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.
I am not a huge fan of Florida (I like going to places with more interesting history, and preferably less heat), but with our deep chill so early this year, I have been thinking about it a little.
I am not really a Hobe Sound or Jupiter type, and definitely not a Palm Beach sort. And Vero Beach never sounds very interesting to me. Your editor is averse to "relaxation," and also does not want to waste time by playing that game where you hit the little ball with the little stick.
Islamorada, for the fishing etc. I am also attracted to Gasparilla and Useppa. When we did a week in Captiva a few years ago, we'd rent a boat and tool around the waters between Captiva and Port Charlotte. We had to boat to have lunch in that wacky place on Cabbage Key, and we anchored right off Useppa for a swim and for some exploring.
Cabbage Key has no roads, and there is an insane drunk directing the boat traffic. Gasparilla and Useppa have no cars. They are both clubs. I am told that Gasparilla is for stuffy blue-bloods (it's rustic and simple), and Useppa more for the nouveaus - more luxurious. Tiny Useppa looks to have been having a building boom since we were down there.
"Al Qaeda is said to be planning Christmas attacks in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. sprang into action, telling Al Qaeda, 'You can't call them Christmas attacks. You have to call them holiday attacks' ... Al Qaeda threatening to disrupt Christmas. Who do they think they are, relatives?"
While hunting around for something else, I stumbled across this factoid: In 2008, 93% of American workplace fatalities were men even though males accounted for only 57% of the total hours worked.
I, for one, am grateful, because if women died disproportionately at work we'd never hear the end of it.
How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends) How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested How to produce 15-minute female orgasms How to triple testosterone and double sperm count How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks How to reverse “permanent” injuries How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months * How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit
Given the evidence that small business owners use home equity as a source of financing for their businesses, one would expect the recent decline in home prices to have adversely affected small business borrowing.
I wonder how many small business owners have maxed out, or over-maxed, their equity credit lines. I know one small contractor who has.
Funny how we humans want to take personal credit for things we feel good about, and how quick we are to come up with excuses and rationalizations for the rest.
The author included this handy-dandy elementary life skills chart, for those who never learned it. Readers might be amazed by how many adults never mastered Life 101. Sadly, the "awareness" part is often the biggest challenge:
After the ratification of the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919 and passage of the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, Prohibition began on January 16, 1920. Alcohol smuggling began immediately. Rum-runner Captain William S. McCoy began bringing rum from Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas into south Florida. The Coast Guard soon caught up with him, so he began to bring the illegal goods to just outside of the U.S. territorial waters and let smaller boats and other captains such as “Habana Joe” take the risk of bringing it into shore.
McCoy soon bought a sea-going fishing schooner named Arethusa for the purpose and renamed her Tomoka.He installed a powerful engine, mounted a concealed machine gun on her deck and configured the hold to carry all the liquor she could hold mostly Irish and Canadian whiskey.
Rum runners usually added water to the bottles or change labels for more famous ones to stretch their profits.McCoy became famous for never watering his bottles, and this reputation earned his goods as "The Real McCoy."
On November 15, 1923, McCoy and Tomoka encountered the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca.Tomoka’s machine gun repelled the boarding party, but was less successful against the Seneca’s cannon, and Tomoka was finished, along with McCoy’s career as a rum runner.
Most speakeasy customers got used to the watered whisky, however, and many still drink the “milder” brands like J&B, Cutty Sark, Black & White, and Dewar’s White Label.
For a great chart showing a matrix of Light vs, Rich, plotted against Smoky vs. Delicate, see this site.
...the move to get more college degrees creates a huge problem. The number going to college exceeds the number capable of mastering higher levels of intellectual inquiry. This leads colleges to alter their mission, watering down the intellectual content of what they do. Rather than studying advanced mathematics, physics or --as I did-- 18th century French literature in the native language, more students are studying business administration, communication skills, and doing vocational-school type work on the intricacies of health care provision or administration. Instead of five or 10 percent of students getting "A" grades, we give 40 percent or more. We have created a Potemkin Village -a few truly good universities that come close to meeting the former academic standards, but a vaster melange of institutions that are often neither "higher" nor even "education" in the classical sense, particularly since the typical student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics. Bottom line: too many people go to college.
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
'Net neutrality' sounds nice, but the Web is working fine now. The new rules will inhibit investment, deter innovation and create a billable-hours bonanza for lawyers.
Few recent innovations have grown as quickly, organically, and freely without interference, as this thing. So how can governments resist finding some excuse to mess with it?
Foreign-born people in the US, from 1880 to present. You can see data from country of origin, and look at the data by county. You could play with this map for hours.
I care that some friends who are gay or defend gays, as I have at corporate career risk many times, have an opposite view of the immediate congressional repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). But, I care more about the immediate effect on the welfare of US combat troops and for US national security.
Yes, “national security” is a BIG term, and can be read as overexpansive. Yet, that is precisely what is stake, in immediate and longer-term consequences. Neither the US nor our military will fall off a cliff. However, the immediate repeal of DADT is another slip down the decline of a strong US foreign policy. Most liberals may see no problem or that as desirable. The majority of Americans and nations do not see the US policies of which this is part that way.
There is no reason to doubt, and to even applaud, that the majority of Americans and of military servicemembers do not have strong objections to, or favor, gays serving openly in the US military. It is a commendable affirmation of American fairness. Further out, a less rapid and more measured elimination of DADT may be more practical.
Some Western nations have openly gay military service, almost all in non-combat positions, but their militaries are weak and dependent upon US forces and umbrella, none of them taking the commitment and responsibility for the magnitude of the tasks the US does. Israel’s military is raised as an exception, but that ignores the different realities there which even official US reports recognize.
At the same time, it ignores or is a repudiation of the warriors who now serve in the front-lines, whose tight bonds with and complete trust and reliance upon the guy next to him determines his very survival, as the New York Times interviews of Marines makes clear. The majority of combat troops see the possible negative impacts, as clear in the Pentagon report, and some will pay with their careers or lives. The official Pentagon summary says 70% of the military see a positive or neutral effect, but that skews the actual poll result: 20% saw no and 19% positive impact, 30% negative, and 32% some of both. The majority of Marine and Army combat troops saw negative impacts. Nothing in the Pentagon report says there will be betterment of military effectiveness, which should be the key issue. Our military exists to accomplish combat missions, first and primary, above all. The major veterans organizations and the largest number of retired generals and admirals ever to publicly speak out on a military issue – 1167 – expressed their opposition to immediate repeal of DADT.
The immediate repeal of DADT is especially dangerous to the combat units and troops, already under severe stress. Further, both Admiral Mullens testified to Congress and General Petraeus’ Command Sergeant Major clearly stated that combat troops can either stifle or get out.
If you look at the Pentagon “implementation plan” attached to its survey of attitudes, focus on the supposedly guiding “Vignettes” appendix (p.69 fwd). The New York Times comments of the implementation plan, "The plan offers few specifics on the substance of the training to be provided." In almost every case, there is no real answer to how to deal with challenges to military order or living conditions. Instead, the Vignettes repeatedly just rely upon command judiciousness, which in effect will mostly mean accommodation or acquiescence, for the sake of their own careers. There can be little doubt, under the best of circumstances, that boundaries will be constantly disputed, will take up much time and resources, and thus distract from focus on military effectiveness issues. The limit on the military’s costs and troubles of accommodating gay marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) only recognizing heterosexual legal unions, is under judicial challenge. Gay rights activists intend for DADT repeal to be the precursor to DOMA repeal. So, expect further turmoil in the ranks and defense budgets.
The actual repercussions will be less than the worst case in most cases. No one expects gay – or liberal or libertarian -- enlistments or service in combat units to surge or, even, increase by a tiny fraction of a percent. However, the efforts to accommodate that relatively tiny number will still consume much effort and resources, and will establish conditions that significantly affect the majority of combat troops. Similarly, no one expects newfound support from those opposed to our military’s missions or who ignore our troops’ safety. Meanwhile, a much larger number of those who do enlist will not or will not re-enlist or will be ushered out of the military.
Talk to combat troops and veterans, as I frequently do, and the resentment quickly comes out at the excesses of “political correctness” unrealistically imposed on them, especially when it puts their lives at increased risk. Most stay, but a great many do not. Military commands turn to alternatives, like targeted predator bombing instead of face-to-face killing. In both cases, of course, there is infrequent collateral damage (meaning of innocents or non-combatants), but predators are less personal so less protested by domestic liberals. Still, that alternative is less effective than on-the-ground eliminating or neutralizing foes and holding territory so that conditions can be created for more lasting civilian safety.
Support for our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan declined for many reasons, including the difficulties and potential futility of accomplishing even modest lasting objectives with too few troops committed and backed to do what’s necessary. Other countries see and retreat from supporting the US or from taking a stand against encroaching threats, whether from Islamist radicals or from other anti-Western states.
The world sees the Obama administration “incensed” at the UN removing explicit protection of gays from its official policy, and nowhere near this firmness in defense of US allies – or US troops -- who confront existential enemies.
I have two young sons, and like many others have serious doubts whether they should choose to follow me into military service.
Major media coverage of the Congress vote to repeal DADT is laudatory, and often insulting to those (McCain a "villain"!) who opposed repeal. I won’t hold my breath for their sons or daughters enlistment.
Our dear friend Nathan, a Jewish more-or-less atheist, decided to attend midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem this year. Good on him. His snaps and comments below:
His description of the experience begins:
I spent Midnight Mass with Mahmoud Abbas and a few thousand close -- that is tightly packed -- worshippers in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The trip to the Church of the Nativity -- up and back from Christ's birthplace -- was too adventurous.
Someone apparently not at risk of ever touching a human female boob has constructed a replica of the 4077 M*A*S*H unit in their backyard, and submitted it to Home and Garden's Rate My Space. I thought all the comic convention types were dressing up as Klingons, not Klinger nowadays, but what do I know? Go Mudhens!
Image of the Nativity from The Book of Kells, c. 800
Matthew 1:18-25
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
1:19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
1:20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
1:21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
1:22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
1:23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
1:25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Psychological "study shows" hypersensitive nuts are affected by Christmas trees. I accept that the themes of peace, joy, love, and giving to others may be tough for the diversity crowd which is drowning in angst and preoccupied with what they can get, but in an 80-90% Christian country, you ought to get used to a tannenbaum here and there. And after all, that tree is pagan anyway. German earth goddess or something.
What is it about Psychologists that they are always agonizing about the hypersensitive? Isn't their job to help people feel stronger, not more pathetic, victimized, and aggrieved?
And hey - where's all the Kwanzaa stuff this year? Perhaps the Kwanzaa cult quit their "ancient and beloved tradition" for diversity reasons, so others might not be "offended." I miss those 12 days of Socialism.
I can handle 12 days of it, but not years of it. If you give me years of it, I will quit working and let the Socialist suckers pay my bills. If they have jobs, that is.
Not sure what "whinning" is, but it's probably an extended version of whining about some perceived deprivation or injustice or whatever. Wives do that and, if I can reach back far enuf into my memory bank, I think I recall dimly that girlfriends do that too. Once they have you on the hook, that is. That's life. It's genetic. We guys, however we are, are never the right White Knight of their 13 year-old dreams. Just dopey guys is what we are, and utterly powerless without this remote control.
The only button missing is the "Be Charming, Cheerful, Optimistic about Life, Deeply Appreciative of Me Despite My Flaws, and Wittily and Flirtatiously Amusing" button. Guess all those words won't fit on a tiny button, so there it is.
Only the terminally envious hate people who inherit money, farms, or shops. The truly rich can afford to avoid it all. Expensive lawyers make it happen. Also, people who buy gold to hand to their kids when they get old and sick. Lots of people do that.
I am not a huge fan of Florida (I like going to places with more interesting history, and preferably less heat), but with our deep chill so early this year, I have been thinking about it a little.
Psychological "study shows" 
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