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.
That stupid organization should never have been created in the first place. I blame Bush for that. It's on my short list of government agencies to be eliminated.
Bob grows older, but stays interesting. May we all do the same.
I've been sittin' down studyin' the art of love I think it'll fit me like a glove I want some real good woman to do just what I say Everybody got to wonder what's the matter with this cruel world today.
Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly was so insubstantial, so full of airy platitudes, and so adulterated with the gaseous clichés of bankrupt internationalism and progressive bromides that I thought at any minute he might just float away.
My explanation: He has already retired. Job is too easy. Also,
This speech proves once again that Obama is not a serious man. His badly trained mind is a warehouse of the sort of leftist and progressive received wisdom and dull clichés that pollute our universities, media, and popular culture. He represents the moral idiocy and fashionable self-loathing that signals to our enemies and rivals that the United States can be had.
Republicans can win a Senate majority, take back the presidency, repeal Obamacare, build the Keystone pipeline, slash oppressive government regulations, end special tax deals and government contracts for the Democrats’ big donors, restore an honest IRS and nominate serious people to the federal bench.
But they’ll never do any of those things if they can’t learn that mass immigration from the Third World is wildly unpopular with voters.
Complain to me if this is not the best and simplest chicken you have ever had:
Have the butcher de-bone Cornish Hens - aka Spring Chicken, aka Poussin, aka a small chicken (1 per person, or maybe 1/2 per person).
Marinate in bottled Italian dressing for around 5 hours or overnight. Try to squash them flat in the marinade. Then squash the boned birds to spread out flat on a charcoal and/or wood fire, season with salt and pepper, several minutes per side, until the skin is crispy.
Never overcook a bird - they dry out. Chicken needs a little pink in the middle of the breast. If you want, you can brush some more vinaigrette on it while grilling.
Serve on a bed of mashed taters with garlic spinach on the side.
De-boning a bird takes practice, but butchers are quick, generally no extra charge. You can do this with a large chicken, but it won't be as good.
My chef friend/advisor says that one should never cook any bird without marinating first, unless it's in a stew.
Rosh Hashanah, which begins tonight, is the first of the intense ten Days Of Awe (or Repentance) that ends with Yom Kippur. Is ten days enough time to make good on our better selves and set a course for a better year and life ahead? For some it may be. For most of us however, it takes many years to set ourselves straight with others and with G-d’s desires for how we should live. It really doesn’t matter as long as you get there. What does matter is the realization that every day that goes by without thinking about it, without in some way working at it, is time lost forever and opportunities lost forever.
Shana Tova Umetukah is the traditional greeting at Rosh Hashanah. It means I wish you a sweet and good New Year. It is up to you to make it come true.
“We have the highest overall corporate tax rates in the world, and we are now the only O.E.C.D. country that also taxes overseas earnings,” Mr. Clinton said. “A lot of these executives, even if they wanted to bring the money home, they think this is crazy.”
Well, she don’t make me nervous, she don’t talk too much She walks like Bo Diddley and she don’t need no crutch She keeps this four-ten all loaded with lead Well, if I go down dyin’, you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed.
Genetic studies suggest that these major psychotic diseases, historically grouped under one broad category, are possibly or even likely different diseases.
This is not surprising, but it is interesting. "Schizophrenia" really meant miscellaneous chronic psychosis. We have all always felt that the paranoid psychoses were a different animal. Time will tell whether this information will have any practical value.
Why Girls Tend to Get Better Grades Than Boys Do - New research shows that girls are ahead in every subject,
including math and science. Do today's grading methods skew in their
favor?
Does this question require research? Anybody who has ever sat in a classroom knows why.
It was a New Yorky weekend for us - Brooklyn Sat night, Manhattan Sunday afternoon to join the climate march to attend the opening of the Met Museum's From Assyria to Iberia show. The climate parade did snarl up midtown traffic.
Sat. evening from the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway - a terrible road in every way yet a necessary one), headed to the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) for a Finnegan's Wake performance.
Thornton:
You Don’t 
Complain to me if this is not the best and simplest chicken you have ever had:
Napoleon and Josephine had a prenup
We saw this on cafe menus frequently in Sicily, but never tried it (too many other interesting and unusual things to try).
Thousands March in New York to End Industrialized Civilization