Thursday, February 28. 2013
Another one of my skiing pals sent me some pics from a trip to Big Sky last week. His iPhone pics are so cool that I think I'll post a few of them over the next few days. I've skiied around the west a little bit - Whistler-Blackcomb, Telluride. My kids have done more of that than I have. Big Sky has always been on Mrs. BD's list. She is no expert but she lacks timidity. We Yankee skiers are idiots with serious, deep powder - we love it but we can't really handle it. We're used to skiing on an ice-like material that we call "snow."
My friend's comment: Big Couloir at Big Sky, sign in with ski patrol, required to ski w partner.
For scale, that's him skiing down the couloir. An ant. Ballsy skiing in dramatic settings, around 11,000 -12,000'. I'd take that couloir on, but not without significant trepidation. A little fear and challenge is fun, right? I can ski, but can I ski?
Apologies for our technical glitches lately - we seem to have a poltergeist in the works.
 Image via Mitchell's A Warning from Ronald Reagan
Hong Kong: Apartments So Small They Can Only Be Photographed From Above
Want Cheaper Food? End the Ethanol Mandate
A Declaration of Financial Independence - Emergency fund or investment? Do I need to diversify my retirement accounts? And how to save money on food?
"If schoolteachers were overwhelmingly male and girls were suffering as a result..."
Christians Are Now World’s Most Persecuted Religion
Subway founder: If I had tried to start Subway today, it would not exist
One Reason the Press is Always So Statist
If you don't like our politics, then leave
Obamacare supporter upset with her new rates
Global Warming to Endanger Breakfast by 2080!!!
BOB WOODWARD: Obama Is Showing 'A Kind Of Madness I Haven't Seen In A Long Time'
White House Threatens Reporter Woodward: You’ll “Regret Doing This” - See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/02/white-house-threatens-reporter-woodward-youll-regret-doing-this/#sthash.PiKRQqyd.dpuf
White House Threatens Reporter Woodward: You’ll “Regret Doing This” - See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/02/white-house-threatens-reporter-woodward-youll-regret-doing-this/#sthash.PiKRQqyd.dpuf
Wednesday, February 27. 2013
Some of these people seem clueless and inept, but for others there just isn't enough work to be done. From Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28: ‘I’m Inclined to Simply Disappear Into Silence’:
It has been many months since and after an internship and a deferred paying job I didn't see a cent for, I'm back living with my folks. I'd go elsewhere for work, but I honestly can't afford it. I'd take the terrible, boring jobs so many of my contemporaries accept without complaint, but I'm so depressed over my state in life I can't seem to find the energy to care enough to survive. I have been so very lucky and blessed to have parents that support me both financially (though I wish so hard I could finally be totally independent) and emotionally. But my dad (very reasonably) said he won't continue to help after I turn 26. I know it's supposed to give me initiative to get my life together, but even with this date looming I just can't find the energy to care about self-preservation.
It's tough out there if you don't know how to do anything with any meaningful value and need to support yourself without a partner. Obama's mess aside, it's never been easy to make a living and, with most under-50 women being in the workplace nowadays, there are twice as many people wanting work as there were in the last generation. Relative to the population, I mean. That worked OK in a booming economy, but not in the Obama Depression.
To be just slightly provocative, if all women went back to the kitchen, the garden, the home-schooling of the kids, and volunteer charity, (like Mrs. Obama), and if all Mexicans went back to Mexico, no American male would lack good work to do to support his family with dignity.
One word to the wise: Start at the bottom, as I did. Nobody owes you anything just for being your wonderful self. If you want money, you have to add value to an enterprise.
 Do the nanny-staters and busybodies want stores to sell food that people don't want to eat?
Here's an amusing response to that widely-linked NYT piece: Sweet savage food marketing at the New York Times
Moss' hystrionic NYT article complained about food that panders to the human taste appeal of salty and sweet foods. Well, guess what - the human sense of taste is limited to sweet, salty, and bitter (and sour). So why didn't Moss complain about the pickles with the burger too? Or is sour OK with him?
Unsurprisingly, the appeal of fatty food is not taste, but textural and olfactory. However, as I have preached here many times, fatty food is good stuff and is required for health, vigor, and mental functioning.
Just skip those carbs if you wish to stay slim.
I entirely agree with the comment:
Wakes and funerals already exist to serve the immediate needs for mourning and recognition of the loss. Participation in normalizing rituals is probably far more helpful than therapy in the immediate aftermath of a such a loss.
A charter snowball - Try stopping good schools. It begins:
A whopping one-third of the children enrolled in kindergarten in Harlem
these days attend charter schools — an under-appreciated yet critical
fact, and perhaps the hinge upon which the future of public-school
choice in New York City swings...
It is 60 very enjoyable and inspiring minutes. Podcast here. I have rarely linked to podcasts, so you have to trust me on this one. He is smart, quick, and funny.
My favorite quote: "The Constitution is my social contract."
Another good one: "No representation without taxation."
Vanderleun's favorite:
"If the Constitution doesn't count, you don't have any legitimate power. You're a thief, a brigand, an officious busybody, somebody who should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail for trying to exercise power you don't possess."
The parts about his career in music are fun too. They guy's energy, creativity, and productivity is remarkable to me. How does he find time to accomplish so much? He says "My life rocks."
Government unions own this lovely, tiny state, lock stock and barrel. They do not hesitate to use intimidation, either. A quote from the article:
Some 16 percent or more of the state’s working population is employed by a state or local government. Add in their retired former coworkers, as well as their immediate families and close friends. And around 20 percent of the overall population relies on government for direct handouts, with the attendant industry for processing those transactions.
Then we have the academics and wealthy liberals for whom government is more of a religion than a service provider, as a means both to supply meaning for existence and to perform charitable works. Conducting the Masses is the priestly class of political insiders, almost all Democrats.
A friend of mine just dumped his vacation seaside cottage there because of taxes. Will anybody be left to pay the taxes? The Mob (if they are still as big in Providence as they were a few years ago) doesn't pay taxes.
 Why Do So Many People Think They Need Gluten-Free Foods?
Sultan: Hollywood is Dead
7 Reasons Why Coffee Is Good For You
Bike helmet laws fail
Bike Helmet Laws Fail
Bike Helmet Laws Fail
The shale revolution is creating thousands of new millionaires from the billions being paid in royalties to private landowners
Lucky farmers and ranchers. It is like the Beverly Hillbillies
America's Red State Growth Corridors - Low-tax, energy-rich regions in the heartland charge ahead as economies on both coasts sing the blues.
To Fix Healthcare, Let 100 Solutions Bloom
Would they deport this family if they were from Mexico?
It's not easy to be a legal immigrant. They should have waded across the Rio Grande instead.
Trying to terrify the population with the sequester: TSA Doomsday, Detained immigrants released; officials cite sequester cuts
So why not let the German family go free?
Related: Apocalypse Fatigue
Tuesday, February 26. 2013
From Tom Sowell's Shepherds and Sheep:
What Cass Sunstein does not tell us is what sort of creatures, other than people, are going to override our mistaken decisions for us. That is the key flaw in the theory and agenda of the left.
Implicit in the wide range of efforts on the left to get government to take over more of our decisions for us is the assumption that there is some superior class of people who are either wiser or nobler than the rest of us.
Yes, we all make mistakes. But do governments not make bigger and more catastrophic mistakes?
Hey, Tom. I'd like to add the point that I am wiser and nobler than anybody in government.
Why you're feeling broke.
He blames his own generation, at least in part.
We all agree that human monogamy is not "natural" in any animal sense. It's a stretch. If marriage matters to you, and you've been married over a year or ten, this could a pretty useful talk, and takes the topic further and more intelligently than the supermarket magazines ever will.
Just one of the secrets seems to be experiencing one's spouse in different situations and seeing them being effective or impressive in different ways - socially, professionally, intellectually, adventurously, morally, humorously, physically, talent-gifted, etc. We can never know everything about another person and it is much easier to become familiar with a spouse's flaws than with their varied strengths, many of which may be hidden from us.
For one example, when on occasion I have barged into my husband when he is deep in prayer, I do see him with new eyes. For another, when I see him regaling people with wacky stories at a party.
The secrets to desire in a long-term relationship:
From Latino & Black Students Prisoners of Dem-Run L.A. Schools:
As with other big city school districts, the ham-fisted attempt to stifle competition should come as no surprise. The unions and their political lackeys in both the city government of LA and the state legislature are more than willing to protect the status quo for the simplest of reasons: as this devastating exposé of the California Teachers Association (CTA) reveals, that union’s approximately 325,000 members represent the most powerful special interest group in the state.
Yes, they do exist. It's the level above Platinum. A friend told me they saw somebody buy a necklace at Tiffany's with one before Valentine's Day. American Express calls it the Centurion Card. It seems to have no limit.
You can't apply for one. They offer it to you, and deliver it to you with a security guard. Sheesh.
 Image via Eratosthenes on Blame
Mediterranean Diet Cuts Heart Disease Risk, Study Finds
Is it the wine or the olive oil? My theory, it's the garlic! My approach is to only believe "studies show" when I like what they say.
Yahoo CEO bans telecommuting
Anthropologists Gone Wild:
Anthropology used to be a science just like any other. Today it is a stomping ground for dogmatic lesbians and socialists with no balls. How did it get all the way over there?
Don't Be Afraid to Stereotype Strangers
“The minimum wage for the self-employed is $0.00″
Why Unions Want a Higher Minimum Wage - Labor contracts are often tied to the law—and it reduces the competition for lower-paying jobs.
Chuckie Schumer Pushes Universal Gun Registration After Promising Background Checks Won’t Create Gun Registry
What Scares Sequester Opponents the Most? That Spending Reductions Won’t Hurt At All
Earth to New York Times: Please Show Us these “Deep Spending Cuts” You Keep Writing About
Try building a house in California
MSNBC 'All But a Bona Fide Organ of State Propaganda'
Chris Matthews Offers To Help Hillary’s 2016 Campaign: ‘We’ll Get You In There’
My Mom loved the Cape. At the funeral, my cousin Dave recalled how Mom would hand us a bucket and a clam rake at low tide, and send us out into the mud flats for Quahogs. Later, a clam-packed New England Clam Chowda for supper.
Monday, February 25. 2013
As the man says, "their definitions expel me and, in fact, most mental health professionals."
I like to claim that the DSM is an Obsessional Disorder.
It's not Tuna.
We go in and out of Sushi phases in the BD family (I like to call it "bait"), but for me, sushi is just an excuse to eat wasabi, ginger, and soy sauce, so I would never really know what the fish is. But the oily anal leakage? Happily, I have been spared that.
We learned about an interesting center for evaluation and training for kids with autism, mental retardation, and developmental disorders: The May Institute.
"Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety and understanding is above their vanity and presumption — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
Edmund Burke
For all of the years that I have kept records, flocks of northbound blackbirds (generally Grackles and Redwings at first) have arrived here between Feb. 14 and Feb 16.
This year, they appeared yesterday - Feb 24. That's a record in my book.
I do not understand why more people are not worried about global cooling.
Also, re birds, seen today: a happy little Golden-Crowned Kinglet.
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