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.
In half a century, astonishingly, we’ve come full circle and achieved the exact inverse of what the Free Speech Movement claimed it intended. What began as lawless civil disobedience now exploits campus regulations to rescind from others the same rights these erstwhile campus radicals once demanded for themselves. In other words: the oppressed have become the oppressors. Talk about Freudian reaction formation!
A major omission, however, is the topic of lawsuits. No physician wants to be asked on the stand something like this: "Doctor, you have testified that in your opinion Mrs. Jones had the symptoms of ordinary migraine headache and did not need an MRI. We have an expert witness who says he always orders an MRI for headaches...."
This topic gives me a headache. The fact is that rigid "best practices" combined with lawsuit avoidance diminish physicians' use of their judgement, flexibility, experience, and more.
1. To speak of Islamist violence, or to suggest there is a problem in Islam, is racist, and hateful, and irrational, and "islamophobic."
2. It is so predictable that Islamists will kill you if you say something "anti-Islamic" that victims of murder attempts can be said to have brought their attacks on themselves.
Hillary Clinton: We knew her as a grim, charmless harridan; a pear-shaped harpy. Now, after reading Peter Schweizer's new book, Clinton Cash, we see the ultimate Hillary, one of the world's truly scary women.
America has a proud tradition of provocative, obnoxious, and even treasonous speech going back to Tom Paine if not further back. (My ancestors were Tories.) Unlike any other nation in the world, it is one of our first principles. Indeed, we are an exceptional country.
Americans revel in provocative, intemperate, reckless, savage, irreverent, and satirical speech. While Americans appreciate good manners, there are times when unmannerliness is called for, even if only for fun or to make a point. Manners are mostly not encased in law, after all. Our artists, comedians, playwrights, atheists, absurd Marxist revolutionaries, pornographers, etc. all enjoy transgressing manners, propriety, and sensitivity, for better or worse. It's a free country. If you are hypersensitive here, buy a helmet.
That's why we get a kick out of the irreverent and unmannerly Pam Geller. She is a tough New York broad. I love provocative speech of any sort, even when it's about myself (well, sort of).
Anyway, if this were about satirical Roman Catholic cartoons, would the media be so upset? It would be different.
Well, in fact, I would only trust libertarian, Constitutional Americans like me to protect the freedom of the internet or any other sort of freedom. We are the exceptional people.
Given all the new disclosures about surveillance even in the US - all justified under "terror" - I don't think I even like the gummint in it at all, much less "global governance."
Why not take away the faces on Mt. Rushmore? They pollute the scenery too.(I hate the very notion of Mt. Rushmore. The US is not the Assyrian Empire with government-worship)
You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.
I get the point, but I disagree. Just as with those who inherit a living, some would rise to the challenge and some would not bother. Being poor and in the chronically-dependent class does not always mean lacking in character, pride, and intelligence resources (although it clearly often does). Nobody in America today is as poor as Abe Lincoln was.
On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, I realized that I could not locate Armenia on a map.
The nation has a complex and fascinating history. Most recently, they had been part of the Soviet Communist Empire. They were the first nation-state to embrace Christianity as a national religion in around 300 AD. They have the oldest cathedral in the world. They speak Armenian, and have the Armenian alphabet. There are roughly 11 million Armenians; 3 million in Armenia and the rest in Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan - and a huge population in the New York City area where most Armenians in the world, outside Armenia, live.
The latter are not all rug (rug - not drug) dealers, but it seems to be an Armenian specialty. Names usually end in -ian. I'll post on Caucasian rugs (mostly from what is now Armenia) later.
Whatever you intend to do with a potato, you need to select the variety for the job at hand. If you have ever made gluey mashed taters, or had taters disintegrate in a stew, you know what I mean. Wrong potato. All of our potato types have been genetically-engineered for specific qualities. Special thanks to Mr. Johnson who came up with the Yukon Gold a few years ago.
As I have commented in the past, it's fun to think about all of the foods the New World native farmers and plant breeders contributed to Old World cuisine. For starters, potatoes,tomatoes, peppers, beans, maize, zucchini and summer squash, winter squash and pumpkin, cocoa, strawberry, sunflower, sweet potato, peanut, vanilla, etc. etc.
At the time of the European invasions of the New World, there were few communities of pure hunter-gatherers (eg the Eskimos). Farming was big, supplemented by hunting-gathering.If you recall, the Pilgrims took over Indian hundred-acre cornfields.
For those keeping score at home, that is one old corrupt white woman against a female former CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a brain surgeon who is black, a former TV host and governor, the longest serving Governor of Texas, the Indian-American Governor of Louisiana, and we already have a doctor turned Senator, two Hispanic Senators, and we are waiting on the former Governor of Florida who speaks Spanish and is married to a lovely lady from Mexico, not to mention the very successful Governor of Wisconsin. There may be more.
Let me say something obvious: if you're paying $500,000 or $750,000 for Bill Clinton, you're not paying for a canned speech from an old man most of whose vague pronouncements have already been well-documented and are trite to the point of agony.
Nobody has been "triggered" by Ovid for 2000 years until now. Trigger warnings for the Bible will be next, any day now.
Our point that we make repeatedly here, however, is that that students are not really bothered by reading things. They are manufacturing a victim role to bully, attack, and control. That's what Borderlines do.
These are not some new breed of precious snowflakes, this is pure manipulation. They got rid of Larry Summers the same sort of way, so it works. Why is it that nobody can see through these frauds? If not Columbia, then who?
As James Madison recorded in Federalist 45, “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” In other words, what it was not clearly permitted to do, it could not do. That being so, a Bill of Rights made little sense, for, if the federal government had been accorded the opportunity to do only a certain number of things, listing what it could not do was superfluous. Underscoring this point, Alexander Hamilton submitted in Federalist 84 that a list of specific prohibitions would represent “various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.” “Why declare,” Hamilton asked, “that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”
"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau."
We had our annual crew of 6 (legal) immigrants helping me get my Springtime outdoor to-do list done this weekend. It's amazing what 6 or 7 guys with all the right tools can get done in 7 hours.
I am grateful for these high energy, botanically-knowledgeable guys doing the work which, apparently, Americans do not want to do. It is highly pleasurable to feel effective on a large scale.
I am not wealthy enough for venture funds or other alternative investments. My simple goals are an interesting, adventurous, and pleasant life, and some prudent capital preservation. I have a million hobbies and interests. I have no interest in the American notion of retirement. Kids are mostly educated, which absorbed much more of my income that the mortgage did (and does). I've been advised to keep a sizable mortgage until death or severe illness.
15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.
15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
Should You Travel to Cuba? 
Pic is a small bouquet Mrs. BD put together for my office 
Well, in fact, I would only trust libertarian, Constitutional Americans like me to protect the freedom of the internet or any other sort of freedom. We are the exceptional people.
‘Men aren’t wimping out by staying unmarried or being commitment phobes.
Potatoes, mashed or fried, are the most popular side dishes in North America. Rightly so - the original tiny 
A friend sent that pic of the Greenfield Hill (in Fairfield, CT) Congregational Church's annual Dogwood Festival this weekend