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 picture of this disadvantage is dramatic. Based on 2007 - 2010 data from the 76 institutional members of the six largest athletic conferences, black men were 2.8% of full-time undergraduate students but 57.1% of football teams and 64.3% of basketball teams. 50.2% of black male athletes graduated within six years, compared to 66.9% of student-athletes overall, 72.8% of undergraduate students, and 55.5% of black undergraduate men overall.
We should just do an open thread on the topic of the big-time college sports industry.
My guess is that you know a very special someone who uses a computer. Someone who's using it right now, in fact, and you'd like to give that special someone a really nice computer gift for Christmas. And, honestly, who knows that special someone's needs and tastes better than you, right? That's why you're the perfect person to make this decision.
Following are twelve gift ideas that I think would spruce up anyone's rig.
1. The Disc Carousel
Find the disc you want in the computer database program, click 'Eject', the carousel spins around and out it slides. Holds 150 discs. Price usually lists for $129, sometimes they go on sale. Home site is here, much more info here.
"Hey, Doc, this 'shopping for someone special' stuff is great! My own special someone is going to be so appreciative!"
Buddy sent this comment regarding the vid below on the topic of "Why Brubeck's guys never move their feet":
Watch the insane stop at 3:00 and the double stick whirl at 3:38 --this is 1945, and the war was peaking, spilling into popular culture through the second channel --the meta story, not on screen, not under director or even actor control. You see that in Krupa's despairing eyes (as he apes the opposite attitude) in the close up at 3:20 to 3:25 --ten years later the avante garde model will have passed on to Paul Desmond, world war in a wood wind, played standing straight up and stock still (note the Krupa crouch attacking the vertical plane) without moving a muscle, the kinetic continental killing now scaled down to chromatic vs diatonic, a new mankind saying, "reed my lips, no new praxis!"
A friend sent his pic of "Hurricane" - really post-tropical storm Sandy, over a Bridgeport power plant. I think that's the Port Jeff ferry in the harbor.
We occasionally feel the need to share the Sierra Trading Post with our readers. It's especially relevant in hunting season, winter, skiing season, and at Christmastime.
They have all sorts of good stuff. For example, it's the only place the men in this family buy shoes and boots including white-collar work shoes, sneakers, and hiking boots and shoes. For a sampling (their stuff changes constantly as they sell out) here's their hunting boots and their work boots.
At their prices, can you have too many pairs? Best to let shoes and boots dry out before using two days in a row, and, if you do, good ones last a lifetime. They will be sitting, waiting in your closet when you are dead and will end up in the dumpster but still willing to walk a mile for a Camel.
From The Crisis of American Self-Government - Harvey Mansfield, Harvard's 'pet dissenter,' on the 2012 election, the real cost of entitlements, and why he sees reason for hope:
'We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency."
and
(The) project began at the turn of the previous century by "an alliance of experts and victims," Mr. Mansfield says. "Social scientists and political scientists were very much involved in the foundation of the progressive movement. What those experts did was find ways to improve the well-being of the poor, the incompetent, all those who have the right to vote but can't quite govern their own lives. And still to this day we see in the Democratic Party the alliance between Ph.D.s and victims."
and
Mr. Mansfield is optimistic. "The material for recovery is there," he says. "Ambition, for one thing. I teach at a university where all the students are ambitious. They all want to do something with their lives." That is in contrast to students he has met in Europe, where "it was depressing to see young people with small ambitions, very cultivated and intelligent people so stunted." He adds with a smile: "Our other main resource is the Constitution."
Is it possible that Harvard University, whose entire existence is dependent on capitalist benefactors, has only one non-Marxist on its faculty? Or is there a psychological issue about feeling dependent on the production of others which drives faculties to Leftism as a way to maintain a bit of pride? After all, it must be a little humbling to have to feel that one's career is built on the charity of others, however interesting or useful that career may be; "on the kindness of strangers" as it used to be said by, or of, high-class hookers like Blanche DuBois?
I admit, even knowing what's coming, I find it a bit unsettling.
The other day I'm re-reading an old article on my site and notice a link to the computer DVD player, PowerDVD. I click on it just out of editorial habit and the site had changed something so the link is broken.
I go to the PowerDVD site, grab the address, update the post, and figured that'd be the last I'd hear of ol' PowerDVD for a while.
I cruise over to Hot Air and click on a link leading to the ABC News site. I glance at the banner after the page loads.
I read the article and go back to Hot Air. I scroll down the page and glance in the sidebar.
This is taking place literally minutes after my visiting the PowerDVD site, so, yeah, it's a bit unsettling.
And consider the irony of a site like Hot Air railing against governmental intrusion into our Internet lives, only to turn around and give everyone a marvelous example of real-time Web tracking. I guess all that 'invasion of privacy' stuff is okay as long as it makes you money with effective sidebar ads.
This is all being done by means of 'cookies', which are small text files that web sites place on your computer which other web sites can then read.
The problem is that cookies can provide a very valuable service when it comes to remembering who you are on certain sites. For example, if you check the 'Remember info' box when leaving a comment here, it places a cookie on your computer so you won't have to enter your personal info next time.
So if you delete them all as part of some regular maintenance regimen, much less outright turn them off, you have to do the name/password routine every single time you go to certain sites, a major pain.
A happy compromise is reached by using CCleaner. It'll clean out your cookies but retain the valuable ones. Details are below the fold.
Pleasant place. You can do Cabo rustic or grand luxe. I sorta prefer the latter. Some folks prefer Puerto Vallarta, but some feel PV has gotten too commercial, too popular. Either, I think, are preferable to the Yucatan tackiness and drunk students.
Cabo has the good fishing.
Took a carload of Mexican fellows to Dunkin Donuts today, mid-day. They were felling some ornery post-storm trees for me which were more than I could handle alone, and turning it all into firewood for me for next fall. White Pine and Maple. Wonderful fellows. All from around Mexico City, but they all love PV as a place to visit. They love DD too. Carlos has lived here 25 years. They are all legal, and work like fiends. Ambitious. He owns his own tree bucket-truck, but he also does masonry and driveways. The American Way. His wife does house-cleaning and their kids are in college.
Americans like to work hard, long hours. We are not like the lazy Europeans. In America, people who do not work hard feel a little ashamed of themselves. We proudly retain ye olde work ethic and energy here. Most of us, anyway, hate to feel unproductive.
We should forget about the lower-level government employees. They are mostly union workers working real, useful jobs on fairly short hours plus overtime which most ordinary people do not receive. They are just working for their generous pensions and benefits, far beyond what private employees earn. Don't worry about them too much because they are just people seeking safety and money in a challenging and highly competitive world in which opportunity still abounds for those who want to find it. I still bill about 60 hours/week. But I am essentially self-employed despite being a member of a farm firm. People who work in business work as long, or longer, than I do. People on Wall St. work 7 days/wk, as do people who own corner news shops. Most people do not choose that and do not want to work that long and hard, or do not have the choice to do so. And there is no way to calculate the time of all the folks who travel for business 2-3 days/week, which many of my pals do.
With a little luck, we all work as long or as hard as we choose to do.
Our Editor here reports to me that he happily works around 60 hrs/week including Saturday mornings, weekend duties, and paperwork. He is an eager beaver, and happy to do his job whenever he can. That choice is American.
If you want to tax us too much for our efforts, we'll cut back on vacations, cut back on work, and go fishin' and huntin'. I will not work a single day for a net of 50% of my billings regardless of how interesting or challenging the job may be. I hate idleness, but I require compensation for my talents.
No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between these two words. No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between these two words.
In a recently held linguistic competition held in London, England, and attended by the best in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese man from Bachelor's Adventure, was the clear winner with a standing ovation which lasted over 5 minutes.
The final question was: How do you explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand.
Some people say there is no difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. Here is his answer: When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE. When you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED. And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!
He won a trip to travel the world in style and a case of 25 year old Eldorado Rum.
I think the Feds should get entirely out of the Big Education industry. They screw up everything they try to do because government is a self-serving idiot and has become, in fact, a (non-profit) but highly-profitable mega-industry unto itself. Just consider how many Americans make a living off of government.
It's the time of year when people tend to make their travel plans for the next 12 months. If you are very nice and never naughty, Santa might put a trip in your stocking.
I vowed to finally get the Maggie's HQ basement renovated after our busted water pipe mess 2 years ago before taking another cool trip. A serious mess. We'll see. Plus we need to build a new tractor bridge at the Farm (new concrete footings, I-beams, etc). Plus it's time for a serious generator. But how's the economy doing out there in America? Oh, not so good, eh? Hmmm. And what's this about these new Obamacare taxes? Damn. I don't even want Obamacare. It is economically retarded. And kid's tuition went up again this year? Why? Income tax increases for all? Why, when I need that money to fix the farm bridge and my basement and to buy a generator from an American generator factory? Not to mention my freakin' dentist.
I have so many needs by which to redistribute my money usefully, but the gummint doesn't want me to redistribute my way. My way is for utility and value, and their way is for vote-buying. They have better ideas for my money, like Obamaphones and Solyndra and Government Motors - so much better ideas than my rebuilding my farm bridge by paying guys to do it so the machines and creatures can get to the upper field.
On the top of my to-go wish list right now is more time in Sicily (I'd maybe like to do some of it with bikes or horses); a grouse shoot at a castle in Scotland with Mr. and Mrs. Gwynnie; a villa or tenudo in Umbria for 10 days with pool and a cook and room for entire family and friends - and rental cars for all as if I were a big shot (not really very expensive to do); more time in Turkey along the Asia Minor coast, maybe by sailboat. Also, Israel but only for the ordinary Christian pilgrimage to the tourist traps. That can wait because I do not believe in sacred, holy places anyway and God is only in the heart. I do need to get back to Montana again soon, a place with horses and Grizzly Bears and maybe a sacred, holy trout stream. Also, those riverboat barge trips down the Rhone with the great French chefs and the wines. Would love to take the kids. I will hold off on Egypt for the moment - missed my chance for the Israel-Egypt combo last year. Dang Moslim lunatics interfere with travel plans, which does them no good at all but supposedly Allah likes it. Well, tourist Egypt had just become a tourist trap anyway so best to keep Allah happy and to stay away from Egypt now.
Such a big world, and so little time. A reader thought this joint sounded good (photo): Riad Knisa in Marrakesh. A fun trip might be to combine Barcelona, Mallorca, Morocco. Maybe Ibiza and do the hippy thing. Tunisia is interesting too, been there. Could do it all these wonderful places via high-speed ferry with a little sensible planning and a straw hat.
For me, a vacation means Go-Go-Hi-Ho, not sit - except in restaurants. I cannot sit on a beach for more than ten minutes. My theory is that you can relax, and catch up on TV, in the grave. I wonder whether our readers are making interesting plans for next year (other than routine travel like Florida or Cabo or Cape Cod, visiting colleges, romantic weekend getaways, hunting trips, family visits, summer houses, or ski trips and other boring things like that).
Carpe diem. My parents and in-laws always say that you have to do it now, before your hips and knees begin to ache.
What's on the top of your wish list for cool new adventures? Even if you cannot quite do it right now because of our horrible economy?
Key quote from the latter post: "Government has become the one-stop shop to replace all personal inadequacies." And from poor judgement and poor decision-making, I would add, but I guess they come under the category of personal shortcomings.
Wilson is up there on my list of bad guys, along with FDR. About Teddy and Lincoln I have mixed feelings. The only cool thing JFK did was to get Marilyn Monroe in the sack.
President Obama’s proposal to Republicans to avoid going over the so-called fiscal cliff — huge tax increases, huge spending increases, and no serious entitlement reform — is risible.
The Lord never promised us a rose garden. From Dr. Bob's post on Healing Faith:
We live in a time when our expectations of health, of prosperity, of a pain-free life are increasingly met in the physical realm, while we progressively become sickly, impoverished, and empty in the realm of the spirit. Despite our longer lives, we live in dread of death; despite our greater health, we obsess about our ills; despite our comfortable lives, we ache from an aimlessness and purposelessness which eats at our souls and deadens our spirits. Though we have at our command the means to kill our pain–to a degree never before seen in the history of the world–yet we have bargained away our peace in pursuit of our pleasure. The problem of pain has never been an easy one; in our day, it has not been solved, but rather worsened, by our delusions of perpetual comfort and expectations of a trouble-free life.
Until we come to terms with suffering, we will not have comfort; until we embrace our pain, peace will never be ours.
Especially at the expense of their clients, New York lawyers work through the nights protecting against all probable, possible and improbable contingencies. They are also covering their little fannies. However, our lawyer (the one with a sense of humor) was reviewing a corporate note and security agreement from the 1990s and found the following ultimate (in more ways than one) example. It cannot have been an amicable negotiation!
People in positions of responsibility are supposed to be able to identify cranks and quacks.
However, fake science and hyped science have been around forever. If you look hard enough, you can find an expert who will say anything. Sadly, despite all evidence, the fearmongering about vaccines and autism just won't die.
Most of the most prominent in the West who claim to want peace in the Middle East are, instead, prime facilitators of hate.
By disdaining those Muslims who are closer to Western values, instead pandering to Islamist extremists, or one-sidedly denouncing the defensive measures of the only Western oriented nation in the Middle East, Israel, the claimants of upholding peace have consistently encouraged those who believe and act out of hate.
There are a host of reasons, actually excuses, proffered by those who cloak themselves in plastic doves. At root they shield self-hate for enjoying civilization’s comforts while others purportedly suffer. Their solutions all come down to the same end, take away what has been deservedly earned and give it to those who haven’t earned it. One may argue that many of those supporting this redistribution would also be affected, but in reality they usually shield themselves or are just too blind to realize that until the taker is at their door and their generosity has been squandered or stolen.
I haven’t the slightest care if the above offends anyone who is too effete to speak the truth or so befuddled as to not recognize it or so deceitful as to deny it or so quibbling as to host relative trivia against overriding facts.
There may never be peace in the Middle East so long as, as usual, Muslims hate each other and their rulers are primarily concerned with filling their foreign bank accounts. There certainly will not be peace in the Middle East as long as they use Israel as a distraction from their own fetid culture and politics. To now, the only periods of peace have been when Israel soundly thrashed its attacking enemies, and that has only been temporary as the despoiling hatred of the Arabs reblooms and is watered and nourished by the Western morons who confuse payoffs for hate with peace.
Sophistry that masks surrender with endless compromises that are unrequited by the haters is unacceptable.
Gotta hate it when the bow digs down into green water. The ocean is not your friend, always wants to kill you, but you want to accomplish something, or have some fun, and survive. That's the game.
The "End of the World Clearance Event" is detailed on MyNextGM.ca. The offers on hand aren't too different from those you'll find at other dealerships this December, but Humberview dealers offer one additional, easy-to-keep promise: "If the world ends, you don't pay!"
So we've got that going for us.
While I don't think you'll particularly learn anything new here, it's still interesting watching an official JPL guy cover the bases.
And if he's wrong?
Just do as we learned to do back in the 60's when Russia was about ready to launch 25,000 nukes at us.
Just crawl under your school desk. You'll be fine.
Homeland Security was one of Bush's dumb moves. Totally unnessary expansion of non-functional federal bureaucracies. Whenever government screws something up, they find a way to hire 10,000 more people to complicate it even worse. That's called "doing something."
Gov. Lincoln Chafee: 
We occasionally feel the need to share the 
Today is 
It's the time of year when people tend to make their travel plans for the next 12 months. If you are very nice and never naughty, Santa might put a trip in your stocking. 
Photo: Buddy took that snap of your Editor on a bird hunting trip in Texas a few years ago