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.
As families gather for Thanksgiving this year, nearly one in three American children is living with a parent who is divorced, separated or never-married. More people are accepting the view that wedding bells aren't needed to have a family.
I have no idea how anybody can run a family or a household, or build a good life, without a loyal and dependable partner. I couldn't do it.
“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”
Everybody has known for years that it's just a boondoggle for Iowa corn farmers.
The end of the line is rapidly approaching for unsustainable government spending. The states will be the first to reach that station.
The arrival will be a painful crash. The impact will reshape much of the US government policies of the past half century.The triage of those affected will raise bloody howls of anguish, and none will escape the effects.
Those who survive the fittest will be those most adaptable to a renewed America of more effective use of personal and financial resources. All will face difficult choices. True need will be better defined, to protect those really unable to cope. True merit will be better rewarded.
Most agree that the root cause of the crash, the bulk of most of the deficits, is bloated government policies and the agencies that implement them. Some argue, instead, that the gap be filled by increased taxes, not facing that spending excesses will then require more again, further reducing the incentives to produce and afford taxes.
I’m not one to say that government workers goof off more than private industry workers. It’s not their work ethic that I fault. It is the policies that political leaders set them on that are at fault both for the financial ruin that most states and the federal government face and for the frustration expressed by taxpayers over servicing a better paid civil service than themselves.
A conservative commenter thinks that President Obama will act with his “natural tendencies to ‘rescue’ and ‘control’ things” and that “The nature of his response could determine his tenure at the White House.” A liberal commenter thinks that former US Senator Alan Simpson’s remark, that “the blood bath will be extraordinary” in April when the federal debt limit comes up for a required vote to increase it, when – the commenter fears – “we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.” (Republicans will require spending cuts.)
The public mood is contradictory. Most want someone else’s ox to be gored. Increase someone else’s taxes. Cut someone else’s entitlement. Slash government payrolls. Don’t eliminate the program that benefits me.
This time, however, as in the case of California’s continuing $25+ billion structural deficit, over a quarter of its budget, there are no more cans and the end of the road is before us.
Leaving it to the politicians has meant cost-cutting nibbles and kicking the can down the road with accounting tricks. Court challenges have often resulted in reversals of spending cuts, due to judicial quibbles, activism, or faulty drafting of the cuts.
Federal legislation would be needed to allow states to declare bankruptcy, or to forbid bailouts of the states, or the Congress may simply refuse to bail out the states. More howls, and more judicial meddling.But, it is the necessary next step, if Congressional budget-hawks have the wings to withstand downdraft counter-pressures from many voters at home and, instead, soar to responsibility. State legislators and governors will be forced to make hard choices.
At the state level, civil service unions will have to renegotiate contracts. Program excesses will have to be trimmed. Some taxes may be raised. There will, then, be carry-over to federal programs. There will be increased demands to trim spending mandates imposed on the states and to trim other federal programs that will be seen as excessive in light of the dimmed largesse of the states.
All will enter a new America, in which there is a more direct connection between one’s own views, own comforts, and own efforts.It will be a difficult adjustment for all, painful for many, and would be a welcome improvement. The alternative is greater difficulties and pain for all if we allow complete insolvency and dissolution of assets by avoiding the confrontation with realities.
Political correctness has never been about helping the downtrodden. It has been about turning people’s compassion and courtesy into a weapon against them. Political correctness has always been the bully’s cudgel. At long last, it has been pushed to its breaking point of absurdity.
I have a retired friend who spends around 6 weeks each year at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. Quite a few people do this sort of thing. It's a Trappist monastery (Cistercian, with strict rules) with guest houses for retreatants. (They do take in married couples as retreatants and you probably need to be Roman Catholic, but I'm not sure.)
He does whatever labor is assigned to him - from baling hay to cleaning toilets, observes the rules of silence, and makes it to all of the Masses (beginning after the morning bells at 3 AM).
He returns home "cleansed and refreshed by the Spirit." The guy was a drop-out seminarian, USMC in Vietnam, and, as he describes himself, a "kick-ass businessman." He is, indeed, a tough SOB who loves the Lord.
The Abbey is an old plantation on the Cooper River, north of Charleston, donated to the order by the Luce family.
The Wall Street Journal reported this collapse in June 2009. Further photos and analysis show that the pilings were faultily built and that later digging out the ground under one side for an underground garage was not the way to go.
I think I'll pass on the coming Chinese economy cars.
I think I could direct Carmen myself, every tuneful note is so familiar to me. Bizet is the Elton John of opera.
The story is just a vehicle for the tunes. Naive soldier falls in love with hot gypsy babe, deserts the army and joins the gypsy criminal band. Fickle, promiscuous gypsy babe changes her mind and runs off with studly matador. Naive guy is distraught and kills gypsy lady. Too bad - he has now destroyed his life. A cautionary tale about hot gypsy babes.
It's in French but set in Spain for the fun of it, and so Bizet could use that cool Toreador song he had in his drawer.
The opera is too long to tell such a simple tale, but Bizet was full of tunes.
I thought Galanca was excellent, but Cabell as Micaela stole the show. The sets were an amazing blend of neo and traditional, with lighting that Robert Wilson would envy. Dinner in the Grand Tier was excellent, of course. We had the Gateau Opera at intermission. What else would you have?
Been to Chicago several times, mostly for business or meetings but once just for social. Nice little town, but it isn't ready for the big time yet.
After careful consideration, Maggie's Farm has concluded that what Chicago needs most for its future is a black woman Left-wing mayor with a history of pushing the limits. It's time to bring high integrity, union inspiration, and some caring government muscle to Chicago politics. Time for Carol.
I have a pal who is in the hospital, being treated for a serious case of Babesiosis. I visited him at the hospital yesterday, and determined that he would survive because I was able to elicit a few laughs - but it can be a very nasty and life-threatening disease (or a mild and insignificant one). He was on two or three IV antibiotics, and a morphine pump for the headache.
It's a bug like Malaria, and its vector is the tiny Deer Tick, same bugger as Lyme Disease. Dog ticks are annoying, but we woodsy and doggy people get those on us all the time. No big deal. Those Deer Ticks (actually, they are mouse ticks more than deer ticks) are the real problem for people who spend time outdoors.
Not to make light of a serious topic, but I can't resist re-posting "I'd Like to Check You For Ticks." It's a guy song, but the gals seem eager for Brad to check them. It must be lots of fun to be a country star:
The furor over revealing body scans and pat down searches for those who refuse the body scan has several themes, privacy and effectiveness of alternative means. It is part of the revolt against increased government intrusiveness, as well as just another way for scribblers to fill space.
Here’s an idea:Let all those who object to scans and searches (according to a poll, about 1%) to fly on designated planes, after signing that there will be no law suit for being blown up, and that their assets can be tapped to repay the airline for its plane. – That will, also, make the other 99% safer, as bombers fly on these planes instead.
Yea, not practical.
But, either is creating a well-trained workforce of adept profilers, even without bounds. The volume of US air traffic is mega-multiples of Israel’s.Lotsa luck with that one, even if the disagreements with profiling somehow miraculously disappeared. --And, wouldn’t we want layers of security anyway, like scans and searches?
Sure, any method has its downsides, and none can be perfect, but that beats a rapid, explosive downside for flyers.
OK, commenters, have fun ranting. Please add how often you fly commercial airlines, and whether you are willing to scatter your remains to the birds.
Getting Ahead In Today’s Mad Max Real Estate Market - Why the end game of this housing bust is going to be unlike any other in my lifetime. He says:
I've been through quite a few housing booms and busts. I’ve renovated houses so old they still showed visible damage from King Philip’s War, so I’ve been exposed to every housing bust since wigwams, one way or the other. The early nineties were pretty bad, as I recall. The late seventies/early eighties were Armageddon. But they all mostly had discrete causes and effects, and in fairly short order Metacomet or Jimmy Carter or whoever was mucking up the landscape got run out of town, and something like normalcy returned.
Liberalism once embraced the mission of fostering upward mobility and a stronger economy. But liberalism’s appeal has diminished, particularly among middle-class voters, as it has become increasingly control-oriented and economically cumbersome.
Today, according to most recent polling, no more than one in five voters call themselves liberal.
and
Modern-day liberalism... is often ambivalent about expanding the economy — preferring a mix of redistribution with redirection along green lines. Its base of political shock troops, public-employee unions, appears only tangentially interested in the health of the overall economy.
I admit I have been as reluctant to admit this as anyone. My whole career has been based on the proposition that somewhere, under all the insults and lying and general bad behaviour that makes up the bulk of political life, there was some genuine issue at stake: that if you could just strip away the politics, you would eventually get to the policy. It has taken me all these years to understand that, no, it’s just politics all the way down.
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth - Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth - A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall? - If design govern in a thing so small.
I usually let poems stand on their own, but I cannot resist commenting that this little poem is itself design personified, as complex and intricate as a watch or a cobweb. I think he spent a lot of time working this poem. BTW, as the poem discusses, Heal-All, or Self-Heal (Prunella) is blue (as in photo).
If you are around NYC in the next couple of months, you might get a kick out of the Train Show at the NY Botanical Garden. I've seen it. Magical. The whole thing, other than the trains, is organic...or, should I say, "sustainable."
Gwynnie iPhoned me a pic from the preview of the show this afternoon. That is Gracie Mansion - the old farmhouse overlooking the East River which is the official residence of the Mayor of New York. (Bloomberg doesn't live in it, though. He can afford fancier digs.)
I am doing paperwork this afternoon, listening to Mark subbing for Rush.
Is there something wrong with me for preferring Mark to Rush? (Not that I am not amused by Rush, but Mark cracks me up with every sentence. He must have a good case of permanent mania. Or is he a speed freak genius?)
"Sustainability" is the latest greeny-Lefty fad, especially in academia. As with all Lefty fads, a tendency for threat and coercion quickly develops. At the same time, nobody is entirely sure what it means other than that some sort of conspicuous virtue with no meaningful effect seems to be involved.
While using American University’s database for recording faculty publications, one professor noticed something unusual. After filling in information on authors, the title, the journal, the year, the volume, the pages, whether it was refereed, whether it was international, who publishes the journal, etc.—he came to a box asking whether this was sustainability research.
He was baffled. “What is sustainability research, anyway?” he wondered.
Read the whole thing. I think it's the replacement for the discredited Global Warming meme, or the Diversity meme, or whatever.
Whatever "sustainability" may mean to people, the only thing I know of with real sustainability is a perpetual motion machine. Or God. Everything else requires input, and the chemical destruction of something.
The Englishman's simple 
The Wall Street Journal
Design