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.
"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means. The primitive exercise of the political means was, as we have seen, by conquest, confiscation, expropriation, and the introduction of a slave-economy. The conqueror parcelled out the conquered territory among beneficiaries, who thenceforth satisfied their needs and desires by exploiting the labour of the enslaved inhabitants. The feudal State, and the merchant-State, wherever found, merely took over and developed successively the heritage of character, intention and apparatus of exploitation which the primitive State transmitted to them; they are in essence merely higher integrations of the primitive State.
The State, then, whether primitive, feudal or merchant, is the organization of the political means. Now, since man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion, he will employ the political means whenever he can – exclusively, if possible; otherwise, in association with the economic."
Albert J. Nock, Our Enemy the State, 1935 (h/t Reader)
I get this weird vibe when I read the newspapers. I'm looking for things to amuse or delight this audience. Nothing seems amusing and delightful to me. Lots of things are funny, but Will Ferrell funny, not Mark Twain funny. Lots of things are delightful. They still publish the obituaries, after all, and there's always people you don't like in there. You have to take your amusements where you find them.
The vibe I'm referring to doesn't really have a coherent theme I can point out. Just the opposite. I'm pointing out the lack of a theme. It reminds me of the interlude just after a trip to Chipotle. You know what's going to happen. You just don't know if that trip to Costco for toilet paper was enough to handle it.
So if you're looking for a theme in today's links, you're bound to be disappointed. It's a burlecue out there, people:
The average person in the United States in unemployable. They are unable to concentrate on anything but a cellphone. You're only hired because they can't get anyone better, and they can't wait to get rid of you. You must become freelancers because there's no other way to force you to pay attention to your work, or starve.
When the nanofibers are embedded within flooring, they’re able to produce electricity that can be harnessed to power lights or charge batteries. And because wood pulp is a cheap, abundant and renewable waste product of several industries, flooring that incorporates the new technology could be as affordable as conventional materials.
Look high. Look low. Go around back. Dig a hole and look at the underpinnings. A number of any kind never appears in that story. I wonder why that is. Wait a minute. No I don't
Google made its money completely by accident. They had a rock in their pocket that kept away tigers in Palo Alto, and they think it will work in the Punjab.
Remember the crack "epidemic" of the 90s? Politicians said prison or midnight basketball would fix it, take your pick. Neither did, but they both took credit. The problem disappeared only after it had utterly destroyed everyone it touched. Cellphones are just like that.
The tech industry is incredibly sanctimonious about imaginary slights to any aggrieved minority. Except anyone older than 35, the hell with them. I have no sympathy. Ten years ago, the aggrieved parties here were snickering in conference rooms about an adult who applied for a job at their startup. Welcome to the wonderful world of freelancing! Now put down the phone, or starve.
Estimated at more than 600,000 people, France has Europe's largest Chinese community. But they have not been in the country as long as more prominent migrant groups, including those from Africa.
There are 600,000 Chinese people in France? Who knew? Say, I was wondering. Are there any French people left in France? I hope they keep at least one around to insult Americans on vacation. It lends a certain charm to the place.
Say, isn't that about the same age as the two people currently applying for George's old job? George retired eight years ago. Ten, if you count when Pelosi took over the country. Is president listed on Old Geek Jobs?
A 28-year-old man leaving the Dancer's Royale strip club on East Colonial Drive fell out of his truck while it was moving, and it ran over his leg, the Florida Highway Patrol said. The incident was reported to FHP at about 2:41 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities said he left his driver’s license behind, and he is known at the strip club.
That's such a wonderful formulation: He is known at the strip club. Are you known at the strip club? Out of the way, peasant! I'm known at the strip club. How do you get known at the strip club? Do you bring quarters instead of dollar bills?
Well, it's Wednesday, people. You might as well swim to the far shore. You're already halfway there.
I am all in favor of tuning into the feelings of another person when it makes sense to do so. It is an act of intimacy, and builds connection with others. However, I believe that most expressions of empathy are phony. We all want to appear virtuous and caring.
Well, they do get lost. Animals with home territories tend not to get lost because they learn their area from childhood. However, animals that range widely as they mature often end up in wrong places and pay the price (eg bears, mountain lions, etc).
Bad science is ubiquitous, and bad science writing even more so. I have no confidence in any science journalism, and I approach any scientific results with deepest skepticism. The more hyped the "Studies show..." articles are, the more my skepticism grows.
So, someone knocked on my door yesterday. That's rare. It was a quiet knock, I barely heard it. I spotted a car I didn't recognize in the drive. Also rare. I answered the door. There was a young, soon to be importunate young woman at the door. She was wary and pushy at the same time.
She pushed a garish pamphlet in my hand. She called me by name, which I found very mildly unpleasant. "Have you made up your mind to vote for so-and-so?" I looked at the circular while I wondered about the parsing of the sentence I just heard. It sounded like someone who had rehearsed the wrong line for a play, and delivered a joke during a death scene.
"No," I said. That's all I said.
"Great, I'll put you down as undecided." She produced a small clipboard from behind her back and made a mark. I thought it was fairly rude to record an answer to a question that wasn't put to me as a survey question.
She then asked for my wife by name. I said she was busy. She sort of demanded to see her. I said no. She said, "I'll put her down as undecided, then, too," made another mark on her clipboard, turned abruptly, and hustled off.
I had answered the question put to me truthfully. I had not yet made up my mind to vote for so and so. If he was on fire, I wouldn't piss on him, and if he died, my wife would attend his funeral in a red dress, but no, we had not yet made up our minds to vote for him.
Like most things in the news, I quickly came to the conclusion that everyone in the story and everyone involved in the production of the story was an idiot.
I have a habit now. When I want to find out something about any news story in the United States or elsewhere, I go to the Daily Mail. It's an awful newspaper, but it publishes all the info it can get its hands on. Great pictures. An amazing find.
The Bench is one of the Big Five strength-conditioners. To make your time on the bench more productive and more of a multi-muscle stress, do not just muscle the bar up with your arms. Engage your back muscles too.
You do this by arching your upper back and raising your chest (while keeping butt on bench) as you lower the bar to your chest, then flattening your upper back against the bench during the press. While this will help you move more weight over time, what matters more is that it stresses more muscle groups in the same exertion.
It's a hot topic, mainly because it has been so politicized in recent years. As with the study of climate and weather, or research into some diseases and approaches to them, politicization is no friend to a pursuit of truth. When addressing data directly can be career-damaging or socially-damaging, scientists tend to be as human as everybody else.
During my career in mental health I have seen the societal normalization of things that I had been taught were perversions. Except for pedophilia and sexual sadism (so far), former perversions tend to be viewed as normal variations. It has been fascinating to watch these societal shifts. It has also been fascinating to watch the once-simple term "gender" shift into an almost hallucinatory array of meanings. It seems to me that cultual shifts, in this case, have led medical attitudinal shifts, rather than the reverse.
Liberal democracy in the United States cannot flourish with a crusading, quasi-religious cultural left for which everything is politics and those who disagree with the campus left are morally depraved heretics who must be named and shamed into conformity. Likewise, liberal democracy in America cannot flourish with a right that equates ordinary political compromise with the betrayal of principle.
If you've been under a rock, you might have missed out on the news that the internet sorta crapped out on Friday. You couldn't twit, or twat, or twunt, or twisp, or whatever you call that internet grunting you guys do. You couldn't go to Reddit to visit subreddits that consist of one founder, one reader, and one moderator, adding up to one person. You couldn't binge-watch Game of Cards on Netflix. Or was it Harry of the Rings you like? I forget. Anyway, you couldn't do it.
I didn't notice. You know, if you ask me, the internet is now old enough to be judged on its merits. It kinda sucks. When it doesn't work because your baby monitor and a Cuisinart in the next country don't want it to work, it demonstrates that it was set up and is being run by fools.
Tech oligarchs buy real businesses with borrowed money from fake businesses. You're going to see a lot of people without swim trunks when this tide goes out. I'm not sure this guy is smart enough to buy a real business, so he really better keep a weather eye on the tide chart. At least Bezos has a paper route to fall back on.
The purpose of rigging polls is not discouraging opponents and attracting money from people who want to back the winner. That's gravy. The real purpose is cover for stuffing ballot boxes. James Michael Curley could have told you that.
Do they hand out Nikes and purple blankets? Oh well. No children to pull the plug on you in the hospital when the nurse isn't looking. The nurse will do it when she notices no children come to visit you.
What's it feel like to perform brain surgery? I'd be more interested to know what it feels like to get your brain surgery from someone who can't spell "vise."
Well, it's Monday, and last time I checked, the internet still worked. You're going to have to think of another excuse for not getting anything done this week. Tell them your Samsung Galaxy phone caught on fire, ignited your car's air conditioner, and you got oversampled at Sunday's wine tasting. It's worth a shot.
Took this pic of a grand pair of early 19th C. houses in downtown Nantucket. For some reason, I always expect to see a funeral home sign in front of Greek Revivals. Merchants or sea captains? I forget. Nantucket went through a brief period of prosperity then, not to see wealth again until its fashionable real estate boom since the 1970s: NYC money, mostly.
Interestingly, Greek Revival architecture was introduced to Greece by Greece's early 19th C. monarchs, King Otto from Bavaria and King George from Denmark.
- Ah, yes. Reader reminds me that these homes were built by the Starbuck family. Great name.
Last Saturday night a jump up and feel Revival was held at Hilltop Center in Fallsbrook, CA. Actually, that was the theme of a variety music hall fest produced by Ken Rexrode. Ken is an extraordinary music production impresario whose sell-out shows at one of southern California's premier show rooms, Belly Up in Solana Beach, are unique.
The father and leader of one of those wonderful groups of musicians -- Daring Greatly, he and his sons moving here from Canada last year and staying because of the special energy of kindred musicians, adorned the guise of Reverend Dail to start things off. His words are supposed to come from as if a Revival in 1876, but they ring true and needed today. He let me steal his notes from the lectern.
Good evening. What a beautiful congregation, and what an incredible night we will have.
It's 1876 and lots is happening. There's a contentious election, with suspected cheating and corruption. -- I wonder how much better, how far we will have come in the next 140 years.
Its 1876, and the US signed a treaty with American Indians, then soon after, discovers gold on their land, and even with the treaty, the US removes the natives from their land. (Sounds like North Dakota?)
It's 1876, Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Turkey -- multiple others...Race riots in South Carolina heat up....
I wonder.........
I wonder, how will we measure how far we have come over the next 140 years? GDP, technology, average income per family, number of TVs per household...
OR, our ability to love, our levels of compassion, everyone having clean food, water, and air, are we happier, more connected?
I wonder how far we will have come...how much will our lives be better...how much will we have learned...how much happier...
Well...it's up to us now, isn't it!
In my line of work, I meet many people who are lost, sad, lonely, unfulfilled...and they ask me, How do "I" get out of this rut, this funk?...How do "I" feel better?
Do you know what I tell them? Do you know what I say to these people?
I say...you start by not using the word "I" so much. Stop making this whole life and world about you! It starts with you but doesn't mean more selfish, self-centered, misunderstood. It's about happinesss.
We are all one energy..,.in this together...then you realize...every time...pick somebody up...smile, hug...help...give of your time...you are really raising the vibrational energy of the entire planet.
When we bring others down, we bring ourselves down...and it works the other way, too!
If you want to feel better, make someone else feel better. It's amazing, it's addicting...it's perpetual...
So, the next time you feel sad, or lonely, or lost, or disconnected...put your beautiful and unique genius to great use...everyone has one or more of these...EVERYONE...
When we give a little...when we pick someone up...when we make a difference in someone's life...when we inspire someone to do something they were afraid to do...when we are a model or a mentor for someone...if each one of us takes on this universal truth and responsibility...there is NO way...no possible way...a major shift does not happen...it would be impossible for our lives not to get better.
There is some incredible vibrational energy increases that comes from participating in music. From the pounding drums, to the deep bass that rattles your heart, to the complementary sounds of the piano and guitars, to the beautiful melodies and harmonies.
Music is the perfect reminder constantly, that we can always get higher!
Tonight in true Rivival fashion, we have some beautiful people who are going to share their "genius" with you. They will be pouring their hearts out for you...they will be sharing their creations in the most sincere, human, vulnerable way possible with you.
A moment ago I said "participating". Music is not complete until there is an exchange and connection between the artist and the audience. When the artist is vulnerable and so is the audience, that's when MAGIC happens.
When an artist is emotional, vulnerable, sincere, the audience will feel that, and the artist will feel the audience right back.
So, open up your hearts tonight, to the music, to the artists, and to each other, and feel the music and the deep connections that it inspires. Fill your heart with as much love as you can possibly handle.
Let's celebrate together...right here and right now! The best way we know how...through LOVE...and MUSIC.
Jazz is meant to be heard live, in dark smokey places. A little marijuana definitely helps with any music appreciation, but especially jazz. Jazz and Folk were commercially destroyed by Rock and Pop in the late 50s. Niche music now, but still happily abundant in NYC.
By Alton Hall Blackington, New England’s Disastrous Weather, Yankee Books, 1990
As long as people work, live, and play in the vicinity of North End Park in Boston, no winter will pass without someone recalling the catastrophe that took place there on January 15, 1919. The scene of this tragic accident was that low-lying section of Commercial Street between Copps Hill and the playground of North End Park. Looking down from Copps Hill on that mild winter afternoon, you saw first the tracks of the Boston elevated railroad and the old houses nearby. Across the street were the freight sheds of the Boston and Worcester and Eastern Massachusetts railways, the paving division of the Public Works Department, the headquarters of Fireboat 31, and the wharves with patrol boats and minesweepers moored alongside. In the background to the left was the Charlestown Navy Yard. And towering above the freight sheds was the big tank of the Purity Distilling Company-bulging with more than two million gallons of crude molasses waiting to be made into rum. In the Public Works Department, a dozen or more horses munched their oats and hay, as flocks of pigeons fluttered around to catch the stray kernels of grain that fell from the feed bags. Stretched out on the running board of a heavily laden express truck, Peter, a pet tiger cat, slept in the unseasonably warm sunshine. This was the fourth day that the mercury of the thermometer on the sunny side of the freight shed had been climbing. On January 12 it was only 2 degrees above zero. But on the thirteenth the temperature rose rapidly from 16 degrees to 40; now, at 12:30 P.M. on Wednesday the fifteenth, it was 43 degrees above zero, and so warm in the sun that office workers stood around in their shirtsleeves talking about the weather. Even the freight handlers had doffed their overcoats, and sailors from the training ship Nantucket carried their heavy pea jackets on their arms. Mrs. Bridget Clougherty put her blankets out to air and smiled at little Maria Di Stasio gathering firewood under the freight cars. She waved to her neighbor, Mrs. O'Brien, who was dusting her geraniums on a dingy windowsill. At the pumping station attached to the big molasses tank, Bill White turned the key in the lock and started uptown to meet his wife for lunch. He bumped into Eric Blair, driver for Wheeler's Express, and said, "Hello, Scotty. What are you doing around here at noontime? Thought you and the old nag always went to Charlestown for grub." The young Scotsman grinned. "It's a funny thing, Bill," he said. "This is the first time in three years I've brought my lunch over here," and he climbed up on the bulkhead and leaned back against the warm side of the big molasses tank-for the first and last time. Inside the Boston and Worcester freight terminal, Percy Smerage, the foreman, was checking a pile of express to be shipped to Framingham and Worcester. Four freight cars were already loaded. The fifth stood half-empty on the spur track that ran past the molasses tank. Smerage had just told his assistant to finish loading the last car when a low, deep rumble shook the freight yard. The earth heaved under their feet, and they heard a sound of ripping and tearing-steel bolts snapping like machine-gun fire-followed by a booming roar as the bottom of the giant molasses tank split wide open and a geyser of yellowish brown fluid spurted into the sky, followed by a tidal wave of molasses. With a horrible, hissing, sucking sound, it splashed in a curving arc straight across the street, crushing everything and everybody in its path. In less time than it takes to tell it, molasses had filled the five-foot loading pit and was creeping over the threshold of the warehouse door. The four loaded freight cars were washed like chips down the track. The half-loaded car was caught on the foaming crest of the eight-foot wave and, with unbelievable force, hurled through the corrugated iron walls of the terminal. The freight house shook and shivered as the molasses outside, now five feet deep, pushed against the building. Then the doors and windows caved in, and a rushing, roaring river of molasses rolled like molten lava into the freight shed, knocking over the booths where freight clerks were checking their lists. Like madmen they fought the onrushing tide, trying to swim in the sticky stuff that sucked them down. Tons of freight-shoes, potatoes, barrels, and boxes tumbled and splashed on the frothy, foaming mass, now so heavy that the floors gave way, letting tons of the stuff into the cellar. Down there the workers died like rats in a trap. Some tried to dash up the stairs, but they slipped-and disappeared. As the 58-foot-high tank split wide open, more molasses poured out under a pressure of two tons per square foot. Men, women, children, and animals were caught, hurled into the air, or dashed against freight cars, only to fall back and sink from sight in the slowly moving mass. High above the scene of disaster, an elevated train crowded with passengers whizzed by the crumbling tank just as the molasses broke loose, tearing off the whole front of the Clougherty house and snapping off the steel supports of the "EI" structure. The trestle snapped, and the tracks sagged almost to street level, but the motorman of an approaching train, seeing the danger, managed to throw his train in reverse and prevent further catastrophe. The roaring wall of death moved on. ..
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Sweden, France, Germany, or the United Kingdom. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those who are classified as poor.)
Poverty in the US is measured by percentile of non-governmental income and does not include non-cash governmental benefits. Thus non-Americans are often surprised that American poor receive free medical care, subsidized or free housing, are often overweight, have large-screen TVs, and often one or two vehicles.
As I have observed here in the past, poverty in America is not material poverty.
Not much has changed in Progressive populist appeals since then:
Now, my friends, if you were off on an island where there were 100 lunches, you could not let one man eat up the hundred lunches, or take the hundred lunches and not let anybody else eat any of them. If you did, there would not be anything else for the balance of the people to consume.
4:6 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.
4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
4:8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
4:16 At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!
4:17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.
4:18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
A pretty good definition at Wiki: "It can be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words."
In other words, figures of speech add poetry and color to language. When over-used, they lose their power and fade into ordinary and become, really, unheard.
If you had OCD you could have been a Renaissance scholar classifying the 184 types of figures of speech, but the five most of us learned in grade school are simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification and synecdoche.
Due to their long history of Arab occupation, Sicilians cook with a lot of mint. A typical side dish for grilled meat is boiled potato with mint. Easier than pie.
Boil up a bunch of potatoes to firm with a few sprigs of mint in the water. If big, then quarter them. If small, leave alone. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then throw a generous handful of chopped mint +/- parsley on top. Done.
Speaking of cultural appropriation, mint is middle-eastern/Egyptian, and potatoes are from South America. Go figger.
Our favorite potatoes are roasted potatoes with rosemary. Quarter the taters, cover with olive oil, add s and p, then sprinkle with rosemary (fresh preferably) and roast in oven until the surfaces are brown but the insides creamy. Turn occasionally until browned.
From what I hear, Craig's List is the best way to quickly unload your excess or unwanted stuff. Also, a good source for stuff you might need to furnish an empty room.
One thing to bear in mind is that your excess, old, or even antique furniture, however sentimentally-attached to it you might feel, is worth very little. Probably a tenth of what was paid for it. Brown-colored furniture (ie antiques or old stuff with dark-stained wood) is particularly undesirable. If you think it's worth $500, it might be saleable for $20-40 at best. Many people use Craig's just to get a few bucks to have somebody take it away because stuff has little value unless somebody wants/needs that exact thing at that exact moment.
Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.
also,
"I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office."
Almost Saturday Night is a Dave Edmunds song. I know you're going to tell me in the comments that John Fogerty wrote it. I also know that you're going to tell me in the comments that John Fogerty wrote it, but you're going to spell it Fogarty. I know you pretty good, don't I? I know you pretty well, too.
It's a Dave Edmunds song to me because he did it best, or at least made it first to my ear at the appropriate time. He was the first with the most, as they say. That's how the world keeps score. Once you make a recording, it's an artifact. Artifacts don't change. They can be replayed, and judged. The music industry got really big when it began to produce artifacts that could be made on a relative shoestring and then sold on a mass scale. There's a limited amount of performances you can make money from. Records made lots of people rich for the same reason Bill Gates got rich. Once you've made your one thing, you can sell it as many times as you like.
The Beatles are the first musicians I can recall who produced artifacts that were substantially more than captured noises from a performance. That turned the music business into an artifact horserace. In this race, I say Edmunds won. You're going to disagree with me in the comments, I know it. And I also know you're going to spell Edmunds, Edmonds, and Fogerty, Fogarty.
All music is entirely artificial now. Nothing of it has much to do with the performer. They're just nailed to the prow of the artifact ship. There's a navy of men and robots manning the ProTools oars. People won't have it any other way at this point. They prefer the artificial over the real, because that's all they know.
There's a word for people who know real from ersatz, and deliberately choose ersatz. I don't have time to call people names, though. It's almost Saturday night.
People don't buy newspapers to make money. They buy newspapers to wield power. The destruction of the revenue at the New York Times bothers the Pinchy family not one whit. The employees suffer. The people who own the paper get to decide who will get the blame for all the layoffs. Hint: it's not them.
The entirety of the world economy is built on one thing. That is the rock solid belief that the US government will never miss a debt payment and never devalue the dollar to arrest its debt. The entire global economy is built on the asset value of US Treasuries. If there ever comes a time when people begin to doubt the security of that debt, the panic will plunge the world into a new dark age or possible something worse.
I like reading the Z Man, and Zero Hedge, too. Great fun. They're like prophets standing on the corner averring that the world will end yesterday.
Nothing economically productive has happened in the last ten years. Those who ended up in charge can't produce anything of value, and they can't even keep the lights on.
In case you're thinking about chortling at tubby guys with neckbeards and trilbys over a Linux exploit, think again. Linux is the OS on lots and lots of servers. Lots.
Well, Saturdays are slow around the internet, and busy around the farm, so that's all the links you get. Don't despair; it's almost Saturday Night.
A 
Due to their long history of Arab occupation, Sicilians cook with a lot of mint. A typical side dish for grilled meat is boiled potato with mint. Easier than pie.