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.
The day’s exercise could cost up to $333 million in lost business, according to
BusinessWeek, which also notes that the Dunkin Donuts stayed open
per request from law enforcement.
PC has turned Europe into the Thought Police we thought they had turned their backs on. Everybody knows that regular Europeans hate the Muslim invasion imposed upon them by their moral and intellectual superiors.
In many ways this is a replay of the smug anti-American asininity of the Left during the Cold War. The idea that the Soviet Union was a threat was often treated as a paranoid delusion, while the “real” threat from the domestic American right was a grave danger. Hitler was dead. Germany and Japan were U.S. allies. But Communism, which was killing and enslaving hundreds of millions before our eyes, just wasn’t something to get worked up about — at least not compared with the super-scary John Birch Society.
It’s important to realize that this remains a venerable American cottage industry.
So, how 'bout a movie review? First, 'The Avengers'. Language warning is in effect for both of these clips.
Like a lot of people, I draw a fairly distinct line between Science Fiction and Science Fantasy when it comes to books and movies. As long as it's somewhat scientifically possible, it's good in my book. Or movie, as the case may be. Throw in a magical cube that can harness the power of the universe (this movie, the two 'Transformer' movies, etc, etc) and you've pretty much lost me. Put another way, some guys are Batman guys, other guys are Superman or Green Lantern guys.
That's just how it is.
As a Batman guy, I've been fairly luke-cool to the rash of superhero movies that have hit the big screen in recent years (read: Hollywood is so out of fresh ideas that it's now making movies of comic books), with the one big exception being 'Thor', which earned its own review.
Each of the superheroes in 'The Avengers' has already had a movie or two, and this is the gang getting together to fight the deadliest foe of all. You know, the guy with the magical universe-harnessing cube.
Meh. See above. It was okay, but when you've got vicious armed aliens pouring through an interdimensional hole in the sky, I think it loses a bit of its charm.
Discount all that, however, and it's a pretty good flick. I wouldn't put it on my Recommended List (see above), but it certainly gets a nod for some excellent special effects and some very witty banter at times, especially when the irrepressible Robert Downey Jr. is around.
The reason I'm doing a review on it is because of two scenes that I thought were really well done and I thought I'd share them with you. Both involve the very pressable Scarlett Johansson.
In the first one, they're speaking a bunch of Russian that's accompanied by on-screen subtitles in the movie. They're talking about a couple of key players and their status in the Russian mob. The head bad guy is so sure of himself that's he blabbing away.
Then the phone rings, spoiling everything.
In the second scene, the Avengers know Loki is going to use one of them as part of his evil plan, but the trick is to find out which one.
Obviously, the answer is to send in the master interrogator.
Very pressable.
Again, while being a bit too fantasy-y for my tastes, it has some great bits and the special effects are outstanding. Certainly worth the rental.
We'll continue with 'The Big Bang' below the fold.
Live manhunt, here. It's sort-of addictive, especially with the local accents: "They're bringin' sammiches to the troopahs." "We have a small cah, a Honder here heading up Bahston Boulevahd." Mostly Irish, some Italian, all Bahston.
The professionalism is impressive, but not surprising. They shut down the entire city, and Watertown, to find this bad guy, but have obviously not found him yet. Any accomplices, I am sure, are being sought off radio.
Heard a bit of NPR this morning discussing the terror brothers. A number of the Boston professors and MIT students they interviewed opined along the lines of "this is what can happen when we aren't welcoming enough to immigrants." They all refused to opine on the Muslim angle (scared to?). An MIT Prof of Poli Sci said "One message is that each of us as individuals should try to do all we can to help immigrants feel more at home."
For the latest updates on Boston, turn on your radio for the events of last night. It's one heck of a story this morning. Boston police have provisionally identified the two men as suspects in a string of violent incidents outside of Boston as Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi, both here on student visas. (that appears to be wrong info)
Government used to spend primarily on the production of things — roads, dams, bridges, military forces. There can be only so many of such goods. Now, DeMuth says, government spends primarily for consumption:
“The possibilities for increasing the kind, level, quality and availability of benefits are practically unlimited. This is the ultimate source of today’s debt predicament. More borrowing for more consumption has no natural stopping point short of imploding on itself.”
Funding the welfare state by vast borrowing and regulatory taxation hides the costs from the public. Hence its political potency. Until the implosion.
Gun and Bible-clinging redneck New Yorker that I am, even I did not really object to the background check law in itself. Seemed harmless enough, but also seemed pointless to me because the bad guys never get background checks. Even Sen. Feinstein acknowledged it would do nothing for gun violence.
No you will not "win", and definitely not as long as politicians and celebs and rich folks get their own personal protection from armed guards. Peons like me do not have those perqs or the money to hire them.
Barack Obama is a lame-duck president. Nobody listens to what he says anymore, nobody is interested in winning his approval and nobody much cares if he thinks they have “let the country down”. This is typical for a second-term president who has lost all their leverage because they’re no longer running for office and everybody is patiently waiting for the day when he quits the White House. But Obama's difficult personality has doubled the size of the challenge. Gloating in victory, adolescent in defeat – the Prez doesn’t make it easy to work with him. Why should conservative senators give him a legislative victory after he has spent four years painting them as knuckle-dragging rednecks who hate women and the poor?
Whatever your position on gun control, yesterday’s events are a damning indictment of Obama’s presidency – a flash of style, lots of soaring rhetoric and, when the votes are actually counted, little show for any of it. America has four more years of this lame-duck president telling them that it has let him down. If only he could tear up the Constitution and rule by diktat he might save himself a little disappointment. Alas, American democracy is a stickler for rules.Barack Obama can't pass gun control despite 90 per cent support. Truly, he is a lame-duck president.
Photo is, once again, our dear friend Marianne's home protection Taurus Judge. No elderly woman with a disabled husband should be without one in her knitting basket, whether in town or country.
Not many people read poems these days, unless they happen to also be song lyrics. Without the lyre, poetry must make its own music somehow. Furthermore, poetry is written to be heard, not read. Just as with Shakespeare's plays, the words on paper are dead and only voice can bring them to life.
(The reading of Milton's classic On Time on Dr. Merc's sim-gaming post here this morning is a perfect example.)
Here at Maggie's, we have always posted a Saturday Verse, with the general advice to read them out loud. One poem per week, like one masterpiece of art, is about all most people can or are willing to process. We might be tempted to read more poetry if they were Juvenal writing poems from the standpoint of a Roman switch-hitting prostitute servicing both his master and his master's wife to good and profitable effect. The wife first, one might hope.
A 'simulation', or sim, is a computer game that mimics every aspect of real life. Silent Hunter 4 places you inside a U.S. attack submarine smack-dab in the middle of World War II. Everything about the sub (and its enemies) is true to reality; the time it takes to dive, to surface, to get up to speed, to stop, the turning radius, torpedo speeds, reloading time; everything.
Luckily, there's a speed-up option so you don't actually have to sit there staring at the computer screen for eight days while you cross the Pacific Ocean. You'll see the speed-up used in a few places in the following video. It's to note that this video is mostly comprised of scenes taken directly from the game, most using the 'external camera' view. Click on the little symbol on the player's tool bar and watch it in full-screen mode.
But first, John Milton's 'On Time'.
Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more then what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd, And, last of all, thy greedy self consum'd, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss, With an individual kiss.
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood, When everything that is sincerely good And perfectly divine, With Truth, and Peace, and Love Shall ever shine About the supreme throne.
Of Him, t'whose happy-making sight alone When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, Then all this earthy grossness quit, Attired with stars, we shall forever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, And thee, O Time.
And now the intro.
Admittedly, that's not your average game intro.
But, then, it's not actually a 'game', is it? It's a sim.
Always fun to see something there, but I never understood why anybody thought it was a good idea to clump so much of the highbrow performance space in one place. Why not spread it around town as it was before?
Well, that's just the way planners think. They want to organize us whether we want to be organized or not.
Before you travel with a gun, you must be sure: 1. You have all the proper licenses to possess the gun in the state in which you reside; 2. You have all the proper licenses to possess the gun in the state of your final destination. Plan ahead. Make sure you know the law and comply with it. Not only do you need to know the laws on possessing guns, but you also need to know how guns have to be transported or stored. Some states require certain guns be carried unloaded and cased. Some require trigger locks.
A number of years ago, the NRA was successful in getting federal legislation that gives some protection to interstate travelers. The law is a "defense" to state prosecution. That means you have to bring the federal law to the attention of state officials. It will not prevent you from being arrested. When you go to court, you have the burden of proving you are entitled to the federal law exemption.
The federal law states that if it is lawful for you to have a gun where your trip begins and where it ends, you may transport the gun interstate so long as it is unloaded and locked in the trunk of your car. If you do not have a trunk in your car, the gun must be inaccessible to the driver and/or passengers in the car. This is not a blanket waiver for people who claim they are traveling interstate. It is very specific.
Unless you are legal in both states, proving to a judge what the is in two different states may be more difficult than you think. You also have the problem of proving where your trip began and where you intended to end the journey. Just because you say that you started in Maine and were going to Florida does not mean anyone has to believe you. The burden of proof is on you, not on the police. Some people play fast and loose with this provision. They are taking a big risk. If you get into trouble, your lawyer will argue the fine line of the law. She may be successful. It will be expensive. It will be stressful. It is much better to stay well behind the fine line of the law.
No you don't, and you cannot without falling victim to the Pathetic Fallacy. We cannot know the world they live in. They are aliens.
We can enjoy dogs, but cannot truly love them because we cannot know them:Man and Beast.
One quote:
For 2,500 years it has been known to the students of nature that the more one learns about animals, the more wonderful they become. The observation stands confirmed by the instruments of both science and art, but the animals are most instructively perceived when they are seen, as they were by Beston from the beach on Cape Cod, as other nations complete in themselves, “gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”
Marriage rights, abortion rights, adoption rights, medical rights, housing rights, gun rights, speech rights, etc., etc.
I am realizing that I object to the language of "rights" as if they were things doled out by the state, or as if our rights were at the pleasure of the state. That, I think, is an adolescent view of government as parent. The reality and the history is the opposite. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were never meant to limit the freedom of the people, or free enterprise.
I prefer the entirely different vantage point and language, the language of freedom and the limited rights and powers of government. Government powers stingily doled out to the state by free, intelligent, self-sufficient citizens. Land of the free and home of the brave, and all that. There is nothing at all intelligent about people in government, especially in a democratic republic. After all, you could not even run a corner candy shop with a democratic republic, much less with the doofus losers and sociopaths who mostly want to run for office.
Is it possible to be a Conservative Libertarian? I try, but I run into logical inconsistencies and conflicts. Take gay marriage as an example. The Conservative in me believes that Judeo-Christian ideals and ordinary family units are the foundation of society and of our civilization. Precious things. My Libertarian impulses want government entirely out of marriage except insofar as people want to make it a legal contract or a sacramental vow.
If you know what that means, you've just seriously dated yourself.
Marijuana.
Sure, it'll cure your lumbago and get rid of athlete's foot and do wonders for gout, but can it do anything useful? That's really the question of the day.
Mounting evidence shows ‘cannabinoids’ in marijuana slow cancer growth, inhibit formation of new blood cells that feed a tumor, and help manage pain, fatigue, nausea, and other side effects.
The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.
And, with two states legalizing it and more sure to follow, the whole question of marijuana etiquette arises.
Here in D.C., it is far from a partisan debate, something that both Republicans and Democrats struggle with. "It’s a cross-party issue," said a 27-year-old aide to a GOP congressman who, like many interviewed for this story, preferred not to give her name, further highlighting people’s discomfort with this subject. She says she smokes often at home, but does so without telling her ultraconservative, 50-something boss, her co-workers, or even many of her friends. "It’s really hard to know how people stand on it."
Unless, of course, you're Miss Iowa:
I do not think it should be used for anything but recreational use and health care.
(audience applauds, nary a boo to be heard)
As these things go, and given that the Miss America pageant is a uniquely American event, that's quite the little moment in television history.
They are termed "whores." Ancient profession.More kindly, "mistresses."Free market Capitalism at work.Everything has a market price including bodies whether dead or alive.
I have 6.25% Redskin blood. Can I get anything free because of my historical oppression?I have not had my Neanderthal level checked yet, but it's probably pretty high too.Endangered species to boot, conservative Neanderthals who want to bring back cave dwelling in the Ice Age.
...with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s. Politicians in Europe thought they were living in a post-historical period in which mistakes didn’t really matter all that much. They were horribly wrong, and the wreck of the euro is blighting lives and embittering spirits on a truly staggering scale.
Every four years I let my Dermatologist buddy scope out my skin with his special lights and magic glasses. He doesn't miss a single square centimeter of it, scalp to anus to the bottoms of my graceful feet. I'd like to avoid death by melanoma, if possible. Not sure what I want to die from, but I just want it to not be right now.
$175, cash for 1/2 hr. consult (he won't do insurance), including the good conversation and comraderie, plus a pile of samples for my spot of eczema and a little nitrogen zapping of some ancient sun damage to my face.
He knows that I have spent all of the time I could in my life outdoors, usually without hat and never with disgusting sunblock (except maybe on the nose when the Mrs. makes me). When I was at prep school, we termed sunshine "catching bennies," ie the beneficial rays of the sun. Studying Latin or dozing on the lawns.
I have happily spent all the time I can on boats, soccer fields, lacrosse fields, golf courses, tennis courts, tractors, trout streams, skiing, beaches, gardens, and hunting fields since I was a kid.
As he scrutinized my beautiful, well-fed, pasty-white-skinned body, he told me that one problem he has is people with sun phobia. He said people require an hour or two daily of exposure to unblocked sunshine (not sunburn), and that sun phobia (especially with kids covered with hats and sunblock) is a more important health hazard than benign sun-related skin cancers (which are pretty much all easily-curable when found in a timely way).
Our skin produces instantly-bioavailable and natural Vit D, necessary for normal bone growth, vitality, and disease-avoidance (cancer, heart disease, depression, osteoporosis, etc.). In the US, they add Vit D to milk (but only enough to prevent rickets in little kids) and it's far from enough to substitute for wholesome playing in the sunshine.
Sunburn bad (possibly but not definitely associated with melanoma, but definitely associated with wrinkles), but wholesome sunshine (even through clouds) is good for us. Not to mention the reality that a little tan makes us crackers look more attractive.
My dermatologist claims that we evolved to live in the nude, outdoors. Sheesh. I'd try it, but I would get arrested because I do not live in San Francisco - and I would have to fight off the women.
This is taken from the 'Swastika Buildings' tour on my Google Earth Project, a collection of high-quality video tours of some of the most interesting spots on earth — as seen from above. This will include Google Earth links to the sites from the tour, so you'll need it installed to view them. A GoogleMaps link is supplied if not.
But the ultimate "grandmothered out" is the Swastika. In fact, it’s been so successfully erased from Western culture that most people today would be shocked at how widespread its use was just 100 years ago. The symbol is known down through history from all corners of the world…the earliest found in paintings and carvings of the Neolithic Period around 1000 BC. It is still used today as a prominent symbol in both the Hindu and Buddhist religions. In fact, the word itself is from svastika, meaning "lucky charm" in Sanskrit.
And that was its meaning when it became popular in the US and Britain around 1900. A typical "Good Luck" postcard might feature a 4-leaf clover, a rabbit’s foot, a horse shoe, and a swastika.
Seen below, a women’s hockey team, a young Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in squaw garb, a Coca Cola watch fob, and the insignia patch of the 45th Infantry Division of the US Army. It was founded in the 1920s as part of the Oklahoma National Guard and the symbol represented the region’s American Indian heritage. It was changed to a Thunderbird in 1939.
I'd note the 'still in use today' line, which at least explains the current buildings in Asia. As for the others, they probably figured no one would ever notice, they didn't wish to bow to convention, or they simply couldn't afford to raze and rebuild the whole goddamn building just because the local Jewish Aviators Club got its knickers in a knot.
Germany:
A Friday free ad for Bob: 
Heard a bit of NPR this morning discussing the terror brothers. A number of the Boston professors and MIT students they interviewed opined along the lines of "this is what can happen when we aren't welcoming enough to immigrants." They all refused to opine on the Muslim angle (scared to?). An MIT Prof of Poli Sci said "One message is that each of us as individuals should try to do all we can to help immigrants feel more at home."
Gun and Bible-clinging redneck New Yorker that I am, even I did not really object to the background check law in itself. Seemed harmless enough, but also seemed pointless to me because the bad guys never get background checks. Even Sen. Feinstein acknowledged it would do nothing for gun violence.
A 'simulation', or sim, is a computer game that mimics every aspect of real life. Silent Hunter 4 places you inside a U.S. attack submarine smack-dab in the middle of World War II. Everything about the sub (and its enemies) is true to reality; the time it takes to dive, to surface, to get up to speed, to stop, the turning radius, torpedo speeds, reloading time; everything.
Hurray for Earth Day: 
Every four years I let my Dermatologist buddy scope out my skin with his special lights and magic glasses. He doesn't miss a single square centimeter of it, scalp to anus to the bottoms of my graceful feet. I'd like to avoid death by melanoma, if possible. Not sure what I want to die from, but I just want it to not be right now.