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.
Americans like to work hard, long hours. We are not like the lazy Europeans. In America, people who do not work hard feel a little ashamed of themselves. We proudly retain ye olde work ethic and energy here. Most of us, anyway, hate to feel unproductive.
We should forget about the lower-level government employees. They are mostly union workers working real, useful jobs on fairly short hours plus overtime which most ordinary people do not receive. They are just working for their generous pensions and benefits, far beyond what private employees earn. Don't worry about them too much because they are just people seeking safety and money in a challenging and highly competitive world in which opportunity still abounds for those who want to find it. I still bill about 60 hours/week. But I am essentially self-employed despite being a member of a farm firm. People who work in business work as long, or longer, than I do. People on Wall St. work 7 days/wk, as do people who own corner news shops. Most people do not choose that and do not want to work that long and hard, or do not have the choice to do so. And there is no way to calculate the time of all the folks who travel for business 2-3 days/week, which many of my pals do.
With a little luck, we all work as long or as hard as we choose to do.
Our Editor here reports to me that he happily works around 60 hrs/week including Saturday mornings, weekend duties, and paperwork. He is an eager beaver, and happy to do his job whenever he can. That choice is American.
If you want to tax us too much for our efforts, we'll cut back on vacations, cut back on work, and go fishin' and huntin'. I will not work a single day for a net of 50% of my billings regardless of how interesting or challenging the job may be. I hate idleness, but I require compensation for my talents.
No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between these two words. No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between these two words.
In a recently held linguistic competition held in London, England, and attended by the best in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese man from Bachelor's Adventure, was the clear winner with a standing ovation which lasted over 5 minutes.
The final question was: How do you explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand.
Some people say there is no difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. Here is his answer: When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE. When you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED. And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!
He won a trip to travel the world in style and a case of 25 year old Eldorado Rum.
I think the Feds should get entirely out of the Big Education industry. They screw up everything they try to do because government is a self-serving idiot and has become, in fact, a (non-profit) but highly-profitable mega-industry unto itself. Just consider how many Americans make a living off of government.
It's the time of year when people tend to make their travel plans for the next 12 months. If you are very nice and never naughty, Santa might put a trip in your stocking.
I vowed to finally get the Maggie's HQ basement renovated after our busted water pipe mess 2 years ago before taking another cool trip. A serious mess. We'll see. Plus we need to build a new tractor bridge at the Farm (new concrete footings, I-beams, etc). Plus it's time for a serious generator. But how's the economy doing out there in America? Oh, not so good, eh? Hmmm. And what's this about these new Obamacare taxes? Damn. I don't even want Obamacare. It is economically retarded. And kid's tuition went up again this year? Why? Income tax increases for all? Why, when I need that money to fix the farm bridge and my basement and to buy a generator from an American generator factory? Not to mention my freakin' dentist.
I have so many needs by which to redistribute my money usefully, but the gummint doesn't want me to redistribute my way. My way is for utility and value, and their way is for vote-buying. They have better ideas for my money, like Obamaphones and Solyndra and Government Motors - so much better ideas than my rebuilding my farm bridge by paying guys to do it so the machines and creatures can get to the upper field.
On the top of my to-go wish list right now is more time in Sicily (I'd maybe like to do some of it with bikes or horses); a grouse shoot at a castle in Scotland with Mr. and Mrs. Gwynnie; a villa or tenudo in Umbria for 10 days with pool and a cook and room for entire family and friends - and rental cars for all as if I were a big shot (not really very expensive to do); more time in Turkey along the Asia Minor coast, maybe by sailboat. Also, Israel but only for the ordinary Christian pilgrimage to the tourist traps. That can wait because I do not believe in sacred, holy places anyway and God is only in the heart. I do need to get back to Montana again soon, a place with horses and Grizzly Bears and maybe a sacred, holy trout stream. Also, those riverboat barge trips down the Rhone with the great French chefs and the wines. Would love to take the kids. I will hold off on Egypt for the moment - missed my chance for the Israel-Egypt combo last year. Dang Moslim lunatics interfere with travel plans, which does them no good at all but supposedly Allah likes it. Well, tourist Egypt had just become a tourist trap anyway so best to keep Allah happy and to stay away from Egypt now.
Such a big world, and so little time. A reader thought this joint sounded good (photo): Riad Knisa in Marrakesh. A fun trip might be to combine Barcelona, Mallorca, Morocco. Maybe Ibiza and do the hippy thing. Tunisia is interesting too, been there. Could do it all these wonderful places via high-speed ferry with a little sensible planning and a straw hat.
For me, a vacation means Go-Go-Hi-Ho, not sit - except in restaurants. I cannot sit on a beach for more than ten minutes. My theory is that you can relax, and catch up on TV, in the grave. I wonder whether our readers are making interesting plans for next year (other than routine travel like Florida or Cabo or Cape Cod, visiting colleges, romantic weekend getaways, hunting trips, family visits, summer houses, or ski trips and other boring things like that).
Carpe diem. My parents and in-laws always say that you have to do it now, before your hips and knees begin to ache.
What's on the top of your wish list for cool new adventures? Even if you cannot quite do it right now because of our horrible economy?
Key quote from the latter post: "Government has become the one-stop shop to replace all personal inadequacies." And from poor judgement and poor decision-making, I would add, but I guess they come under the category of personal shortcomings.
Wilson is up there on my list of bad guys, along with FDR. About Teddy and Lincoln I have mixed feelings. The only cool thing JFK did was to get Marilyn Monroe in the sack.
President Obama’s proposal to Republicans to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff — huge tax increases, huge spending increases, and no serious entitlement reform — is risible.
The Lord never promised us a rose garden. From Dr. Bob's post on Healing Faith:
We live in a time when our expectations of health, of prosperity, of a pain-free life are increasingly met in the physical realm, while we progressively become sickly, impoverished, and empty in the realm of the spirit. Despite our longer lives, we live in dread of death; despite our greater health, we obsess about our ills; despite our comfortable lives, we ache from an aimlessness and purposelessness which eats at our souls and deadens our spirits. Though we have at our command the means to kill our pain–to a degree never before seen in the history of the world–yet we have bargained away our peace in pursuit of our pleasure. The problem of pain has never been an easy one; in our day, it has not been solved, but rather worsened, by our delusions of perpetual comfort and expectations of a trouble-free life.
Until we come to terms with suffering, we will not have comfort; until we embrace our pain, peace will never be ours.
Especially at the expense of their clients, New York lawyers work through the nights protecting against all probable, possible and improbable contingencies. They are also covering their little fannies. However, our lawyer (the one with a sense of humor) was reviewing a corporate note and security agreement from the 1990s and found the following ultimate (in more ways than one) example. It cannot have been an amicable negotiation!
People in positions of responsibility are supposed to be able to identify cranks and quacks.
However, fake science and hyped science have been around forever. If you look hard enough, you can find an expert who will say anything. Sadly, despite all evidence, the fearmongering about vaccines and autism just won't die.
Most of the most prominent in the West who claim to want peace in the Middle East are, instead, prime facilitators of hate.
By disdaining those Muslims who are closer to Western values, instead pandering to Islamist extremists, or one-sidedly denouncing the defensive measures of the only Western oriented nation in the Middle East, Israel, the claimants of upholding peace have consistently encouraged those who believe and act out of hate.
There are a host of reasons, actually excuses, proffered by those who cloak themselves in plastic doves. At root they shield self-hate for enjoying civilization’s comforts while others purportedly suffer. Their solutions all come down to the same end, take away what has been deservedly earned and give it to those who haven’t earned it. One may argue that many of those supporting this redistribution would also be affected, but in reality they usually shield themselves or are just too blind to realize that until the taker is at their door and their generosity has been squandered or stolen.
I haven’t the slightest care if the above offends anyone who is too effete to speak the truth or so befuddled as to not recognize it or so deceitful as to deny it or so quibbling as to host relative trivia against overriding facts.
There may never be peace in the Middle East so long as, as usual, Muslims hate each other and their rulers are primarily concerned with filling their foreign bank accounts. There certainly will not be peace in the Middle East as long as they use Israel as a distraction from their own fetid culture and politics. To now, the only periods of peace have been when Israel soundly thrashed its attacking enemies, and that has only been temporary as the despoiling hatred of the Arabs reblooms and is watered and nourished by the Western morons who confuse payoffs for hate with peace.
Sophistry that masks surrender with endless compromises that are unrequited by the haters is unacceptable.
Gotta hate it when the bow digs down into green water. The ocean is not your friend, always wants to kill you, but you want to accomplish something, or have some fun, and survive. That's the game.
The "End of the World Clearance Event" is detailed on MyNextGM.ca. The offers on hand aren't too different from those you'll find at other dealerships this December, but Humberview dealers offer one additional, easy-to-keep promise: "If the world ends, you don't pay!"
So we've got that going for us.
While I don't think you'll particularly learn anything new here, it's still interesting watching an official JPL guy cover the bases.
And if he's wrong?
Just do as we learned to do back in the 60's when Russia was about ready to launch 25,000 nukes at us.
Just crawl under your school desk. You'll be fine.
Homeland Security was one of Bush's dumb moves. Totally unnessary expansion of non-functional federal bureaucracies. Whenever government screws something up, they find a way to hire 10,000 more people to complicate it even worse. That's called "doing something."
For Christians, and nobody else really has much business thinking about Advent or observing it, there is something else. If there is no Christmas, there is no Cross, no answer to the problems of sin, separation, failure and pain. Advent is a time to think about what life would be like if we didn’t have faith in a Redeemer, a Savior who was ready, willing and able to complete the broken arc of our lives, forgive what is past and walk with us step by step to help us build something better in the time that is left.
Found the stuff below at Amazon. Might be worth keeping some around, just in case. Don't use it if Santa is in your flue. It supposedly suffocates chimney fires so it would do the same to him.
For us wood-burners, woodpiles feel like money in the bank. Here's a couple of Sipp's woodpiles:
My woodpile, yesterday. I do not have a little drummer boy anymore to stack it for me. I reckon close to 2 cords, maybe 1 1/2. I will get to it after I get to a few other things. The stacked pile of unsplit on the left is bigger than it looks. It's a 1/3 cord of green wood, from Sandy: Maple, Piss-Elm, and Black Locust.
... what should Republicans do? If I were John Boehner, I'd say: "Clearly there's no mandate for small government in the election results. So, if you milquetoast pantywaist sad-sack excuses for the sorriest bunch of so-called Americans who ever lived want to vote for Swede-sized statism, it's time to pony up."
OK, he might want to focus-group it first. But that fundamental dishonesty is the heart of the crisis. You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has to go.
I think you'll find this somewhat interesting. Fellow bloggers, take note: the readership delivered a real message in a few of the responses.
Preview:
— There were 400 responses, our PollDaddy limit — Bird Dog's guess on one issue totally nailed it — Ditto my guess on another — Two common MSM memes were totally dismantled — And there are three surprises
The Founding Fathers did not risk their lives and their fortunes to get richer, although that is what Marxist professors teach our kids. Men like Washington hoped our new land would prosper over time, but their purpose in creating a new nation was liberty.
Where did Bridgeport's working class and middle class move to during and after WW2? And where did Bridgeport's more prosperous people move to when they, or their kids, moved out of the center?
Of course, they moved to wherever their company moved to - or the suburbs, to the new developments or old houses on farmland in surrounding towns like Hamden, Monroe, Fairfield, Easton, Newtown, Stratford. Also, quite a few moved to the northern, suburban part of Bridgeport. In time, these surrounding towns and areas developed their own economies independent of the city, with office parks, retail, light industry, corporate headquarters, multiplex theaters, churches, and even their own universities (eg Quinnipiac University and Fairfield University).
With this de-urbanization and the simultaneous deindustrialization of the northeast, the city core lost its tax base, its jobs, and its vitality. Crime and drugs became endemic with no-go zones for police. Cars, and government-built highways, made the flight that much easier. In response, the city did what all Blue Cities try to do: they raised taxes, applied for federal Great Society urban funds and programs, and sunk into corruption. Death spiral.
Very few old Connecticut cities escaped that. Stamford, CT for one, barely did escape, but Stamford (pop. 122,000) is really a NYC suburb now. It is alive because of huge tax breaks it offers to giant corporations, mainly banks poached from NY. No breaks for small businesses.
A few pics of houses in a pleasant part of leafy, suburban Fairfield, CT; once a semi-rural suburb of Bridgeport but now it's more economically-attached to NYC despite the 1 1/2 hour commuter train ride.
With wifi and plugs, a train ride doesn't need to be a waste of time.
Bridgeport last weekend, Manhattan this weekend. Yeah, we get around to all the hot spots.
We stopped in to see a (rarely-produced, and I think for good reason) off-B'way Chekhov play Ivanov. Impressive cast, as they always have there because even famous but serious film actors always long to do classic stage. Ethan Hawke writes novels, too, in his spare time and plays lead guitar in a rock band.
Mrs. BD observed that, had Prozac been available in Russia in 1885, the play would not have been written. (Chekhov, the son of a serf, worked as a physician his whole adult life, wrote his plays and stories as a sideline, and died young.)
My point is that I was seated next to two extremely cute and jovial 20-something gals, so naturally I had to chat with them a little. They were from Bulgaria, were working in New York. Student visas, now Green Cards. Where did they go to school? University of Bridgeport! Math majors, cute as buttons with shapely legs in black stockings which I refused to notice. They had a Russian gal friend with them who worked at the same famous investment fund. The Russki gal went to Univ. of Moscow, same as Chekhov, and had a PhD in Physics from MIT. All spoke the (accented) King's English, loved going to theater but were "sick of Broadway musicals" so were going around to all the off-Broadway they could. One every weekend. Wonderful - from Bulgaria to Bridgeport to Wall St. to off-Broadway theater. Only in America.
They found it amusing that I had been taking pics of Sandy's damage to Seaside Park just last weekend, right next to the sad Bridgeport campus.
Before the play, we had a little spare time to grab a bite so we found a counter space at The Oyster Bar, my favorite seafood place in NY. This venerable place in the bowels of Grand Central Station posts a daily list of the 25-30 varieties of oysters they have that day. (They always have Wellfleets.) Mrs. had their famous oyster stew but I had New England clam chowder of course. Pure fresh clam, no extraneous ingredients. The aspiring actor and actress wait staff work their butts off, as do the mostly-hispanic helpers. Busy place, always under-staffed I think.
I heard a beautiful Scots accent from the three gals seated at the counter on my right so I had to say something friendly (because, as everyone knows, NY is a cold, tough city and it is my mission to dispel that idea). They were a Mom and her two adult daughters touring the US for ten days with three teen daughters (who were not lunching with them as they had taken the shuttle to the West Side, then the Broadway line up to the Museum of Natural History - Scots are adventurous people). They all lived outside Edinburgh. I asked them how they found the Oyster Bar. Friends at home had enjoyed it, they told me. They were having Olympia oysters on the half shell, and mixed seafood salads. I've never met a dour Scot, but they do drink a bit so you can't tell. They were having champagne with lunch.
Heading north last night back up to Yankeeland on the train, the conductor was a Chinese gal with a slight accent. She was too busy for me to ask her where she was from. A gal Chinese conductor? The world has changed.
I love it all. As long as it is legal, and they study our Constitution seriously. The whole world wants to come here, especially at Christmastime. Not for freebies or the fun, but for the opportunities too. Our energetic legal immigrants are not interested in entitlements, but many of our home-grown voters seem to be.
It's the time of year when people tend to make their travel plans for the next 12 months. If you are very nice and never naughty, Santa might put a trip in your stocking. 
Photo: Buddy took that snap of your Editor on a bird hunting trip in Texas a few years ago
Mead 
I think you'll find this somewhat interesting. Fellow bloggers, take note: the readership delivered a real message in a few of the responses.
