. I want the TV to be on a shelf over a bar.
I want to go to church on Sunday. I want to go to a bar on Friday night. I want to go dancing with my wife of many years on Saturday. I want to be buried in the same suit I was married in. I want people to stand there and look at my cold face and say I was no great shakes but I was alright.
I'll tell it to you while you are still warm, Sipp: "You are alright." I think it's a wonderful thing to know what one wants, especially when they are simple gifts.
...busy beavers in various corners of the federal bureaucracy are laying plans for new fiefdoms. Thousands of new employees are planned for various offices in HHS, including the new office to regulate private health insurance nationwide. The IRS is gearing up both to enforce with tax penalties the requirement that everyone carry government-approved insurance, and to help administer the massive new entitlement program that will require income verification on tens of millions of applicants. States will also be forced to build new bureaucracies to carry out the scores of tasks the federal government will be ordering them to perform.
Massive bureaucracy. Disinformation campaigns. Blatant power plays.
The funny thing is that conservatives are all aware of the power and presence of the old media, where beltway journalists wield influence and pretend objectivity when we all know they are 12-to-1 in the bag for the Democrats. But these same journalists, their fans, and their political allies all seem really perplexed at what’s happened to make a majority of freakin’ moron-Americans so very angry. It’s ironic that the people who believe they possess superior education, knowledge and wisdom seem quite a bit less informed than their adversaries about one of the great societal events of our time.
Congressman Calls For Schools To ‘Promote The Agenda’ Of Climate Change, Population Limitation. Maybe they can fool the kids.
That’s the ideal sentiment; the truth is that I enjoy the art of killing too much, and playing modern warfare games would reawaken how much I nostalgically miss the wargames, real and virtual, of my youth in Vietnam, as well as how much I envy, truth be told, the warfighting options available to youth today all over the planet…
Men were built to kill, rape, and to create general mayhem. Civilization is a challenge for us. Our only redemption is being touched by God.
No idea where this was. (thanks, Buddy). We photographed a scene like this (but without the bird-feeding) driving down from Whistler to Vancouver some winters ago. Awesome. Even the non-birders in our skiing group were impressed.
The eagles were like gulls. These greedy fish-eaters have no idea that they are symbols.
Freud's early studies of Hysteria led him (and Breuer) towards what is termed the Seduction Theory of neurosis - a trauma theory.
His eventual abandonment of Seduction Theory marked a deepening of Psychoanalytic respect for the role of fantasy - especially unconscious fantasy - as a shaper of a person's character and neurosis. His realization that memory, like all other mental activity, is shaped to varying degrees by thoughts of which we are unaware, was a key which opened many doors of understanding of human nature.
Thus the fad of ascribing mental illness and emotional problems to childhood trauma in the 1970s and 80s was a big Been There - Done That to Psychoanalysts.
Today, Psychoanalysts understand that trauma at any age is just one shaper among many, including genetics, unconscious activity, early relationships, ego characteristics and strengths and weaknesses, etc.
Re childhood sexual encounters, we know that the acceptance of this, or the disgust with this, is highly culture-specific. Whether that matters or not to the discussion I do not know.
In "My Lie": Why I falsely accused my father, one very destructive and suggestible person explains how she got caught up in the trauma fad. Freud, I imagine, would offer a grim smile of recognition at this story.
That's what William F. Buckley Jr. meant by "A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"
The fatal flaw of democratic systems, of course, is that people figure out they can vote themselves things. The US wasn't planned that way, but it's become that way. Progressives call it Progress.
...what is it about self-styled intellectuals, “liberals,” leftists, “progressives” who loathe America and think that real progress exists in some far off land, preferably with top-down centralized state-run planning? During the first two decades of the 20th century, American men had built the first mechanized airplane and were spreading electricity throughout the nation, the first big radio networks were going up, skyscrapers were rising ever higher, affordable mass-produced automobiles were rolling off assembly lines, and nascent television technology was being created, all via private enterprise. But instead, the intellectuals of the period look to totalitarian nightmare states thousands of miles away such as the Soviet Union and Mussolini’s Italy, and want to cut and paste their ideas into the American firmament.
What is it about them? I believe I know what it is. Some folks think they are smart enough to run the world. Like Deval Patrick who regrets freedom, they want to be Philosopher-Kings. Trouble is, the mere fact of wanting that role is a sign of lack of wisdom. In my view, humility is the sign of wisdom, and hubris a sign of emotional immaturity.
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
We scoff at America and its media and especially its talk-shows, perhaps rightly so. But can one imagine The Road to Serfdom on Richard and Judy (or on Newsnight, come to that), or A Patriot's History of Britain anywhere? From where I stand, one American "shock jock" is doing as much for public education in politics and history as all the BBC's networks put together.
I would not term Glenn a "shock jock" unless basic, grade-school history is shocking. But maybe it is, and maybe it should be shocking. America was meant to be a shockingly new kind of thing.
Sen. Patrick Leahy has introduced a bill affecting the Internet that could have a “dangerous impact on freedom of speech,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
One out of every three dollars earned in the U.S. goes to pay for or comply with federal laws and regulations, and new policies enacted in 2010 for health care and financial services will increase this burden.
we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now.
The Stolen Valor Act, which some judges say abridges free speech, will end up before the Supreme Court. Here's the latest case of "free speech". The Denver Post reporter who previously, in her words, "was duped" by the false claims, reports:
Kevin Grimsinger came forward this summer as a special forces veteran who had lost parts of his legs in Operation Enduring Freedom. I wrote about him in July when he led the movement in Colorado to qualify veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder for medical marijuana.
As it turns out, the double-amputee didn't serve in Afghanistan and wasn't injured by a land mine, as he claimed. Records show his military service ended a decade before he said he was hurt fighting in Kandahar in 2001.
He was, in fact, paralyzed as a civilian in a crash on a mountain road in Southern California where, as he now tells it, he was trying to kill himself....
For his aunt in Northglenn — the first to speak out about his history — it's a classic case of stolen valor.
"It's not right that he's living his life pretending to be some kind of war hero," said Linda DeBruyn, whose husband and son are war veterans....
Slingers, as the 42-year-old likes to call himself, moved to Denver some time around 2003. He since has misrepresented himself to the Denver Mayor's office, which appointed him to a special commission. He pulled one over on state lawmakers when testifying earlier this year. And he hoodwinked medical-marijuana advocates who were all too eager to wheel him forward as a valorous poster guy.
He has misled about 200 people participating in a veterans outreach program he runs at Budding Health, a pot dispensary in Denver. Most folks there and at VFW Post 1 — where Grimsinger was a quartermaster — know him as the guy whose legs were blown off in Afghanistan.
"Holy crap. Holy crap," VFW commander Izzy Abbass said when learning Grimsinger's history. "This just detracts from what everybody else endured and suffered."
Hey, judges, no harm done, huh. Influencing legislation, being appointed to a government commission, misleading veterans in need of help, no big thing. How about impersonating judges? Would that count?
Government is an organism that tries to maximize its energy intake. It is, in effect, like all other organisms.
Read it. It's about the Romer-Laffer Curve, and how greedy governments can enslave you - almost to the point that you give up, but not quite. A successful work camp never works its inmates to death...unless they are too old or sick to be productive to the State.
Photo is a human tapeworm. They can be up to 35' long, and lay millions of eggs daily. They can be an effective aid to slow and manageable weight loss.
“For reasons that are not entirely clear, more people are questioning whether it’s necessary to go to college.”
If she had been paying any attention, she would know that the reasons are very clear. Many of the young people drawn into college are academically weak and disengaged; they learn little or nothing in their college years; they accumulate loads of debt; they end up working in jobs that almost any high-school student could easily learn to do. Furthermore, as we increase the percentage of people in the labor force who have college credentials, that ratchets up credential inflation, making it harder for those who don’t have college credentials to find good employment.
People who choose to work with their hands are looked down upon by the chattering classes. It used to be that getting into college was hard. Now it’s just expensive. Getting into a post-college profession was even harder. People were impressed if someone went to college. And even more so if they went on to become a lawyer or doctor.
Everything testifies to the great benefit of charter schools, private schools and home schooling, so why do we continue to provide education in such an antiquated method? Again, it doesn’t serve the teacher’s union to break the kids out into smaller and smaller schools and classes where information can not be controlled and might even become contradictory to earlier “government” teachings. What government employee would benefit from a revolution in education delivery? None.
Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their Congressional majority.
It’s not just a band of flannel-shirted environmentalists any longer; it’s become a big-money, major player in Washington power politics and American elections.
It was less encouraging to discover how easily the nose can be led astray by the eyes. For his next stupid human trick, Wysocki produced two jars, one labeled "Food," the other "Body." I was told to sniff each. I actually was one of the few people not fooled by the experiment: I said both jars smelled like vomit. In fact, both jars contained the same chemical compound, butyric acid, which can be perceived as vomit but also as perspiration or Parmesan cheese. Wysocki told me he often conducts this test at seminars and that, on average, 60 percent of the people in the room will claim they enjoy the aroma in the "Food" jar, with most saying it's redolent of Parmesan cheese; but when he asks if anyone found the "Body" jar pleasant, no hands go up—the participants invariably claim that it smells of puke or body odor. He mentioned similar work done with wine by Frederic Brochet, a French cognitive psychologist. Brochet has shown that people given a white wine that has been dyed red will describe it exactly as they would a red wine. He has also found that if he serves the same wine in two different bottles, one labeled a cheap vin de table and the other a pricey grand cru, people invariably lavish praise on the latter and scorn the former. Brochet has dubbed this phenomenon "perceptive expectation."
I have no interest in being a "super-taster." I want to continue to enjoy inexpensive red wine.
You know - I hope he pulls this off. It's his prerogative to change the design rules and site for racing - I hope he does it. When you consider the amount of money these one design hi-tech maxi-racers burn through, it sounds like he's on the right track.
State-of-the-art one design smaller boats with strict rules sounds good to me. Then it is all about wind, weather and tactics and not the biggest and deepest pocket.
6:6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;
6:7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;
6:8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
6:9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
6:11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.
6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
6:13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you
6:14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
6:15 which he will bring about at the right time--he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
6:16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
6:17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
6:18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,
6:19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
Pence is a serious person. This speech is a serious speech, from Sept 22 at Hillsdale. It's about humility. I encourage readers to enjoy this Washingtonian speech. I would vote for him, but Mrs. BD would happily vote for Sarah:
I guess we don't have to worry about that baloney. I was hoping a good one would hit up here, so I could have an excuse for a day or two off work to catch up on my chores. We know how to deal with bad weather.
Globalistical warmening fails again. Funny how negative results never make headlines or get attention. Even important negative findings in science have trouble getting published in scientific journals. There must be a fallacy term for that, but I'm not sure what it is. If a good hurricane hit land this year, the Al Gore folks would be all over it.
What am I smoking? A Griffin corona. Nice. No, actually, it's not a corona. It's bigger than that. Tasty, whatever the Griffin is that I bought from my local upscale cigar store Indian.
My NYC pal, who happens to be a "private wealth" money manager, and I had an interesting a conversation this week.
I commented to him that it seemed to me that, the more money people had, the more they worried about money. (I also told him about some doubtless BS study that said that peoples' general life happiness doesn't improve much after an income of $75,000. - assuming the life they constructed is not totally dysfunctional.)
He told me that he had thought about this too, and that his observation about my point was that wealthier people did tend to worry more about their money the more money they have - up to the point of $17 million in the bank.
At 17 million, he said, for some psychological reason, prosperous people generally stop worrying unless they are highly neurotic - or if they try to live as if they had $100 million.
He also said, however, that "Everybody is neurotic about money. The hard part of my job is the Psychiatry, because it's not rocket science to determine a good bond price and it's not rocket science to preserve capital."
Last May on "Meet the Press," Friedman fantasized about a government that could implement the "right solutions" without all that bothersome democracy...
Tom Friedman as Dictator for Life. There's an idea. BTW, I think Tom is a pompous ass. Not stupid, but unwise.
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night Over the hill between the town below And the forsaken upland hermitage That held as much as he should ever know On earth again of home, paused warily. The road was his with not a native near; And Eben, having leisure, said aloud, For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon Again, and we may not have many more; The bird is on the wing, the poet says, And you and I have said it here before. Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light The jug that he had gone so far to fill, And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood, Since you propose it, I believe I will."
Alone, as if enduring to the end A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn, He stood there in the middle of the road Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn. Below him, in the town among the trees, Where friends of other days had honored him, A phantom salutation of the dead Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.
Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child Down tenderly, fearing it may awake, He set the jug down slowly at his feet With trembling care, knowing that most things break; And only when assured that on firm earth It stood, as the uncertain lives of men Assuredly did not, he paced away, And with his hand extended paused again:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this In a long time; and many a change has come To both of us, I fear, since last it was We had a drop together. Welcome home!" Convivially returning with himself, Again he raised the jug up to the light; And with an acquiescent quaver said: "Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
"Only a very little, Mr. Flood-- For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do." So, for the time, apparently it did, And Eben evidently thought so too; For soon amid the silver loneliness Of night he lifted up his voice and sang, Secure, with only two moons listening, Until the whole harmonious landscape rang--
"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out, The last word wavered; and the song being done, He raised again the jug regretfully And shook his head, and was again alone. There was not much that was ahead of him, And there was nothing in the town below-- Where strangers would have shut the many doors That many friends had opened long ago.
My wife and I noticed the utter breakdown of enormous parts of the lives of average Americans, the destruction or subversion of many formerly useful institutions, and a general retreat to barbarism masquerading as progress. We decided to change our lives a while ago, and not unlike the Swiss Family, the last three or four years took even the last lifeboat we found ourselves in and smashed it on the rocks. We have reinvented ourselves, and we'll tell you how we're doing it, if you're interested.
Damn hippies all over again. This is a wonderful, love-filled family. Insane, or Thoreauvian? Don't ask me. I am not ready to move too far from NYC or Cape Cod, but I have no idea how I might feel tomorrow. Plus I have ye olde farme homesteade to worry about.
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.' Henry David Thoreau
That makes me poverty-stricken, Henry, because I still want to go everywhere and do everything.
Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond to my questions this week.
My final question is just for fun.
You have just won a one-week trip, all expenses paid (except gratuities), with however many passengers the airplane can hold (or fewer), on a round trip flight on a G-650 to anywhere - but only to one destination to which the airplane can fly non-stop - and an airport on which it can land.
Are all Americans entitled to equal protections under the law? Of course, except if relying upon the current leadership of US Department of Justice. Reluctantly, only after misrepresentations were made to Congress by officials of the US Department of Justice, the chief of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Section – with over three decades service in the DOJ -- claimed whistleblower protections to spill the beans to Congress the US Commission on Civil Rights.
In his testimony, Christopher Coates, recounting his direct experiences, summed up “the hostility in the Civil Right Division (CRD) and Voting Section toward the equal enforcement of some of the federal voting laws.”:
What I am pointing out is that I believe that some minorities are just as likely to resort to lawlessness in the voting area as are some whites….In our increasingly multiethnic society, that [ignoring minorities’ breaking of electoral laws] is a clear recipe to undermine the public’s confidence in the legitimacy of our electoral process….We do not have the discretion to decide not to enforce the law based upon the race of the perpetrators or the race of the victims of the wrongdoing. Those discretionary decisions cannot constitutionally be based upon race.
Another Voting Rights Section attorney who resigned to blow the same whistle comments, “My profession has not seen a hero like Coates since the giants of the civil rights movement convinced the courts to eradicate legal racial discrimination. Coates has dedicated a lifetime to following in their footsteps, to ensuring free access to the ballot.”
I just checked Google news. No MSM coverage yet. I just checked another major aggregator of news wires. No coverage yet. Surely there will be, some. That is not enough.
It is up to the voters in November to see that there’s a Congress which conducts proper oversight of the Obama Justice Department, to ensure equal justice for all.
"Isn't it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail, but the penalty for a congressman lying to you is another two years in office."
Peter Schmuck, a Baltimore Sun sports writer, concerning the indictment of Roger Clemens
Sean Wilentz, author of 
It must be some failure of multicultural education in the West when we imagine that other people in the world want what we want. Things like peace, material well-being, freedom, etc.
Fierce feminist lobbying
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the 
We have no "insurgency" in the US now. What I think we have is a reaction to governmental overreach - an overreach which, as I posted yesterday, will only with time ratchet ever upwards until it breaks.
It's been going on for many years, at least since Teddy Roosevelt: 
At American Thinker, Hoven's 
The College Board 
Toon via 
Wine tasting, and taste in general: a quote from 
Another good GOP Pres candidate: 
1 Timothy 6:6-19
I guess we don't have to worry about that baloney. I was hoping a good one would hit up here, so I could have an excuse for a day or two off work to catch up on my chores. We know how to deal with bad weather.
My NYC pal, who happens to be a "private wealth" money manager, and I had an interesting a conversation this week.
Mr. Flood's Party
My final question is just for fun.