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.
Ekman’s ideas about why lies are detectable from exterior appearances come by way of Freud, who once wrote, "No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore." Ekman quoted the line in his first foray into lie detection, a 1969 paper in Psychiatry titled "Nonverbal Leakage and Cues to Deception," written with Wallace V. Friesen, a UCSF research associate at the time.
Not sure about anyone else, but gas prices around me have dropped significantly. As recently as 3 months ago, I was paying $3.45 per gallon.
Yesterday, I paid $2.92. Not surprisingly, prices vary from place to place. I'm in New Jersey and we tend to have lower prices. On my way home from Syracuse on Sunday, I paid $3.47 only 5 miles north of the Pennsylvania border. Had I taken the risk to go 10 miles further (my indicator said I had 30 miles left, and that is not very accurate), I could have paid $3.25 simply by crossing the state border.
Recently, there was an article about falling prices in the morning news links here on Maggie's. The suggestion was that US drilling was the driver. I wasn't sure this was accurate, because the numbers didn't add up. Here is a short article on what the other factors may be.
For conspiracy theorists, there's always the political manipulation angle: "Oil has fallen to $60 a barrel. Experts predict it will continue to fall until exactly one minute after the polls close on November 7th." --Jay Leno (election is the 4th this year....but it's all in the delivery).
With a slight shift in visitation points, the current map of the walk seems to add up to 9 miles or 3 1/2 hours of walking time. With stops, a beer or sandwich here and there, we should hit the 5 hour mark, but 9 miles is significantly less than the original 11. Funny how many steps you can save just by altering the path you choose.
So, for the time being, this is the current path chosen. We welcome additions, suggestions and ideas from attendees and online spectators alike. Perhaps we'll do a 5 hour webcast chronicling the adventures. Not sure my iPhone would last that long, though.
... why does the State Department blame Israel for using excessive force, even though the IDF appears to make even more effort than the U.S. Army or Air Force to avoid civilian casualties?
Truth is that Portuguese were in North America before Columbo. They fished for Cod. They are still all over Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. And insane Vikings before that. And stone-age Siberians before that (we don't call them Siberians anymore - now we call them Eskimos, Indians, Redskins, etc). The great navigator knew something interesting was out there, hopefully spices from India, but he underestimated the distance.
There turned out to be no good spices, but plenty of gold and silver (all wasted on central European wars of little benefit to Spain). Best, lasting imports? Potatoes, Tomatoes, squash, chocolate, vanilla, peanuts, avocado, peppers, maize, tobacco.
Seems like we'll be a small, intrepid group. Here's our tentative route, as of now, via Bulldog:
Meet at South Ferry – Battery Park 10 am, Sat. Oct. 18
Fraunces Tavern 54 Pearl Street North to NYSE, Trinity Place, WTC Turn east to South Street Seaport North and West To City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge North to Five Points Chinatown (At this point, just walking, we’ve covered 3.7 and it’s taken 1 hour 16 minutes without stops. I figure about 2 ½ hours with stops. So it would be about noon, good time for a snack if we start at 10am) West to Soho Cooper Union McSorley’s (assuming we’ve made some stops, pictures, chatted, noodles in Chinatown it would be about 1pm) Washington Square Park, West Village (Stonewall Inn?? Shelagh thought that would be a funny stop to make given the overall political bend of Maggie’s) White Horse Tavern Union Square Gramercy Park Flatiron (By now, we’ve covered 8.7 miles and it would be about 3 or 3:30 if we stop at McSorley’s) Empire State Building NY Public Library Times Square Carnegie Hall Columbus Circle (assuming stops, it would be 4:30-5pm now and we’ve covered 11 miles)
They have been trained to expect too much from government
The
Manhattan apartment with the furthest distance from the subway - See
more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/10/the-manhattan-apartment-with-the-furthest-distance-from-the-subway.html#sthash.sGmGyeJN.dpuf
Captain Alex Willard, who was undergoing the training, said the West Africa mission was far different than the kinds of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan than many in the 101st "probably are more comfortable with."
Mrs. BD warns you that this 2005-2007 BBC/HBO series (on Netflix) can be addictive. Generally historically-accurate too, right down to the footwear. Rome.
It was a shame that Julius Caesar set in motion the destruction of the republic.
... “the greatest tool to lift children and families from poverty is one that decreases the probability of child poverty by 82 percent. But it isn’t a government spending program. It’s called marriage.”
Statistically probably close, but a lot of unmarried people are likely either not interested, or are not desirable "marriage material." And sex material and marriage material are not the same things. Duh. Ref: Human History 101.
Poverty stats in the US do not take into account governmental or charitable benefits, both of which are huge and widely available to those who want them. The semi-voluntary poor, of course (eg grad students, recent grads, Maine Guides, new immigrants, beginning entrepreneurs, people who chose their own lifestyles to pursue happiness, hippies, starving artists, ski bums, people who choose the dole as a life style, etc) are not isolated from the stats so the stats seem meaningless to me. (Not to mention the pitiful people who work the system, game the system, etc. for a few extra bucks from the workingman's pocket.)
Few would refuse a gift of wealth obtained honorably, but I do not think pursuit of wealth is a major driver in American life, or in human life in general. Fortunately, and to the benefit of the rest of us, wealth is a driver for some highly talented people with commercial abilities (eg Derek Jeter, John D. Rockefeller, Jeff Bezos, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bob Dylan, JP Morgan, George Washington, Warren Buffet, etc etc etc).
The 15% in poverty measure is the number of people who would be in poverty if we didn’t help them by giving them money, food, housing and health care. It is not the number living in poverty. It is the number in poverty before we help them out of poverty. And as to the comparison with the 1960s, in the 1960s it really was the number in poverty after we helped, now it’s the number before we help.
"Poverty" is a political concept. Many people want free goodies if they are available, but sacrifice a bit of their precious human dignity in the process. As SDA always asks, "Why is there always a wide-screen TV?"
A real working man has every reason for pride in his work, regardless of wealth. Not sure what Bob was thinking with this weary but hopeful lullabye. Probably some part of himself. Try to ignore the images.
An interesting, forward-looking resource - "Find Telecommuting Jobs and other great flexible jobs such as Part-Time jobs and Freelance work."Flexjobs.com.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
People often tell me that feminist dogma often backfires and makes women look ineffective. But looking ineffective is not a problem for many women. They see it as an asset and it is a form of power.
On January 20, 1961, Robert Frost spoke at John F. Kennedy's inauguration. The snow-glare made it impossible for him to read his new poem for the occasion (he was 87 years old), so he recited a better poem, The Gift Outright, from memory.
~ The Gift Outright ~
The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was ours In Massachusetts, in Virginia. But we were England's, still colonials, Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more possessed. Something we were withholding made us weak. Until we found out that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender. Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war) To the land vaguely realizing westward, But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, Such as she was, such as she would become.
By taking a promising idea and making a hash of things, advocates of the Common Core paid homage to a long tradition in American education. What could and should have happened in 2009 just might still be possible. It would offer the surest way out of what otherwise looks to be a bruising war of attrition that will complicate school improvement for years to come.
Although that original vision still offers a potential path forward, the odds of the necessary course correction actually taking place seem slight. Indeed, self-confident Common Core advocates have not been inclined to acknowledge missteps or problems and are instead more disposed to double down on clumsy political machinations, attempts to impugn skeptics, and an insistence that everything is working out just as they intended. At this point, however reasonable the rationale for the Common Core, it seems increasingly clear that American education would be better off if this unfortunate, quasi-national enterprise had never made it off the drawing board.
The Next Assault on Civil Rights - The Roberts court has been hostile toward voting rights and affirmative action. Its next target is the Fair Housing Act.
Many otherwise prudent people, many of whom may have smoked marijuana decades ago when it was far less potent than now, have gone along with the increased legalization of marijuana. It may be so that for most consumers, who do not abuse it, the harmful effects are minor. However, for many the short and long term effects are not minor. It is ironic that liberal politicians who are so eager to stamp out smoking tobacco and who are so fervent about controlling other things many consume are supporters of marijuana legalization. Their reasons are either that they still do imbibe or that they see another source of taxes they can spend on their other notions.
A scholarly analysis of the research since 1993 done into the health effects of marijuana finds:
Research in the past 20 years has shown that driving while cannabis-impaired approximately doubles car crash risk and that around one in 10 regular cannabis users develop dependence. Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood. Regular cannabis use in adolescence is also associated strongly with the use of other illicit drugs. These associations persist after controlling for plausible confounding variables in longitudinal studies. This suggests that cannabis use is a contributory cause of these outcomes but some researchers still argue that these relationships are explained by shared causes or risk factors. Cannabis smoking probably increases cardiovascular disease risk in middle-aged adults but its effects on respiratory function and respiratory cancer remain unclear, because most cannabis smokers have smoked or still smoke tobacco.
Conclusions
The epidemiological literature in the past 20 years shows that cannabis use increases the risk of accidents and can produce dependence, and that there are consistent associations between regular cannabis use and poor psychosocial outcomes and mental health in adulthood.
...Obama’s not without ideas. He’s full of ideas, all of them out of date. All of them from the last century’s paradigms. He wanted to become like European social democracy at the very moment when it finally collapsed into the dust-bin of history. He hankered after the ideals of ‘progressivism’ when it had already become reactionary. He is like a man who has saved all his life to buy a pair of bell-bottomed pants only to reach the required sum just when they were 40 years out of style. He’s at the store looking to buy them and can’t find them on the rack.
Photo: Twisted Aspens from a friend's hike in Colorado. Why twisted? 
Not sure about anyone else, but gas prices around me have dropped significantly. As recently as 3 months ago, I was 
Photo: Gwynnie took that in the Adirondacks this weekend 
When Columbus came back to Spain with news of the West Indies, it was no big deal and of little interest in Europe. They found no spices.
Things That Make You Go Hmmm... Like