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.
Tucked away in the giant barn at Mohonk. Not many readers who recall seeing these on the road. Even better is their large collection of horse-drawn buggies. So cool.
While making my rounds today, watched a master backhoe operator using that shovel as easily and delicately as his own hand. Just wonderful grace and expertise. Later, watched a squirrel burying a nut with his hands, digging and then replacing the soil and patting it down.
Non-breeding plumage can be confusing with birds, most especially with warblers. If you can ID fall and winter warblers, I'd term you an expert birder.
My favorite urban hiking shoes are these Merrills, their Boulder style. Not sure they make 'em anymore. I would not use them for bouldering but they might work for that. Good for clambering on ruins, cobblestones, dirt roads, and plain sidewalks. I like those Prana hiking pants too. Lightweight, lots of stretch, can put long underwear underneath if it's chilly, and truly water-resistant because I tested them.
This footwear selfie in Rome last week.
What do you like for long urban hiking with cobblestones, slippery places, dirt roads, etc?
Roy Rogers son continues performing with his dad's hit group of the 40's, Sons Of The Pioneers.
Watch it allthe way through, with a kiss and dance from Trigger, from 1944 film. (Yeah, Flatbush, my hood, is in there too!)
Aside from his 100 movies and long-running TV show, Roy Rogers led a top hit Country Western group, famous for classic songs like Cool Water, Don't Fence Me In, and Tumbling Tumbleweeds, still popular today..
One of the points Codevilla makes is that America is so diverse geographically, culturally, and attitudinally that one-size-fits-all constructed by the elites, the "anointed," in Washington will be certain to make many people feel ignored if not oppressed.
Consider sanctuary cities (and states). Some hundreds of cities in America have declared that they are taking no part in enforcing national immigration laws. The government of great big California has set up an executive office to figure out all the ways in which to evade or just to stiff anything it does not like coming from the Trump Administration. And why not? Practically speaking, the federal government doesn’t have the power to make local officials enforce its rules, or even court judgments, against significant popular opposition. Yes, nowadays every federal agency has its SWAT team. But state or city officials, backed by the voters, can nullify or simply ignore a federal law, regulation, or court order, because countering peaceful nullification is hard—and usually unwise, too. Sending paramilitaries to arrest elected officials or citizens who comply with local law or policy is a blind alley. Yes, President Eisenhower sent the 101st airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 to enforce school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education. But that symbolic act (no resistance, no force, no arrests) succeeded because the government then enjoyed a moral authority that it has since squandered. Nothing like that will ever happen again.
The reality is that, today, the people of California and Massachusetts continue to diverge from those of Texas and the Dakotas in so many ways that applying the administrative state’s formulae to them requires ever more force. Substituting administrative force for waning consensus makes for less national unity, not more. Why not, then, deal with the problem by accepting reality?
Mille grazie to Roger de Hauteville, the Norman King of Sicily (recent photo on the right) for his change-of-pace morning links while I was away. Much more clever and fun to read than mine are.
President Trump sees Honduras as “a distressed property” that will become “the jewel of Latin America after it gets the Trump treatment,” according to a new brochure release by the White House to attract investment partners to the new property, tentatively dubbed Trump-Rico International. “The Trump Organization will create a luxury experience delivering a sense of style with unrivaled customer service — a real boutique nation for the discriminating resident or traveler.”
“Last night, I was sitting on the sofa watching TV, when I heard my wife in the kitchen ask: ‘What would you like for dinner, sweetheart: chicken, beef or lamb?’”
“I think I’d like chicken, dear,” I replied.
“You’re having soup, numbnuts. I was talking to the dog.”
Prof. Gelernter: "For now, though, the left’s only issue is “We hate Trump.” This is an instructive hatred, because what the left hates about Donald Trump is precisely what it hates about America. The implications are important, and painful..."
That means Situation Abnormal All F-ed Up. Things generally go OK for us. When I got home, learned my office phone had been out for 12 days. Not good. And more.
If any readers care, when I get reorganized here I will post some photos from my reconstituted HQ and after a semi-catastrophic (4 days in Italian government hospital for Mrs. BD, but then 6 days buzzing all around the environs of southern Tuscany with our great VW were pretty fun using an elegant villa in the countryside outside Montepulciano as our base). Good food, still lost 5 lbs which I did not need to lose.
It's a long story, but, in brief, due to the accidental stay in the hospital in Ostia, we made a wonderful new friend of a lovely young Slovenian gal who speaks 8 languages fluently, I got to spend 5 hours wandering around Ostia Antiqua, spent a day on the Lido in Ostia, and hopped the train to spend a day urban-hiking Rome which reminded me of how much I dislike that city. I can say that 5 days in an ordinary Italian suburb, no tourists, was a cultural education than few if any Americans could get. I was an alien.
Also learned that I need to update my Civil War-era iphone.
A lengthy interview with many good moments. Listen while cleaning a closet or something. It will save you the trouble of reading their book. Peterson does the interview but he properly keeps himself out of it and lets them talk.
3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
3:2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.
3:3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies.
3:4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
3:5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!
:6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.
3:7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species,
3:8 but no one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
3:9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.
3:10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.
3:11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water?
3:12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.
Usually, when we speak of financial news, we're referring to central bank machinations and Wall Street piracy and great big old honking government budget contortions and hedge fund rapacity and interest rate shenanigans and so forth. That's great, because talking about the monetary policy of your next door neighbors on the evening news could get boring. "Well, Stefanie, we see a period of instability in cross-border money transfers for the foreseeable future. Ms. Howard maxed out the Discover card on those super-cute Louboutins I was telling you about during the break, and Mr. Howard, oh dear, has been to the strip club again, so I don't see them going to Sandals this winter. Now the weather..."
Actually, that might be more interesting than watching the evening news to determine whether you're flush or flushed in the spondulicks department. The same news is reported as all bad or all good depending on who's in the White House. "We're seeing negative unemployment rates this month, as more Americans are retiring after successful IPOs on their javascript empires before they're old enough to get their first job, and the Fed is continuing to hold interest rates at zero because nobody needs any money. However, our Aye-Team investigative reporters have discovered that one of those buckets at the gas pump at the Sheetz in Fishkill, you know, the ones with the filthy water and the squeegee? Well, it was almost empty, and the clerk behind the counter was unsure when he'd be able to refill it. As of this moment, it's unclear how long the monster in the White House can survive after news like this gets out."
Well, I don't have time to scrape all your data from your Facebook pages to see how your personal finances are going, so going personal in the financial news isn't practical for me. And I would never peek in your windows to see how you're doing, but hey Ted, you should really tell your wife to stop undressing in front of the home security camera with the default password still on it. No reason. But let's at least take a Saturday look around the internet to see how we're doing in general, shall we?
Most economists and analysts tend to support the narrative that real income growth hasn’t increased enough for median Americans. Since the top 1% and 10% have seen their income and wealth increase, if real median incomes are flat lining, it’s a problem. As we mentioned in a previous article, if you look at real median income per person instead of per household, it looks better because households have shrunk.
My household has shrunk, too. My wife keeps wallpapering and the walls are getting closer.
The company produces frozen ready meals and since it was set up in 2014 has had just one profit-making year in 2016-17 when it made €400,000. Projected losses for year end 2019 are €2.6m and the parent company is no longer prepared to support it, the company's petition to the court states.
Oh dear. No ready meals in Ireland. This sounds vaguely familiar. The company was obviously poorly run, though. Look, they made a profit one year. Any Musk could tell you that's not how to run a company.
Unless you’re “independently wealthy,” you probably don’t have enough money to open a small press bookstore or artist-run space, which means you’ll probably have to be a non-profit, which is almost guaranteed to be a terrible idea for a number of reasons. Sure, people will get excited at first and want to give you their tax-deductible dollars. Or maybe you’ll win some big prize to help you get started. We did. We won a $10,000 community art grant.
I don't see the problem. They wanted a non-profit, and that's what they got.
Despite decades of research on materialism, there are few viable strategies for reducing materialism in younger consumers. In this paper, we present two studies conducted among over 900 adolescents that reveal a promising strategy for decreasing materialism: fostering gratitude. In Study 1, results from a nationally representative survey showed that children and adolescents with a grateful disposition were less materialistic.
Gratitude? For adolescents, Halloween now lasts for three months, while Thanksgiving consists of texting all day while your stepfather watches football and your mother orders takeout Chinese. Do the math.
A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was
hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of
some 75,000 people, officials said Friday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the
announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time slot
agencies often use to release unfavorable developments.
Hmm. This article is unconcerned about HealthCare.gov data collection and an ensuing security breach, but doesn't like the timing of the announcement. Oh, and one of the squeegee buckets at the Sheetz is nearly empty.
Ride-hail giant Lyft just dropped $100,000 to fight Proposition C, the ballot measure that would tax rich corporations to house 4,000 homeless San Franciscans. Yes, you heard that right: Lyft, not Uber, is pushing back against “Our City, Our Home” in a big way, On Guard has confirmed. It’s perhaps strange for a company whose CEO bragged to TIME Magazine in 2017 that his company is “woke,” and especially odd since the often-vilified Uber, which has weathered myriad recent scandals, confirmed to On Guard they’re not planning on donating for or against Proposition C.
I hope the tax money goes to fund $10,000 community art grants to help the homeless open non-profit, small press/artist-run spaces of their own.
Four of every 10 people who will move to Nevada this year will be from California, and most of those arriving in Reno and its suburbs are from the San Francisco Bay Area. Along with that human stampede have come rising home prices and rents - as well as rising anxiety for those living on the margins."We're not worried with keeping up with the Joneses," said Dave Frazier, who lives in one of the old motor lodges. "We just want to keep a roof over our head."
If they get evicted, they can always take an Uber to San Francisco and vote for a homeless tax on Lyft.
Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon took to the decks at a top New York nightclub just three days after the suicide of his former assistant, who was accused of stealing more than $1m of fine wine from the CEO.
I once played an Aerosmith record on my mom's stereo the day after my goldfish died. I still feel pretty bad about it.
RevPAR is the product of the hotel’s average daily room rate multiplied by its occupancy rate. It’s the most important ratio in the hotel industry. The hotel workers hours worked total also appears to have hit a plateau. STR, which measures the hotel industry, pre-announced growth of 0% to -2% in September. If this cycle is consistent with the last one, the economy would already be in a recession. However, it could just be a weak month which doesn’t mean anything for the broader economy.
I had no idea things had gotten this bad. The United States is apparently running out of Patels. Gentlemen, our country can't afford a Patel gap.
Los Angeles County's typhus outbreak, which began in the summer, has expanded to as many as 92 cases, including 20 in Pasadena and a possible 18 in Long Beach, where five were still under investigation by the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services. The average number of typhus cases the county sees in a year is 60, which itself has doubled in recent years, according to the Los Angeles County Health Department. City officials recently declared downtown's skid row — roughly 54 square blocks where more than 4,000 homeless congregate — a "typhus zone."
"So if the stock continues to go down, based on these kids that play with computers and somebody else's money, we are going to buy back stock. We are going to screw these guys so badly that I don't believe that they will be able to only resign. They will have to commit suicide. So we are going to screw these guys so badly that it will be fun to watch. That will be my first priority other than the two top priorities of finishing HBI and paying down debt."
The CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs forgot to mention the lamentations of the Goldman women, but other than that, a fine, Muskish tirade. I bet that shortselling Goldman employee won't be deejaying anytime soon after that verbal beating. In other news, Cleveland-Cliffs Initiates Dividend, Expect More Upside
I hope you have a great Saturday everyone, with very few lamentations around your hopefully typhus-free home!
Dr. Newman with his crooked pince-nez Had studied in Vienna and Chicago. Chess was his only relaxation. And Dr. Newman remained unperturbed By every nastier manifestation Of pluto-democratic civilization: All that was cranky, corny, ill-behaved, Unnecessary, askew or orgiastic Would creep unbidden to his side door (hidden Behind a poster in the Tube station Nearly half-way up the moving stairs), Push its way in, the squat there undisturbed Among the box files and tubular steel chairs. H was once seen at the Philharmonic Hall Seeing the reactions of two patients, With pronounced paranaoic tendencies, To old Dutch music. He appeared to recall A tin of lozenges in his breast pocket, Put his hand confidently in - And drew out a black imp, or sooterkin, Six inches long, with one ear upside-down, Licking at an ice-cream corner - Then put it back again with a slight frown.
That's the title of this post, but I do not mean to restrict this little discussion to the workplace. The issue is that, wherever men and women congregate regularly, "chemical" attractions occur commonly.
These of course range from very mild to intense. It is difficult for people to focus on what they intend to do when there is a powerful attraction to a nice person of the opposite sex who is in regular proximity and contact. I have had people say to me "Is there anything you can do to help me get rid of this crush on so and so? It's messing up my workout/job/tennis game, etc."
A colleague and I were talking about this recently, and he (jokingly) suggested that people in that situation should just jump into bed together and eliminate the romantic/sexual tension and eliminate the mystery. "Get it over with. It's just biology." And of course their are rules about these things in the workplace.
In my view, such things are not necessarily a sign that a person is in a lousy relationship. Could be, but humans are designed to experience these things.
If a close friend confesses to you that some guy or gal at work or somewhere else is driving them nuts with desire, what would you say to them? Would you say"Grow up!"?
Not an
Non-breeding plumage can be confusing with birds, most especially with warblers. If you can ID fall and winter warblers, I'd term you an expert birder. 
Is there a 
Mille grazie to Roger de Hauteville, the Norman King of Sicily (recent photo on the right) for his change-of-pace morning links while I was away. Much more clever and fun to read than mine are.