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.
The visually stunning, dreamlike new production at the Met last night knocked our socks off. The lacy ninjas running around and the traditional Japanese puppetry were, I felt, very cool. I don't get to opera too often these days - maybe twice or three times a year. It's always fun for me to realize that Butterfly was the pop, commercial music of 1904 despite being a sort of soul music with nary a hummable tune. Wagnerian touches, but lyrical and conversational, lush and still subtle. Butterfly was like avant-garde rock, or maybe the REM of the time.
'Twas my Christmas treat for some of my kids (Yes, K - you are one of mine now). One more Big Apple Treat tomorrow for the lucky bambinos before regular life resumes.
I suppose we are Puccini fans, but who isn't? Genius, with a musical complexity beyond my comprehension but fully within the ability to touch me. We visited his house in old Lucca, and his home church where he learned keyboard, two years ago but it feels like yesterday. Carpe diem...
This is not the diva we saw last night. We had the charming Canadian Liping Zhang, not Patricia Racette. It's a tough role, on stage non-stop and singing for three hours. Willing suspension of disbelief - Racette does not look 15 years old but it is Butterfly's youth and innocence which explains the tragic story. Nowadays, it might be considered a story about pedophilia and a dirty old man, but 15 used to be considered marriageable and still is, most places on the planet. Maybe a good idea...
Mrs. BD comments "Can you imagine Leontyne Price playing Butterfly?" No, and yes. (She did.) I always study an opera in advance, and then listen more afterwards. Listened to this bit at least 10 times today, between cleaning-up-Christmas tasks - takes me a long time to get a piece of music because, much as I love it and as much as it can reach my soul, I am musically-retarded (it's a Learning Disability! Where's my free money and goodies for that Disability?)
Can you hear the "waves of grain" with the American naval officer horny rascal Pinkerton, here?:
A few pics below the fold - but not of the production itself. I would not violate their rule because I love what they do for those of us who save our pennies for such wonderful experiences, and pass them on to the next generation as precious gifts.
Another year is over of Bird Dog dragging you to a museum or a show in Manhattan. Now, for a quick tour of the San Diego area...where the betters live better.
Friends are visiting from New York for a few days. They’re staying in the downtown Gaslamp.
This used to be the area south of Market full of strip joints, seedy bars, and such. Over the past twenty years it has become a magnet of fine restaurants, dance clubs, fancy hotels, with the huge Convention Center along the bay, next to the excellent sightlines from every seat Petco ball park. San Diego's costs are a fraction of New York’s. My friend is an expert on the Near East. They had dinner Thursday night at an Afghani restaurant, which they both said was some of the best they’d had from that part of the world. The weather this week: 70F+ and sunny.
Yesterday, I took them to Old Town, several acres of authenticish early Spanish and Anglo San Diego...
(Lots more of a tour of lovely San Diego below the fold)
This northern chicken-like (gallinaceous) bird prefers first-growth areas, with access to water and open areas. I most often find them in aspen, birch or alder thickets, but they can be seen in piney woods, old orchards, ferny woods, and in streambeds. In regions where birch and aspen are the climax forest, they can be found everywhere or anywhere, but never in large numbers. They are most commonly encountered when they flush with a startling whirr of wings.
Once known as "fool hens" for their tameness, Ruffies have somehow learned to avoid human encounters once they have had contact with them.
These birds do not migrate, and winter very well, since they are very happy to thrive on tree buds all winter, especially protein-rich aspen and birch buds. Their numbers have been declining in the Northeast as the old farms have become either mature woods, or housing developments, but clear-cutting of mature woodlands is a great help to them, as it is to most species of wildlife (it imitates the natural effect of wildfire to regenerate forest succession, which is key to habitat diversity and thus species diversity).
The Ruffed Grouse is the noblest game bird in the US. Wary, they do not often hold to a dog's point and when they do flush, their flight assumes warp speed immediately and is unpredictable. (Gwynnie's theory is that they have a random-direction-generating gyroscope in their brains.) They have an uncanny talent for putting tree trunks between the hunter and themselves, or for flying at your face, or flying between you and you pal, whose life you may (or may not) value more highly than you value bagging a Ruffie. And even the most considerate hunters ( yes - you, Craig) will pop off a snap shot regardless of whose bird it is, and rightly so. You cannot wait with Ruffies.
Grouse hunters (a very special and scarce, and, to my mind, elite fraternity of intrepid woodsy folks who don't mind cuts, bruises, wet boots, and hours-long struggles through underbrush, raspberry patches, thorny thickets of hawthorn, and impenetrable streamside alder growths) require very quick reflexes and a high degree of "relaxed alertness", but they require, most of all, strong legs for all of the hours of difficult wilderness walking which is required to find these wonderful creatures. It is said that grouse "are killed with legs, not guns." Dogs help, a bit, but they are huntable without dogs. When a hunter finds one, they are generally very difficult to shoot such that every Ruffie is a trophy and is regarded as such. And they are also regarded as a rare gourmet treat, because, with their subtle woodsy flavor, there is no finer fowl for the table.
Why "ruffed"? The males have a dramatic black neck ruff which they display for courtship purposes, while they fan their tails and strut around like little Thanksgiving turkeys. Their courtship drumbeat from an old log is also one of their well-known features: many have heard their deep thumping from deep in the woods, and have no idea that it is just a horny male Ruffie looking for a date.
Read more about the wonderful Ruffed Grouse here. The very worthy Ruffed Grouse Society, which Maggie's Farm supports, pays for research on grouse and woodcock ecology, which benefits all woodlands and woodland creatures.
6 years ago, as we prepared to move to a new house, my wife and I decided to 'declutter'. Since then, we have been in permanent declutter mode, because having too much stuff around is a pain. Not only that, but as the saying goes "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Well, not so much trash, but if I'm not using it, it may was well be trash.
In order to get rid of household items, we utilized a variety of services. The most well known would be Craigslist and Ebay. After all, you can make a few bucks while in the process of getting rid of useful things you consider junk. However, my wife also stumbled on Freecycle.
We use it through Yahoo! Groups, but you can join on the web. It's free, it's easy to use, and you do nothing more than post what you're offering and what town you're in. The person then picks it up at your door.
When I was on my way to the airport one early morning, my cab driver told me she was recently divorced and havig a rough time. She had picked up several things from us on Freecycle saying "you people have been a godsend." Another person sent me an email telling me that the barely used Heelies (kids wheeled sneakers) were the hit of an otherwise difficult Christmas. For our part, we rarely take, but last spring somebody posted "As many perennials as you can dig," and we wound up spending an hour digging up plants which now fill a previously bland portion of our backyard.
If you haven't tried it, or aren't familiar, Freecycle (Yahoo! link) can help you clean up as 2012 begins, while helping out others at the same time. It's not for everybody, but I'm a devotee.
Frugality used to be a central middle-class theme. What happened to it? We now read the stories of middle-class families in free fall because they lost a job and had no savings. Back in the mists of time, there was a rule about setting aside six months of salary to cover a possible job loss. Not only did the middle class stop saving, but it famously borrowed to maintain extravagant living beyond what its stagnating salaries could support.
Nobody is perfect. Was Obama a perfect candidate? As far as rabid celeb enthusiasm goes, that's more appropriate for Hollywood than for governance. That's kid stuff.
I've been around the block enough times to learn that you will never have perfect political candidates, and that Messiahs are not for this world. Mostly, the best people avoid the toilet of politics. Obama's Messiah shtick was boob bait (but it worked as a trick).
Romneycare? Yes, wrong move - but Newt loved it. There will never be a Conservative Utopia just as there will never be a Socialist Utopia. Freedom and politics are messy, and depend on who can collect votes and cash. Obama will be flush with automatic union, blue state, and ethnic votes - and with automatic Wall St., union, and California cash.
People forget that, last go-round, Romney was considered too Conservative. Hence "moderate, maverick McCain." Go ahead if you want and beat me up about it, but the time for dating is over.
A California State University, Northridge, economics professor maintains a website devoted to promoting sex-tourism in Thailand. The loud denunciations on campus pressured him to take the off-campus website down. Meanwhile, a vile anti-Semitic website is maintained by a CalState, Northridge. math professor, using the university’s own server, and contrary to university regulations it is OKd as “free speech” by the university’s president, retiring this month.
The Chancellor of the California State University system, Charles Reed, fails to weigh in on the side of decency or academic standards or rules, but appoints as interim president the CSUN Provost who signed the math professor’s November letter to the Chancellor that study abroad should not be allowed in Israel. The letter levies charges against Israel (debunked by the reply from Scholars for Peace in the Middle East) not applied to any other democratic nation. This is anti-Semitism, according to the European Union’s Working Definition of anti-Semitism.
At CalState’s sister public university system, University of California, Mark Yudof, president of the University of California system, also pussy-foots around confronting the rife anti-Semitism at U of C campuses. His evasions are discussed here at Maggie’s Farm and in a shorter version at New Criterion.
These are both taxpayer-supported public university systems. Neither wants to do the legal or decent thing in fear of the pro-Palestinian/leftist faculty members who wield predominant power on campuses. Such callow anti-Semitism would be condemned if at a private company, and the malefactors terminated. Continued exposure is necessary if our public universities are to meet standards applicable elsewhere throughout America.
My City Journal article is below the fold. But, please go to City Journal’s “CalState’s Chutzpah” to read it, to demonstrate that Maggie’s Farmers are smarter and more decent than California’s irresponsible and hypocritical public university administrators.
BTW: Keep your eye on the City Journal website for the Winter edition, out soon. Sure to be jam packed with erudite and informative goodies, as always. Needless to say, I'm grateful to its editors for seeing the importance of the scandalous behavior of California's top public college administrators, and honored to be included among City Journal's contributors.
For statists like Mr. Obama, no matter how bloated our government has become, America is forever just one legislative act away from utopia, if only those untrustworthy Americans would just get in line. The man who ran on hope has instead embraced a tragic pessimism that views all free Americans with disdain as either incompetent rubes in need of his salvation or unrighteous villains in need of his rules. Either way, Mr. Obama embraces a command-and-control government and rejects American freedom.
Mr. Obama’s distrust of Americans is his fatal flaw, and Republicans would be wise to exploit it fully.
OK, but how many Americans trust themselves anymore? Judging from the video we posted earlier today, the youth seem to be trained to want Uncle Sam to be their parent for life.
As we approach the new year, a common theme of many sites is to review the previous year's events, while casting an eye to the future. Part of my job is to create business models for various lengths of time, so the idea of 'predicting' the future is something I have a level of comfort with. However, the art of prediction is art only. In making any kind of prediction, I've found it is useless to suggest that something will happen with a level of assuredness that exceeds even odds. In fact, my models typically have a High, Medium and Low outlook, with High having about the same likelihood as Low, and Medium being most likely. But Medium is couched as a 50/50 possibility.
Another problem with predicting things is that you can go overboard. Making absolutely outrageous predictions may garner headlines and attract attention, but unless you get extremely lucky, you only wind up looking foolish. I don't need to make myself look any more foolish than I already am. Unless I'm going to make a reasonable prediction, I'd prefer to not make any at all.
It's far too difficult to make assumptions about the behaviors of others, the outcomes of their actions, and the potential ripple effects to make a prediction that is completely assured. That is, unless you rig the system. I don't have the power to do this, so rather than discuss how I'll rig things to make sure I'm right, I'll just link to some predictions from others, make several of my own, and let Maggie's commenters have some fun thinking about how the new year will unfold.
As a favor to one of the local guides, I took part of an over flow party out on Lake Murray recently for a quick fishing trip. One of the clients was commenting on how my digital sonar looked a lot different than his. A discussion began about sonar, how it works and why my depth finder/sonar looked different that his. Sonar seems to be misunderstood as a fish finding technique even among experienced sports fishing fans so it might be fun to clear a few things up.
Echo location is a fairly well understood technique – transmit a signal, it reflects back a certain amount of energy to a receiver (or receivers), a quick calculation is made (return time) and the results displayed. Bats, whales and dolphins, certain fish and as unusual as this may sound, a bird species called cave swiftlet all have a means of echo locating objects and prey.
Sonar (SOund Navigation And Ranging) uses the mechanical propagation of a sound signal to locate a target's position. There are two main sonar techniques – passive and active. A good example of passive sonar is a relatively simple technique used in the late 15th Century – a simple open at both ends tube stuck into the water with a listener on the dry end to detect approaching ships. Anybody who's ever spent some time underwater on a busy lake with lots of boaters can relate to “listening” to the props move the boats through the water – that buzzing sound you hear is a form of passive sonar. A sailboat would produce a “whooshing” sound as the hull creates the bow wave.
Slightly adapted from a recent observation by Neptunus. It can seem like a shame that ignorance is painless, but maybe it's all for the best...People used to say "No brain, no pain," but I like the way Imus says "That is so dumb it makes my hair hurt."
A former intern at my office is now working with this speaker and directed me to this presentation. It's a fascinating discussion of choice. Recently, there was a post on Maggie's about the Runaway Boxcar. How do we approach choice in a crises? Stress alters how we make choices, as well as how we view them. So, too, does culture. At times, the speaker in this video criticizes American views of, and approaches to, choice. It is unfortunate, because the entire presentation is wonderful. She points out Americans could benefit by incorporating more collaborative approaches to choice, as opposed to the highly individualistic view we tend to have. But she fails to mention other cultures lack the insight the American perspective has, and could benefit from more choice, rather than less. It is also worth noting that the American perspective allows for greater collaborative approaches to choice, whereas other cultures tend to look down on individualistic views.
Choice is difficult. Choices can, at times, be paralyzing. But it doesn't mean that more choice is always the answer or that the American narrative on choice is wrong. It just means the American narrative of choice is different, and that American history shows more choice may not be better, but yields better overall results.
And, honestly, I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. They have very distinct and different tastes. Coke is better (to me).
Some readers felt that my last post about Maine was Maine-bashing. Not at all. I am simply curious about their politics.
This scenic and rugged rural (woodsy and rocky, post-glacial or should I say "pre-glacial") state, often proudly referred to as "The West Virginia of the Northeast," has more welfare recipients than taxpayers.
That is a problem, isn't it? I wondered whether it was an official policy. A legal vote-buying policy. It sounds like it is.
The college pupette sends us her first small batch of photos from Nam. Small hotel or friend's apartment? I can't tell. "district 3, tran quoc thao, ho chi minh"
I have no idea why Flickr says "April 2008" because these are from earlier today. Hope she keeps 'em coming.
Did he ever find the plot? The guy is a first-class putz. If this bozo believes that the C of E is about money and politics instead of about saving souls, I suggest that he donate all of the C of E real estate and buildings to the poor - if they can find any poor in the UK with all of their government freebies. Looks like more parasites than poor.
...too many people, of both parties, of both political philosophies, believe that when housing prices fall, the federal government has a duty to skoosh 'em up again. And since the federal government cannot, however fervently it wishes it could, suspend the law of supply and demand by edict, the only way to sop up excess supply is to increase demand. And the only way to increase demand in a shortage of qualified buyers is to bring in a lot of unqualified buyers.
And that's precisely what we've been doing by, for example, lowering creditworthiness standards, forcing down interest rates, and reducing the percentage of purchase price required for a down payment.
From Yale Psychiatrist (and author of Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation) Charles Barber on the above topic in The Wilson Quarterly, a quote:
The new neuroscience has emerged from the last two decades of formidable progress in brain science, psychopharmacology, and brain imaging, bringing together research related to the human nervous system in fields as diverse as genetics and computer science. It has flowered into one of the hottest fields in academia, where almost anything "neuro" now generates excitement, along with neologisms, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuromarketing. The torrent of money flowing into the field can only be described in superlatives - hundreds of millions of dollars for efforts such as Princeton's Center for the Study of Brain, Mind, and Behavior and MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Psychiatrists have been in the forefront of the transformation, eagerly shrugging off the vestiges of "talk therapy" for the bold new paradigms of neuroscience. By the late 1980s, academic psychiatrists were beginning literally to reinvent parts of the discipline, hanging out new signs saying Department of Neuropsychiatry in some medical schools. A similar transformation has occurred in academic psychology.
A layperson leafing through a mainstream psychiatric journal today might easily conclude that biologists had taken over the profession. "Acute Stress and Nicotine Cues Interact to Unveil Locomotor Arousal" and "Activity-Dependent Gene Expression in the Prefrontal Cortex" are titles of typical offerings. The field has so thoroughly cast its lot with biology, and with the biology induced by psychoactive drugs, that psychiatrists can hardly hope to publish in one of the mainstream journals if their article tells the story of an individual patient, or includes any personal thoughts or feelings about the people or the work that patient was engaged with, or fails to include a large dose of statistical data. Psychiatry used to be all theories, urges, and ids. Now it's all a search for genes, receptors, and neurotransmitters.
A few comments: He correctly describes the currents in Psychiatry today - the emphasis on the mechanistic view. Of course, this is just one view of the elephant, and you cannot eliminate the words "mind" or "soul." After all, the main role of current neuroscience is to understand "the mind." I try to take a balanced view. I am fascinated by the neurosciences, and I think our psychiatric medicines are Godsends for many. But, for many problems - let's use addictions as an easy example - I believe that a soul-change is needed, and is possible. I think it's best if we shrinks remain modest about our knowledge and our powers.
Another quote from Barber:
If there's any lesson to be gleaned from the recent history of psychiatry, it is, in the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann's words, "how complex mental illness is, how difficult to treat, and how, in the face of this complexity, people cling to coherent explanations like poor swimmers to a raft."
We don't know much, but we should know just enough to recognize how primitive and crude our understanding of psychiatric drugs is, and how limited our understanding of the biology of mental disorder. The unfortunate fact remains that the ills of this world have a tantalizing way of eluding simple explanation. Our only hope is to be resolute and careful, not faddish, in assessing new developments as they arise, and to adopt them judiciously within a tradition of a gradually but steadily growing arsenal in the fight against genuine human suffering.
From recent morning links, I get the impression that the goal of the Maine legislature is to put everybody in the state on Welfare, and to have nobody working except them.
Well, as if a job in a state legislature were "work." Let's face it - it's a title, not a job.
They happen to have elected a semi-revolutionary governor. That might help. Politically, Maine is a strange little state. It has papermills, gigantic tree farms aka forests, a bit of lobstering, marginal potato farms and berry farms, a hundred dead old mill towns, the town of Portland which contains more doctors than people (big retiree town for Yankees who reject Florida ways), a fancy recreational coastline for prosperous New Yorkers and yachtsmen. Fair fishing and hunting, too.
Nobody moves there except drug dealers. And our friend theEditor of the Rumford Meteor. Perhaps he can explain to us the state of mind of the State of Maine sometime.
The government of the state would be in fine shape if they could tax meth and pot.
Love that photo. All anybody needs for a good wedding.
Always surprising to me how many amateur cooks have no clue about how to handle knives in the kitchen. Plenty of knife skill vids here. One basic example:
Tutors or parents, plus a Kindle, may be all that is necessary:
... the simplest tutoring approach often works magic. Years ago, a twelve-year-old foster child arrived in our home essentially unable to read after six or seven years of classroom "special" education. To the point where he didn't even know how to use a dictionary. Our oldest son, a prolific writer, happened to be visiting us at the time, saw the problem, and came up with a fix. He handed the boy the newspaper he read each morning, told him to sit on his bed, read it aloud, and circle every word he couldn't pronounce or didn't know the meaning of. Then, later, the two of them went over the circled words together. The first day, every fourth or fifth word was circled, but it wasn't very long before the number of circles began to decrease, and something clicked in the boy's mind. "Hey," he seemed to say to himself, "this is not such a mystery. I can get this reading and writing thing working on my own." And he went on to other material. Then, when he was ready to begin high school, the state and local school district sent a team to evaluate him in order to design a classroom program that met his "special needs." Only there wasn't any, because they were shocked to discover that he tested at or above -- and in a couple of subjects, far above -- his grade level.
"I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores," she says. "It stopped being fun for me, so I'll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is."
Remember, back in the day, when a bankruptcy was simply called a bankruptcy? Naturally, this was well before ISDA came on the scene and footnoted the living feces out of everything by claiming that a bankruptcy is never a bankruptcy, as long as the creditors agree to 99.999% losses at gunpoint, with electrodes strapped to their testicles, submerged in a tank full of rabid piranhas, it they just sign a piece of paper (preferably in their own blood) saying the vaseline-free gang abuse was consensual. Well, now we learn that as the global insolvency wave finally moves to China, a bankruptcy is now called something even less scary: "deferred loan payments"...
Welcome to Cairostan - Egypt’s radicals eliminating country’s connection to West, but does anyone care?
Bruce wonders whether you've ever seen a Jewish Zebra:
The Wall St. daughter's pup was visiting this weekend. Nice sweater, eh? This Yorkie pup, named Emily (from Devil Wears Prada) has quite an elegant wardrobe. They have hair, not fur, so they get cold. Yorkies were bred to be ratters. They do like to chase and destroy little dog toys with their tiny sharp teeth. They have ADHD, I think.
I know, I know: it is shameless to use dog pics to build traffic.
We are putting our other, youngest, college daughter on a plane to Saigon Ho Chi Minh City this afternoon, via Shanghai, with a pocketful of cash, a backpack, a carry-on, and her best camera. She's done a fair amount of world-traveling on her own and with us, so it's no big deal for her. Like me, she travels casually. She threw some stuff into her bags in 15 minutes this morning like I do. She's doing a film. She promises to email pics, but she probably won't bother because she is always driven to focus on her immediate goal, and ignores everything peripheral to it. Goal-directed almost to a fault, which seems to be what life requires these days. A terrier. She'll be meeting an American friend in Hanoi via the train at some point. I gave her a kiss and had to say "Kill a Commie for Christ." Somehow, PC eludes me and I always say the totally wrong thing, even on Christmas Day. Harvard would fire me.
My Vietnam Vet pal Gwynnie asked "She's going there voluntarily?" My parents felt that way about Germany.
Flight from NYC to Shanghai almost touches the North Pole, so we suggested a hearty shout-out "Thanks" to Santa. He deserves it. He brought me a new leather office chair. Those Great Circle air routes are always surprising, aren't they, until you get used to them?
I had thought she was planning to go straight from Nam to Prague in three weeks but she decided to schedule to come back home for a few days first because it's tropical in Nam, winter in Prague. Change of chic wardrobe. Wanted to catch a play or two in NYC, and to grab some fresh cash (but she knocks herself out almost beyond belief to fund her adventures). Sheesh. The kids these days are so ambitious, determined, goal-directed, adventurous, and hard-working - much more than my peer group ever was. Like many of the hip youths these days, she loves Ron Paul. Sheesh, again. "Dad, Libertarianism is the only right, principled thing for the American attitude." "OK, sweetie. Whatever."
All three of my kids crack me up, each in his/her own way. Where the heck did they come from? From God. I take no credit or blame.
Want to read a good, short Christmas vignette today? Sipp's Open Is A Time.
How did the ancient mass media report the alleged birth of Christ? The People's Cube prepared the following compilation of quotes from the Roman and Judean sources, which should help our readers to form an unbiased opinion of what really happened in the days surrounding the so-called Christmas...
The meaning of Christmas is much bigger than the trite clichés that usually come up in this context; I won’t just be writing about the Importance of Giving and the Desirability of Being Nice. Christmas, at least the way I was taught, is a lot more than a merry interlude in the darkest, nastiest time of the year. It is more than getting or even giving. It is more than carols and candy, more than wonderful meals with the people you love best in the world. It is much more than the modern echo of the pagan festivities marking the winter solstice and the moment when the sun begins to reverse its long and slippery slide down the sky.
For Christians, 78% of the American people according to a recent Gallup poll, Christmas is the hinge of the world’s fate, the turning point of life. It is the most important thing that ever happened, and we celebrate it every year because it is still happening now. Whether we know it or not, whether we appreciate it or not, we are part of the Christmas Event that has turned history upside down. There’s a reason why we date the birth of Christ as the year 1 and why traditionally the world’s history was divided into BC, before Christ, and AD, anno domini, the year of the Lord.. (Actually, the monk who tried to calculate it seems to have gotten it wrong; Jesus was probably born four to six years “BC”. He also did not know about the use of zero as a number; there is no Year Zero between AD and BC — which is why irritating pedants remind people at every turn of the century that the “real” new century or millennium doesn’t begin until 2001, for example, rather than on January 1, 2000.)
Thanks for doing this for us, Prof. Mead. It's a good gift.
They claim they confiscated over a hundred thousand dangerous items. One of them was my over-large tube of Crest toothpaste, and one of them was my jar of Amish mustard.
Just a bunch of bitter, redneck clingers, not Real Americans. Want to see real clueless parochialism? Try DC or NYC, San Francisco, or the entire state of Massachusetts
Nobody works 9-5 anymore in America, unless government jobs or union jobs. Furthermore, seems to me that most Americans work far more than 8 hour days. Americans are not afraid of work. Heck, my daughter is working all day today.
I On the Morning of Christ's Nativity This is the month, and this the happy morn Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table, To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside, and here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now while the heav'n, by the Sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet: O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel quire, From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
Terrific piece at ZeroHedge today using Christmas Trees and land management as an allegory for the Fed's interventions in the market, and why it's dangerous.
We can increase moral hazard by taking effective steps to 'insure' against its downside. At some point, however, everything has to revert to the mean.
A quote:
From a forestry point of view, the lessons were learned. In 1995, the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy stated, "Science has changed the way we think about wildland fire and the way we manage it. Wildland fire, as a critical natural process, must be reintroduced into the ecosystem."
Herein are pearls of great wisdom for central bankers today. Central banks are creating a tinderbox by keeping alive many very bad investments, fertilizing them with everything from artificially low interest rates to preferential liquidity to outright securities purchases. As these institutions and instruments overrun the financial landscape, they hamper the economic ecosystem and perpetuate the environment of low growth and high unemployment in which we currently find ourselves.
This northern chicken-like (gallinaceous) bird prefers first-growth areas, with access to water and open areas. I most often find them in aspen, birch or alder thickets, but they can be seen in piney woods, old orchards, ferny woods, and in streambeds. In regions where birch and aspen are the climax forest, they can be found everywhere or anywhere, but never in large numbers. They are most commonly encountered when they flush with a startling whirr of wings. 
The 
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Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Why 
He's the Repub candidate, OK? 
As we approach the new year, a common theme of many sites is to review the previous year's events, while casting an 
Some readers felt that my last post about Maine was Maine-bashing. Not at all. I am simply curious about their politics.
More nice Adirondack Christmas pics from Tiger 
From Yale Psychiatrist (and author of Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation) Charles Barber on the above topic in The Wilson Quarterly, a quote:
From recent morning links, I get the impression that the goal of the Maine legislature is to put everybody in the state on Welfare, and to have nobody working except them. 
Book Review: 
For many, 
The subversion of Christmas has 
On The Morning of Christ's Nativity
Terrific piece at ZeroHedge today using Christmas Trees and