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.
...news merged Thursday that Obama Administration officials ran a government intel operation on the Trump campaign. The New York Times reports that political appointees signed off on surveillance of “associates” of the Trump campaign, though “the nature of these contacts remains unknown.” The officials then spread this raw intelligence throughout the government and to foreign counterparts, ensuring they’d be widely read and supposedly to prevent their Trump successors from covering up the truth.
We are in an entirely new age. When drivers listen to local or national talk radio, they assume that the host, often without a BA, is more informed, astute, and reliable than bylines from the echo chamber of Columbia journalism MAs.
DEM RED FACES... ALL OF THEIR MEETINGS WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR... PHOTO CONTRADICTS PELOSI STATEMENT... History of Exchanging Gifts... RUSSIAN FM CALLS SESSIONS UPROAR A REPLAY OF MCCARTHYISM... STUDY: 7X More Coverage Than Holder Contempt... Basic Formula For Every 'Shocking Revelation'... FLASHBACK: Valerie Jarrett's Daughter Hired At CNN To Cover Trump DOJ... Prosecutor Obama promoted would oversee probes...
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Part 1 by Dr. Norman Doidge is thorough and smart but a bit dull. His error, I think, is in missing a crucial component of the Speech and Thought Police which is their destructive rage and desire for control. In a sense, he gives them too much credit for genuineness. Believe me, they are not hurt when they claim victimhood. They are victimizing.
If you only have a little time, skip Doidge. Prof. Peterson is a fascinating speaker and is able to identify human evil. He has been victimized and he is pissed and passionate. This is dynamite and I urge all of our readers to listen:
Dems and allies have declared all-out warfare. Let's see how tough the trumpists are, because they have few insider allies. Lots of outsider allies, though.
Doubtful. There are 60,000 pages of federal administrative law. Nobody knows those laws because it would be impossible, but they can nail you if you break one. Not only that, but Congress not only never passed those details of the laws, but has no control of them either. UNDERSTANDING THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE.
Feminists wish to demystify mathematics - and all science too. Go for it, ladies. Please. Math beyond Calculus was a mystery to me due mainly to my IQ limitations. Physical Chemistry stumped me too, which is how I ended up in my career path.
The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist, queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques.
I haven't seen any queer critiques of Pythagoras yet, but he was probably gay anyway, being Greek.
Reynolds asks the right question: Would the Left be so gung-ho about a "Living Constitution" if conservative activists controlled the Supreme Court? Discussed at Althouse.
A "living Constitution" just means the politics du jour which can bend with the winds.
As we've said in the past, it depends on how one wishers to define "disease." The term is highly fluid, constantly expanding to include normal variations and things one might term "conditions" (mainly for insurance purposes), and lacks any natural definition.
My view is that substance abuse derives from one simple effect: Some people like it a lot and it makes them feel better than they otherwise feel. Any physiological dependence part is secondary to that. Also, I am not too keen on the criminalization of drugs. The "War on Drugs" has accomplished little good and has many unintended and unfortunate consequences.
The Left has a genius for ratcheting up dependency and government largess, and then daring Republicans, when they come into power, into undoing it because it’s extremely unpopular. And they did gin up a system that is completely unworkable but does have some who benefit, and some are going to lose.
“There's as much crookedness as you want to find. There was something Abraham Lincoln said - he'd rather trust and be disappointed than distrust and be miserable all the time. Maybe I trusted too much.”~John Wooden
1. The U.S. leads the world in health care spending per person, but not in health care outcomes. Many people look at that and say that health care costs too much in the U.S., and we should be able to get the same or better outcomes by spending less. Maybe that is correct, maybe not. That is not the point here. But–
2. the U.S. leads the world in K-12 education spending per student, but not in student outcomes. Yet nobody says that education costs too much and that we should spend less. Except –
3. me. I believe that we spend way too much on K-12 education...
I'm no longer a Democrat (it's been many years now), and though on the rarest of occasions I worried I'd made a mistake, Tuesday night watching the shell-shocked faces of the Democrats on the floor of Congress while Donald Trump delivered his magnificent speech, I knew I had made no error. I even wondered what was going on in my head in those isolated moments I doubted myself.
The Democratic Party members watching that speech looked like a party of the living dead. They didn't know how to react. They didn't know if they were Americans. They didn't know who they were.
...despite delivering an unquestionably positive message, Democratic members like Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi glared, shaking their heads and scowling in apparent anger. Notable were moments when Trump proposed bipartisan positions like extending treatment opportunities for Americans addicted to drugs. Despite the uncontroversial nature of these policies, Democrats sat in defiance.
But Trump’s message of one America nevertheless persisted. Between the bookends of unity, Trump doubled down on his campaign promises to the American people, but he did so in a way that broadened their appeal. He pierced through the unflattering portrayal of the mainstream media and articulated the well-reasoned impetus behind his proposals.
Trust is faith, a scary risk, but it's ever too late to reach out for Christ's hand. Your final seconds of life are enough: Natalie Grant - Hurricane (h/t Vanderleun a couple of years ago)
The Democrats and their press proxies were all prepared with their talking points against the Donald Trump who sneers in their smug faces. Instead, President Trump was at his presidential best, clear, softly spoken, strategic in his sweep across the policy landscape, offering his hand to his opponents to instead think first of America instead of scoring petty points.
The Democrats in Congress looked bewildered and pantsed, sour looks on their faces in the face of programs that appeal to most Americans, not knowing what to do, their steam looking like hot air, and the media stammered its appreciation with less of but not excluding their sneers.
The American people got to see it all, to the self-created embarrassment of the Democrats.
LEONARDO DeCAPRIO's self-declared climate expertise enables him to speak on the world's environmental issues with a high-school education. He never took a college biology, chemistry, physics or climatology course, yet he knows more than most scientists. He proved that by addressing climate change before a full gathering of the UN.
SEAN PENN's quick takes on everything put him at the lofty level of an Einstein. He visited Iraq once and became an expert on that country. The same for Iran. He also became buddies with the brutal Venezuelan communist Hugo Chavez and consistently lauded that murderous thug. Now that Chavez is gone and Venezuelans are raiding dumpsters for food scraps, Penn is having a rare silent moment. Penn deserves some credit for becoming a world-affairs genius based on two years of auto mechanics classes at Santa Monica College.
This is a downer for Mardi Gras and Carnival season, the modern Saturnalias where no rules apply and reckless hedonism is in the air, but I'll post it anyway like a fuddy-duddy:
I am not sure how to define "natural" for human beings when humans are the ultimate culture-building and society-building animal. For humans, relationship-building and relationship-maintenance are complex, demanding, and sometimes seem almost impossible. Perhaps "natural," though.
Being an acceptable member of a bourgeois society and culture requires hundreds of external restraints (laws, rules, conventions, and expectations) and self-restraints (mostly against temptations and impulses and for reputation-protection). Bourgeois Westerners do not do many very "natural" things like pooping in the park, clubbing people who piss us off, grabbing genitalia when the impulse hits us, stealing people's purses, shooting a neighbor's dog to roast on the backyard grill.
As in ancient times when aristocrats and overlords lived without the constraints of the common folk and the stolid gentry, the Western world still has subcultures which are "above" - or you could call it "below" - the respectable bourgeois Judeo-Christian norms. I am thinking of the special subcultures of Hollywood, Washington, and the like where celebrity, money, and power can exist with separate rules. I am also thinking of some Fishtown subcultures, Tattooland, where there are different standards and expectations.
I must agree with Scarlett Johanssen that monogamy is not "natural" for humans although there is much variation in how libidinally- or id-driven people are. It is definitely not natural for me if some of my X-rated fantasies are evidence but, by behaving myself in many "unnatural" ways, I have managed to build a solid happy life without harming very many people, without blowing up my life, and without too much burden of guilt.
Bill Clinton and Scarlett Johanssen and all the others are free to live as they choose. Tabloid fodder is necessary to drive eyeballs. Perhaps that is why Miss Scarlett made her honest statement about her libidinal intentions. As some guy said on some site, "So I still have a chance to get it on with Scarlett?" Yes, maybe you do if you act charming and catch her in the right mood. Buy her a cocktail and act soulful and deep, wounded but brave. It might work on her and, despite talent, she is not overly bright. Seduction is natural and women like love and sex.
Women are far better at that game than men, however. Women have the power.
WHY PEOPLE 
McDonald's vows 
There Is 