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.
No surprises there. My advice: Tell spouse what you are going to do first. You lose the thrill of secrecy but gain in lack of guilt, shame, and self-hatred.
I think the documentary seeks to fix the record in falsity. To take only one example, as I say in my “Notes,” Burns and his colleagues were apparently unable to find a soldier to recall his service in anything other than shades of disillusion, disgust and shame. Much more remains to be done on this deeply dishonest work to prevent it from becoming the received history of the war.
Epstein’s private jet, which transported his friends to Little St. James Island, was nicknamed “Lolita Express.” Initial records claimed that Bill Clinton was listed as a passenger on the jet at least 11 times between 2001 and 2003. That number was then changed to more than double with 26 trips, showing that Clinton flew on the plane at least once a month during the two-year period.
At long last, the people who do the strategic planning for Hillary Clinton and tell her what emotions she should imitate in response to various stimuli have weighed in and they have decided that Harvey Weinstein is not a nice man:
I believe that there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations
- James Madison,Speech in the Virginia Convention, June 16, 1788 (h/t Ace)
We go for natural or naturalistic plantings around here. Just a couple of perennial borders that we supplement with annuals. The fewer gardens you have, the less work.
Our best naturalistic plantings are a meadow hillside full of daffodils. At some point, you can just mow it with the tractor. We also have plenty of daylilies along walls. They make for an August delight.
Executive orders allowed the past administration to keep the program alive. They allow this administration to destroy it. Like his predecessor, President Donald Trump has been frustrated by lack of action in Congress on Obamacare. Like his predecessor, he has resorted to executive fiat to get around that obstruction. Only instead of frantically trying to save the troubled program, he is yanking out the life-support cords installed by President Barack Obama.
This week saw two executive actions. With the first, Trump is trying to expand health insurance options outside of the Obamacare exchange for individual insurance plans (which will have the side effect of making on-exchange policies less attractive to healthy customers).
The second is even more serious: After threatening it for months, the president has finally ended the cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, which subsidize the provision of special policies with lower out-of-pocket expenses for people who make less than 250 percent of the federal poverty line. At the very least, this will probably mean a further increase in premiums, and growing instability in at least the parts of the individual market that aren’t eligible for subsidies to offset the increase. At worst, especially if it gets bogged down in lawsuits, it may cause insurers to say “enough is enough,” leaving broad areas of the country without any firm willing to sell individual policies through the Obamacare exchanges.
While the Congressional Budget Office has issued a delightfully counterintuitive forecast that ending the subsidies could actually increase insurance coverage, there’s little question in my mind that these policies are bad for the exchanges. 1 At the very least, I think we can all agree that they put the exchanges at greater risk. There is also little question that this is at least part of the reason that the administration is pursuing them. And yet, believe it or not, there are still arguments for both.
It has become evident that millions of uninsured Americans are uninterested in buying insurance on the exchanges, because it’s too expensive, or the “narrow networks” don’t cover enough doctors and hospitals. The new options the administration aims to create could be a genuine boon to those people. If you have spent years bemoaning the dire fate of the uninsured, you have to take that benefit seriously.
As for ending the subsidies … what am I, some sort of monster? Do I just hate the poor so much that I can’t stand to see them getting help paying for health care? Well, no. I have no particular objection to the payments as policy. Except for one small thing, which is that they seem to be sort of illegal...
In her first presentation at our 2015 Eucharistic Convention Leah Libresco spoke to her subject matter "Falling in Love with Math, Morality and Mercy - My Conversion Story. It's a witness, not a sermon.
I went through a deontology phase too. She's an obsessionally morally-interested joyful and charming mathematician whose intellectual adventures lead to Christ. Cool, but I wonder what she would say about cultural transmission of moralities and values.
Two men were sitting at the bar on the top floor of the Empire State Building.
One man says to the other, "You know, if you jump out the window here, the force of the wind will blow you back in through the window on the 90th floor."
The other man says "Get outta here, you're joking aren't you?"
The first man says "No, here, I'll prove it!" He stands on the window ledge, jumps out and comes back in through the 90th floor window.
The other man says. "That was just a one off. Do it again!" So the first man does it again and comes through on the 90th floor. He runs back up and says "See, I'm telling the truth!"
The second man says, "Wow, I'm gonna do it too then." He stands on the window ledge, jumps out and falls to his death.
The barman, who just caught the end of this says to the first man, "You know, Superman, you're a real jerk when you're drunk!"
Leftover pizza is one of the finest breakfasts or snacks that exist. It tastes better the next day.
Tip: Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza.
Is "unconscious racial bias", in other words, unconscious racism, the main cause of racial disparities in the US? I don't think so, not for even a minute. The article notes that the research that supported the oppression theory is turning out to be invalid, but because of its political usefulness the idea will no doubt persist anyway.
There are many reasons for individuals to be socio-culturally, or otherwise, "disadvantaged." There are many reasons for people to be stereotyped too. Everybody stereotypes until they know somebody.
In my opinion, "unconscious bias" is akin to "microaggression" because at some point the pursuit of oppression becomes absurd.
A new novel by one of our favorites, Mark Helprin:
Leftover pizza is one of the finest breakfasts or snacks that exist. It tastes better the next day.
Two