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.
Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC Irvine actually went on without a glitch after members of the school’s College Republicans chapter passed out pacifiers to would-be protesters.
No doubt there will be safe spaces for white middle class jocks too. People like to hang out with those with whom they have more in common. The racial component seems rather strange, as if, for example, all brown people have a lot in common. That is ridiculous.
I predict that one ethnic group will not go for this sort of thing: Asians. Forgive the evil stereotype, but Asian kids seem versatile, comfortable, well-adjusted, and goal-directed. There are reasons for that, and it is not all their higher average IQs.
A friend told me yesterday the amusing story of the Ring-Neck Snakes which have been invading their house in upstate New York. His Mrs. is so uneasy about snakes that she has been stuffing towels under her bedroom door.
They can't find their entry point. My friend smashed one with a book. The guy knows nothing about snakes. I advised him that Ring-Necks are pleasant harmless critters and you should just pick them up and put them in the woods out back. They won't even snap at you.
Snakes rarely enter buildings except for Yellow Rat Snakes which like barns with rats and mice. However, I googled Ring-Necked Snake + houses and found a professional snake remover who seems to deal with that fairly often.
I suspect they just like to explore tight spaces, and then find themselves in your living room with no way out.
By early August the Yellow Legs and the Sanderlings have left their northern breeding grounds and are migrating south, towards home which is often as far as South America.
Both species are fairly common along the coast during migration, Yellow Legs in marshes mostly, and Sanderlings on sandy shores. Lots of both on Cape Cod and the Islands.
"There are strict instructions from the top not to report offenses committed by refugees. It is extraordinary that certain offenders are deliberately NOT being reported about and the information is being classified as confidential." -- High-ranking police official in Frankfurt, quoted in Bild.
"Many of the reporters who feel compelled to stop Trump are undoubtedly comfortable because all their friends feel the same way. But they are deluding themselves if they think that going after one candidate in a two-candidate race is what journalism is
about.
Some people consider that water temp wetsuit swimming, but not us...well, Mrs. BD likes her wetsuit top for an hour of boogie-boarding. Of course our harbor, ponds, and bay waters are warmer.
"I have spent much of my life among the poor or relatively poor. I can honestly say that it never occurred to me for a single moment that any one of them was not a true human being. Indeed, if they were not true human beings, their poverty would be nothing to worry about. I neither romanticized them as the fount of all goodness and wisdom nor saw them as mere objects."
... government is inherently corrupt. There is no way around it. That's just one of the reasons (although perhaps the most important one) why we are complete fools to entrust to the government more and more power to redistribute the wealth of society, supposedly to create more fairness and justice in the world. What this process actually creates is more corruption. And does this process create more fairness? If it did, why does Manhattan -- the jurisdiction with the highest taxes and the most extensive suite of progressive welfare and redistributive government programs in the whole country -- have the highest income inequality?
Well, that last question is not entirely fair to NYC. It takes a while for all of the new immigrants to get with the program but they get more help than NY immigrants of the past. The help probably slows them down. Plus NYC has large dysfunctional, dependent "inner city" "communities" which nobody knows what to do about except to give them stuff and get their votes.
The American colonies were doing well economically and the taxes and levies the King wished to impose were minor. Despite this economic realty, the colonies revolted anyway. It was early proof that homo economicus has always been nonsense. Humans as not rational and narrowly self-interested agents. Humans, individually and collectively, are biological.
When the Brits went to the polls and decided to leave Europe, they did not do so with economics in mind. That was part of it, but patriotism, identity, class and other non-economic factors were at the front of their mind. The winners were not waving the Union Jack because it happen to be handy. The Brexit forces were not talking about sovereignty and self-government by accident. Libertarians are so blinkered they could not comprehend what was so blazingly obvious. They remain convinced that humans are just moist robots.
Today’s open-borders agenda has its roots not only in economic factors—the need for low-wage workers who will do the work that native-born Americans or Europeans supposedly will not—but also in several decades of intellectual ferment, in which Western academics have created a trendy field of “borders discourse.” What we might call post-borderism argues that boundaries even between distinct nations are mere artificial constructs, methods of marginalization designed by those in power, mostly to stigmatize and oppress the “other”—usually the poorer and less Western—who arbitrarily ended up on the wrong side of the divide. “Where borders are drawn, power is exercised,” as one European scholar put it. This view assumes that where borders are not drawn, power is not exercised—as if a million Middle Eastern immigrants pouring into Germany do not wield considerable power by their sheer numbers and adroit manipulation of Western notions of victimization and grievance politics. Indeed, Western leftists seek political empowerment by encouraging the arrival of millions of impoverished migrants.
Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar.
I have even been accused of being a “public intellectual,” which sounds too much like “public nuisance” or even “public enemy” for my taste.
My point is that people who specialize in the life of ideas tend to be extremely atypical of their societies. They — we — are freaks in a statistical sense. For generations, populists of various kinds have argued that intellectuals are unworldly individuals out of touch with the experiences and values of most of their fellow citizens. While anti-intellectual populists have often been wrong about the gold standard or the single tax or other issues, by and large they have been right about intellectuals...
The Nerdwriter contemplates All Along the Watchtower. I still do not know what it's about, but there is compelling, very spare, imagery. Thanks, Gerard
I understand that ardent Hillary supporters could not care less about Clinton lies and Clinton money. Clinton morality is already baked in the cake and has been known for many years. No matter what is revealed, it changes no vote. Still, it's an ugly story that has to be told. Shut It Down: The Clinton Foundation Is Too Corrupt to Exist.
It is nothing more than a family slush fund and corrupt to its core. Quite remarkable, really, that anybody had the hutzpah to try the obvious scam of collecting money from foreign businesses and nations while Secretary of State. Hire some friends, your kid, and political allies, make a few token international efforts which fail except for the photo ops - and Voila!
Americans Indians on reservations live like many Black Americans live in urban areas. It can easily be a soul-destroying life where everything for survival is free because the powers that be have written them off as people without productive potential and figure that the sensible route is to give them stuff and get their votes.
Everybody admires those who escape any Indian government plantation. The worst thing about the Indians' plantation: No work at all to be done. No food needs to be produced, no buffalo left to kill, no enemy tribes to fight. Nothing. Escape is the only way to salvage a life.
Government treats blacks and Indians as if they were helpless children. Give them stuff and they will shut up. Maybe they - not the government - will figure that out someday but I do not see it happening anytime soon.
"If I were going to give a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio."
1:1 The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;
1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
1:15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
1:18 Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
1:19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
1:20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
I recently had occasion to peruse homes for sale in the pleasant and prosperous suburban town of Wilton, CT.
I saw some so nasty (but costly) that Sipp would be tempted to burn them down if he could afford a match. But, to be charitable, shelter is important in the north, and it's love and not design that makes a place a home.
Photo: 
A friend told me yesterday the amusing story of the 
By early August the
Frigatebirds 