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.
Oftentimes Wikipedia can provide a handy overview of a topic or an idea which helps me orient myself in my thinking about it. By contrast, ye olde Encyclopedia Britannica was verbose, rambling, and not well-organized for a clear overview. Just my opinion, of course.
The old one-volume Columbia Encyclopedia did that better. I relied on it when I was young.
19:28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
19:29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples,
19:30 saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
19:31 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'"
19:32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them.
19:33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"
19:34 They said, "The Lord needs it."
19:35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
19:36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.
19:37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,
19:38 saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"
19:39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop."
19:40 He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
I think the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim that human CO2 is causing warming is wrong. They created the result they wanted, which wasn’t designed to deal with warming but to stop economic development and reduce the population. They selected the data and mechanisms necessary to prove their hypothesis and manipulated the data where necessary, including rewriting climate history. The wider evidence, which is only examined when you move outside their limited definition of climate change, is that the world is cooling.
The major rewrite of history involved elimination of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). One of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang told David Deming in an email that it was necessary to get rid of the MWP. The reason, although not expressed in the email, was because they were telling people that the latter part of the 20th century was the warmest ever. It wasn’t by any measure, from the warm of the MWP to the prolonged warmer period of the Holocene Optimum. The MWP was the most immediate threat to their narrative because it was within a time period people could grasp. They could relate to the idea that Vikings sailed in Arctic waters that are permanent pack-ice today. There was also the graph (Figure 7c) in the first IPCC Report in 1990 that contradicted their claim – it had to go...
I suspect that Dr. Ball is correct, but really who cares about this topic anymore? Other than bureaucrats, moonbats, and government-funded researchers?
Adulthood means doing things you don't want to do and discovering that they can make you the person you want to be. That's how virtue is born. Perpetual childhood prevents virtue from ever forming. Instead public life is cluttered with oversized children who have the language skills, resources and political power of adults, but none of the virtues that come with maturity.
"the all-powerful central state worshipped by Reich and all the
other Establishment insiders, Democrat and Republican alike, is the true
culmination of fascism."
The developments provoked fury among Eurosceptics. UKIP Migration spokesman Steven Woolfe said: “It’s clear that the EU has got absolutely no moral obligation to accept them.
“To say it is against EU values to send economic migrants back to home is ridiculous. And what are EU values? Ignoring referendum results in France, Netherlands and Ireland?
"Enforcing Euro membership to create poverty and unemployment for millions? Bullying smaller countries to comply with German demands?
“It seems to me that only value that the EU holds is to increase power for itself, and pay for its bureaucrats.
“The UNHCR estimates that there are 60 million displaced people in the world.
"The notion that the EU alone has a duty to take them all in is ridiculous in the extreme.”
Reading together one day for delight Of Lancelot, caught up in love’s sweet snare, We were alone, with no thought of what might Occur to us, although we stopped to stare Sometimes at what we read, and even paled. But then the moment came we turned a page And all our powers of resistance failed: When we read of that great knight in a rage To kiss the smile he so desired, Paolo, This one so quiet now, made my mouth still— Which, loosened by those words, had trembled so— With his mouth. And right then we lost the will— For love can will will’s loss, as well you know— To read on. But let that man take a bow Who wrote the book we called our Galahad, The reason nothing can divide us now.
I think Trump could conceivably win a general election, although current polls indicate a bloodbath. It's been an interesting 6 months, and the next 6 could be equally interesting. I doubt that he would have done so well with a more compact set of primary candidates, though.
I do not think the Trump phenomenon is about anger, ignorance, or toothless white men. Exit polls I saw indicated that he drew votes from all social classes, ethnicities, and from women. They are not Know-Nothings; they are reluctantly-politicized people. So what is it about? I feel it's a spirit of rebellion and defiance. That is quite American. I think many feel that Washington with its condescending, bien pensant elites and vast, intrusive bureaucracies are diminishing life in America. (But they want their benefits too.) I can relate.
I think upper-middle-class seculars -- and even upper-middle-class religious folk -- don't realize just how much of a minority they are in this country.
Well, it's not that simple but I think many enjoy his anti-effete spirit and his plain talk. He is right about some things, wrong about other things. So is everybody.
On a personal level, I think Trump is a jerk and Hillary! is a revolting human. Given the choice, I'd hire Trump to work for me.
Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet - there is where the bullet went through - and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.
Theodore Roosevelt, October 14, 1912, after being shot by an attempted assassin. He spoke for 90 minutes.(h/t Ace)
Earnest young Christian writers (males more than females, perhaps) wring their hands over discovering materialism* and pride - even in themselves. In this they demonstrate that they totally get it, and understand, and aren't really judging at all, clearing the battle space for denunciation. Double bonus points - you get to demonstrate after how many mattresses you can still detect this pea. Prejudice is another big-ticket item. We all have prejudices that we don't want to admit. Even I have a cute anecdote that I shake my head ruefully at in feigned humility before condemning all you racist bastards. Being part of the system and all that.
I have been reluctant to spend so much space discussing The Bell Curve’s treatment of race and intelligence because it was such an ancillary topic in the book. Focusing on it in this letter has probably made it sound as if it was as important as President Sands’s open letter implied.
But I had to do it. For two decades, I have had to put up with misrepresentations of The Bell Curve. It is annoying. After so long, when so many of the book’s main arguments have been so dramatically vindicated by events, and when our presentations of the meaning and role of IQ have been so steadily reinforced by subsequent research in the social sciences, not to mention developments in neuroscience and genetics, President Sands’s casual accusation that our work has been “largely discredited” was especially exasperating. The president of a distinguished university should take more care.
Krauthammer: "The immediate conventional wisdom was to blame the disturbance on the
“toxic environment” created by Trump. Nonsense. This was an act of
deliberate sabotage created by a totalitarian left..."
Hydrangeas are popular in New England, but you have to know what you are doing in order to have happy plants. As summer-flowering shrubs go, they are fairly easy. Summer-through-Sept bloomers. We have lots of them, even a climbing one.
- South of the New Jersey latitude, Hydrangeas can handle filtered light. North of that, they need more hours of full sun to be vigorous and to produce impressive bloom.
- As their name implies, many varieties like water, mist, and fog. Good mulching prevents summer wilt if that's a problem.
- A new or transplanted Hydrangea wants plenty of water the first year. They like rich soil too. Not hard clay.
- As we have said before, for good bloom you have to know the difference between your Macrophylla and your Paniculata. It's not rocket science. I think my favorites are the Lacecaps, which are Macrophyllas.
- There are so many varietals, it is difficult to keep track of them all. GMO hybrids.
- The Oakleaf varieties seem to be the toughest, least fragile. Big white blooms, late summer.
- Many or even most varietals never want to be pruned and just want space to grow. It does not work to try to control a varietal that wants to be 15' high and 20' wide. Those big ones create their own cool, moist microclimate underneath.
Studies frequently arrive at erroneous results. These are sometimes reported breathlessly by the press. When the results are contradicted, there is rarely a mention. Furthermore, negative studies often have difficulty getting published because they are unexciting.
How many people still think fatty meat causes heart disease? Many people never got the correction memo.
Young O'Donnell rushed into a church, placed his rifle under a pew and entered the confessional. "Father," he said breathlessly, "I've just shot down two British lieutenants!" Hearing no response he went on: "I also knocked off a British captain!" When there was still no response from the priest, O'Donnell said, "Father, have ye fainted?" "Of course I haven't fainted," replied the confessor. "I'm waitin' for you to stop talkin' politics and commence confessin' your sins!"
What’s happening across the West is the people are awakening to the fact that their rulers have a very different vision for their societies than they disclose in public. In many cases, it feels like the rulers have plans for the future that don’t include their voters. Those plans may be great ideas, but in stable societies, they must be debated in public. Otherwise, society becomes unstable. That’s what’s happening in Germany and America. The system is becoming unstable.
We already know Hillary plans to continue Obama's war on coal. Coal isn't, or rather shouldn't be, a dying business. But it is, and it's dying because of politics. At a time when politicians keep saying they want to create jobs and improve the general welfare, why would they be attacking a healthy industry? Yes, natural gas has become cheaper and more plentiful - but only because of fracking, and the people seeking to shutter coal are also trying to end fracking. So this is not strictly an economic consideration, there are political currents swirling everywhere.
As I drive my son to college in Ohio, I drive through coal country. Billboards about this war have been up for the last 3 years. The job losses are mounting. Some regions of PA and WV are starting to hurt severely because of this war. It's a political war, and it's driven by a lobby group with significant access to the current administration. Coal has long been one industry the US could rely on to produce energy when other methods faced economic uncertainty due to politics or economics. That is changing, and yet 4 years ago, we were told there was no threat. But even as other nations open coal fired plants, the US shutters its plants because of political, not just economic, realities.
This just happened. I was on the subway to work, and a fellow steps into the car. In a mellifluous, but loud enough, voice he announces that he recently lost his job and has medical bills to pay. He has 2 children who are staying with relatives. He has been looking for a new job, but in the meantime has needed to rely on handouts from strangers. It's a nice enough story, not too dissimilar to those I've heard with some regularity on the train. Depending on the look or feel of the person, I will hand them a buck or two. This guy looks legit.
However, as he passes one fellow, he collects a business card. In handing the card, the charitable soul says "This is a soup kitchen nearby, you can bring your children here and get hot meals."
The fellow looks up and replies, "Free food? Here, in Manhattan?"
"Yes."
"So I can bring my kids?"
"Yes."
"So you're saying I have to travel up to the Bronx to get my daughter, then travel down to Brooklyn to get my son, then bring them both with me to Manhattan to get free food? Is that what you're telling me I have to do?"
"Sir, you don't have to do anything. It's free food. It's your choice, but it's a place to go."
"Right."
He didn't get angry, didn't cause a scene. But it occurred to me if he was really destitute, this wouldn't be an issue. I realize some panhandlers are professional. There is one who sits by my office with a dog and a sign that "the dog comes first, I come second." I'd say he's been there for 3 years, except it's not a he. It's a them. There are 3 or 4 different people who switch out on any given day.
I don't mind giving money to people in need. There's a limit, though. When the ability to get a free meal prompts the kind of response I heard on the train, alarm bells go off. If you're in need, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Yes, everything requires work, even 'free stuff'. It's not as if his tromping through train cars isn't work. If he has real money issues, I'm sure he's not covering his costs by panhandling all day. But he must be doing well enough to keep doing it, and he should realize that it requires significant effort.
If this sounds like someone who has what he needs criticizing someone who is without, I'm sorry. That's not my intent. I'm not judging these people, I'm simply saying work is work. A 'free' lunch of any kind requires effort. It's a shame we don't have a political class that understands this when they make promises to people with money that isn't theirs.
Re exercise, via 
It's time to plant bare-root fruit trees. A free ad for
Luke 19:28-40
Col. Sanders 
AVI:
Hydrangeas are popular in New England, but you have to know what you are doing in order to have happy plants. As summer-flowering shrubs go, they are fairly easy. Summer-through-Sept bloomers. We have lots of them, even a climbing one.
The Electric Vehicle Mileage Fraud Update: Singapore Figures It Out