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.
My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.
North Providence retiree Jamie Reilly left her job as a secretary at age 50, thinking her 30 years of state employment would mean good benefits during her later years. But now she said she may be forced to re-enter the workforce at age 55 because the state has put off pension increases.
"I counted on that money," Reilly said of the increases, which she estimates would have started at $700 to $1,000 a year. "I retired knowing I was going to get a certain amount of money. You work all your life and you plan, and they take it away from you."
No, Christopher Columbus probably wasn't the first European to discover the Americas.
The history we learn in school is, understandably, Central Eurocentric, and the contributions from the Northern Europeans, aka 'Scandinavians', has decidedly been given short shrift over the years.
But in the past decade or so, more attention has been paid to the role the Norsemen played, and it's becoming fairly apparent that not only did Eric The Red or his son discover and colonize Greenland, but made it all the way to Newfoundland, a country he dubbed Vinland.
But wait!
'Vinland' in Norse means Wineland — and how could an ice block like Newfoundland be warm enough to grow grapes?
Of course, you're probably already ahead of me here. When the Vikings made their voyages, the earth was so warm that not only could Greenland be colonized and sustain crops (and be named Greenland in the process), but Newfoundland was warm enough to grow grapes.
And not an SUV in sight. Imagine that.
But wait again! The Vikings had no instruments to guide themselves as they crossed the vast Atlantic. No dipping needle, no compass, no clock, not even a sand glass, and certainly no astrolabe or sextant. All they had were the stars above, and since the stars rotate in a circular pattern overhead, all they could do was measure a star's height against a knot tied in a rigging line (on a bouncing ship, no less) and make their best guess.
Okay, so how did they discover Iceland, Greenland, and later Newfoundland, without any instruments aboard?
The same way Noah discovered land after the Great Flood.
The real criterion, of course, would be propensity to violence. If a group shows a propensity to violence when its icons are criticized, then it would in practice receive special protection under the 21st-century blasphemy prohibitions. Those advocating for such rules either don’t understand the incentive system this would create, or don’t care.
Last Wednesday, Zbigniew Brzezinski–yes, that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the one from the Carter administration–added his voice to the chorus of those calling for restrictions on free speech:
“I would like us to make it more explicit to the Muslim world: we not only condemn (the YouTube video), but if there are evil forces at work trying to provoke violence between us and you, we have the obligation to investigate and crack down.”
Be careful, Zbig. You are making me very angry with that kind of speech. Maybe we need to crack down on that kind of disturbing speech.
Pic: It's Oktoberfest. That's my beer and smokes from the deck of a Danube riverboat a couple of years ago. Just a boatride. Yes, that is the original Czech Budweiser
The Obama of the imagination is the media’s Obama. Out of their fascination with the color of his skin and their mindless awe at his windy teleprompted rhetoric, they constructed a man of stature and accomplishment. Now, with the White House on the line, they’re waging an ongoing battle against the undeniable evidence that he has never been, in fact, that man. The result in these quadrennial autumn days has been media coverage of a fantasy election, an election in the news that may bear no relation whatsoever to the election as it is.
Besides going after the infantile zero-sum narrative on economics, he extols the miracle of growth and productivity - the growing pie. One quote:
It was not until the Agricultural Revolution that men began to break free of the zero-sum existence of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. For the first time, production allowed men to increase the food supply—to expand the size of the "pie." No longer did one person's gain entail another person's deprivation. With the gradual increase of production under a division of labor, and with free trade among those producing specialized goods, the "pie" of wealth began to grow rapidly. With the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, living standards, which had remained at subsistence levels since the dawn of man's presence on Earth, suddenly began to soar, and so did life expectancy. But while the zero-sum social world was disappearing, the zero-sum Narrative did not vanish from the minds of men.
Bow is the way to do it, the hard way. That's a lot of meat. A reader sent us a link to his pics. Here's one of them (I still think it's best game management to harvest the cows instead of the alpha males, but whatever).
I always wonder how one walks around the woods with a rack like that. I could not do it.
We here at the (insert name of paper here) are a fair, open-minded, tolerant bunch, as you would expect given our elevated social status. So, when an unknown, inexperienced politician named Willard Mitt Romney had the audacity to run for president, we decided to give him a chance and hear what he had to say about his "qualifications."
Here's one heck of an ad. Real, heartbreaking, and far better than LBJ's daisy girl ad. Mom is beautiful, worried. She wants to say something, decides not to. He's depressed, she feels sorry for him and wants to reassure him. He doesn't want pity, wants to be a proud male, can't handle her compassion and concern. And the kids...
If I were on Mitt's team, I'd ask to have this 30-second drama run nationwide.
This is happening out there, all over. Best political ad I've ever seen.
One intriguing thing that happened while I was out of touch with humanity for a week was that three mainstream news sites completely changed their format. Much for the worse, I might add. They essentially stopped being 'news sites' by conventional definition.
First is CBS News, which has gone to what might be called a 'news blog' format. That is, the format small blog sites like Power Line switch to when they want to appear more relevant and 'newsy'.
And check out the 'social media' influence in the right sidebar. Most Popular. Most Shared. Most Discussed. Follow us. Screw the news — we just want to hear what you have to say!
And then ABC News gets into the act, also going with the 'lotsa big pictures' format, but at least they still carry some of that pesky 'news' stuff down at the bottom.
But — speaking of 'social media' having an influence — check out the jaw-dropper that USA Today has become. If you have a tablet, notebook or smartphone, USA Today is the site for you! What do you mean, "web browser"? What's that?
And notice what's missing from the bottom half of the page. Yep, that pesky news stuff. Why bother!
It strikes me that there's a flaw in the logic of dumbing-down news sites to appeal to the "Ooh, lotsa pictures!" crowd. They're thinking they'll tap into this market, but my contention would be that the social media crowd doesn't read standard news sites to begin with, and, when it does, it reads the news off Google or Yahoo or MSN or AOL.
The good news is, while half of those abandoning these three digital train wrecks will end up on the left-leaning CNN or NBC sites, the other half will end up on Fox News. So I'd call it a net plus for our side.
And one thing I personally found interesting with these three particular sites going the social media route is their placement on my page of links. I have the links listed in the order I stop by every morning, first reading Fox to get the right-wing side of things, then CNN for the left side, then (formerly MSNBC) NBC News for the ultra-left. Then I look over the right- and left-wing Washington papers, then skim through the three lesser news sites:
Fox CNN NBC WashTimes WashPost ABC CBS USA
I find it interesting that the three news sites I find least consequential are the three that decided not to be news sites anymore.
... it was the first time in his career that he shared a debate stage with a serious opponent.
Think about it: John McCain was feeble. Alan Keyes, whom Obama beat in his 2004 Senate campaign, was crazy. All the Democrats who ran in 2008 were preposterous except Hillary Clinton, and she, as a beneficiary of nepotism, was highly overrated as a politician. He used Chicago-style dirty tricks to dispatch his original opponent in 2004, as well as the state senator he replaced back in the 1990s. The test he failed last night is one to which he had never been put.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
(I do not want to ruin this magical piece by getting pedantic, but check those rhymes.)
Two more of the Obama administration’s crony corruption cheats are crumbling. These are but two of the lower profile Obama crony enrichment schemes that will need to be eliminated should we get a Republican administration after next November, and indicative of schemes we must be sure to expose should any Republicans try their version of crony capitalism.
I’ve often written about the scheme to tax tourists to the US to subsidize the highly profitable US tourism industry, companies like Disney. My exposes led to a 7,000 word expose in the Washington Post that scuttled the legislation, that is until President Obama and his heavily Democrat Congress took power after the 2008 elections. Then, the legislation was passed and signed. The leaders of this tourism travesty were heavy contributors to the Obama campaign. I last wrote about this boondoggle here (with links to earlier reporting.) The Washington Free Beacon has been keeping up with the story. Here’s its latest (with links to its earlier reporting).
The federal government’s latest taxpayer-funded effort to promote U.S. tourism is dogged by lavish spending, cronyism, and questionable accounting, according to a report released Thursday by two U.S. Senators.
Thermal windows can often add quiet or temperature moderation. But, exaggerated claims for the economic payback of energy efficiency are getting increased Federal Trade Commission attention. What a surprise! Several of the leading offenders are significant Obama contributors who received significant subsidies from the Obama administration’s so-called stimulus and at least one is now a failing business. McClatchy news service:
The FTC actions shine a spotlight on an industry that benefited from millions of dollars in “green” tax credits offered as part of the 2009 economic stimulus, and they reveal some of the pitfalls of zealous marketing, in business and in politics.
For all the caterwauling by Democrats about Bain, there’s no indication of corruption. That finger, actually, points at the Obama administration. But, it is a fair question to candidate Romney what he will do to end crony capitalism within his administration. And, then, let's hold his administration to transparency.
Obama has never been the nation’s most forceful debater, and he makes no secret of his disdain for the theatrical side of politics. If his conduct on the debate stage with Romney seemed oddly passive, it was in some ways just another manifestation of the president’s restrained approach to communicating with the electorate, whom he seems to believe — in the face of all existing evidence — are not swayed by electoral artifice.
First box arrived from Bluestone Perennials. Perfect timing to complete the installation of the new beds. Small plants now, but by June they will crowd out the weeds.
In case you're interested, here's what I am putting in them (much already done in the past 2 weeks):
Pink Knock-Out Roses Little Bunny Fountain Grass Dwarf Red Sedum Nepeta, tall blue and low white Creeping Phlox Boxwood Perennial Geranium Narcissus Scilla (Bluebell) Salvia Stella D'oro Daylily Giant Allium Asian Lily Aster Phlox Daisy Agastache Heliocanthus Red Salvia (Wild Thing) in defiance of Mrs. BD who believes that red is tacky in a garden.
Most of these good for Hummingbirds and butterflies. Many of them are transplants from places where they aren't thriving. If any annuals are needed, obviously I will add them in the Spring. Doubt I will need any, though. Well, for the first year I might need some.
Planning, preparing, and installing a new border is great fun but, like all gardening, it lacks immediate gratification unless you live south of the freezing line.
It takes 2 years for a perennial bed to begin to mature, 1 1/2 years if first planting is in the fall. If you plant in the fall, don't fertilize until Spring.
What people saw last night was a president that revealed his incompetence, how lazy and detached he is, and how he has absolutely no idea how serious the economic problems of the country are, and how he has failed to even begin to address them. And I think even the liberal press reacted with shock at this revelation, and I find it fascinating, now this morning, after they’ve slept, to watch them all scrambling around to clean up the mess the president left on the floor last night.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney came in with a lot of specifics, a lot of very sharp knowledge of issues, not only with the Obama-version of bumper-sticker numbers, but the governor showed that he understand policies and he understand how to make policy into law talking about what he did in Massachusetts.
Heck, in my area, I just paid $4.239, and that's for regular.
How're prices in your neck of the woods?
Update: YIPES! I just refilled the gas tank for a camping trip tomorrow, a day after than the above post, and the regular gas price jumped to $4.689 !!!!!!! And, reports say that the California price is expected to jump again. Looks like prices are high everywhere, with California now even topping Hawaii. But, Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with high transport costs. What's California's excuse? Ordinary maintenance of local refineries removes some capacity, which can't be filled in with gas from neighboring states due to California having its own different higher cost fuel composition standards. So, on top of California and some other states not allowing new refineries to be built, on top of gas prices driven up by mandating corn in it, and world food markets driven up by our diversion of corn into the gas tank, and the dollar being devalued by debt so it costs more to buy oil, California wants to be Hawaii! I know, many of you say, set California adrift. Thanks to envirocrazies, California is adrift, in high costs, high debt, shortages, middle class bailing out, companies leaving. -- Steven Hayward, another California resident, at Hot Air, hopes without real expectation that California voters will wisen up.
This map, found by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, neatly sums it up:
The parasite called bureaucracy is the big winner in the Obama scheme. Before the ACA, the regulatory bureaucracy consumed 40% of all Healthcare dollars. With six whole new agencies, thousands of new regulators, and 2,700+ pages of incomprehensible, often contradictory rules, tapeworm "B" will likely consume half of all the money the U.S. spends on patient Healthcare, leaving fewer dollars for health care (the service).
It's Cristoforo Colombo Day here in the USA
No, Christopher Columbus probably wasn't the first European to discover the Americas.
Image via 
One intriguing thing that happened while I was out of touch with humanity for a week was that three mainstream news sites completely changed their format. Much for the worse, I might add. They essentially stopped being 'news sites' by conventional definition.
Cover image from 
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Trash Cams May Monitor Discarded Federally Imposed Vegetables
