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.
We always say that "freedom is messy" and that "Freedom is not for sissies." From Sultan's A Perfect Prison:
Bloomberg is a living model of the glass half-full theory of human behavior. This is after all a man who banned large sodas, and if you can't trust people to have large sodas, then you can't trust them to have cold medicines, let alone guns. Where does it end? It ends the same place - it ends in a prison. Nowhere. If you believe that people are basically bad, then every problem you identify is met with another control measure until you control absolutely everything.
(Hizzoner, of course, has been surrounded by armed men since he got rich on Wall St, long before becoming Mayor. Must be nice to afford armed bodyguards and armed drivers of your Lincoln Town Car while you sip single malt Scotch in the back with your latest squeeze while denouncing legal gun owners.)
The eternal problem with widespread freedom from state control is that some small minority of people can't or won't handle freedom, personal independence, self-control. For whatever reason, they do not buy into our social contract or are unable to fulfill it. Perhaps they never even heard of it, never were informed that a person makes a deal to be a citizen here and that it is a historically-unique privilege, responsibility, and challenge.How come nobody told them that life in America is supposed to be difficult and risky, but filled with opportunity? It's not about safety and comfort and was never meant to be based on anything but virtue and freedom. Our streets are not paved with gold, but with blood, sweat, and tears.
These failures of a minority of bad apples to get with the program invite the state to step in in an effort to provide controls and supports externally. Thus we all lose a bit of freedom each time some jerk, idiot, sociopath, addict, or lunatic abrogates his American dignity and fails at running his own life in the manner of an honest, free, law-abiding and upstanding citizen. It's a shame - and wrong - that the least moral and worse-behaving of our population should have the power to deprive freedoms from the vast majority of decent citizens who aim to construct honorable, dignified, and independent lives by following their consciences or God's will as best they can.
Go ahead and ask me why I might want a 30-clip magazine, or a Big Gulp Coke. Well, I don't really want those things, but I don't want them forbidden me. I have a handgun carry permit, but I don't walk around armed all the time. Rarely, in fact. I might as well ask why you need a car that goes 110 mph, when car deaths in the US are far higher than gun deaths (32,000, vs 600 deaths by rifle - half of them suicides and others accidents).
(For other stats: Swimming pool drownings in the US: Approx. 3000 per year, mostly young kids. Backyard pools frighten me far more than guns do. I hate pools and I like guns... Also, firearm murders with illegal handguns thus far in the gun-banning village of Chicago, 2012: 470.)
Leftist control freaks often try to find signs of "market failure" to justify government intrusion into the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services. Similarly, they seek signs of "freedom failure" with the same goals. It's about power of the elites over us little people - always for our own good, of course, because we are "the masses." However, there are no "masses" in America and there is no aristocracy of any sort, political or otherwise.
Isn't obesity a "freedom failure"? Of course it is. North Korea has no such problem because they enforce "food control." So my final thought on this topic tonight: Why does the government allow Medicare-aged people to be overweight? 500,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease per year. Surely some controls are called for to address this crisis of excess freedom which results in so much disability and death, and burdens everyone else with their medical bills. Easy for the government to fix that: just offer to pay for medical care based on your BMI. If it's over 27, no free doctors. They are heading that way in the UK already. My view is that if you want to be heavy, do so and enjoy it. Not on my nickel, though. My freedom to life and property should trump all else because it is a gift from God.
Winter in central New England entails jump-starters, oil lamps and lanterns, snow-blowers, snow plows, flashlights, snow shovels, plenty of firewood, hats and long-johns, and good gloves and boots of all sorts. Global cooling will be here soon. Oh, and 4WD for the sissies and the city-folk for whom a little snow and ice are daunting - and for your plow truck. Gas generators? We country folk don't go in for those.
I keep one of these charged up in the garage, and it came in handy when one of the tractors, rarely used this summer, had both a dead battery and squishy front tires Saturday. I had been using the Ford all summer, and figured I ought to get the Farmall moving a little to prevent Tractor Arthritis.
What was my chore? Heading up into the woods with the wagon to clear our cross-country ski trails of fallen trees, and to accumulate some more firewood in the process.
I presume you heard the tragic story of how a large golden eagle almost carried away a young child and devoured it. Controversy immediately followed, of course, as the usual two sides faced off against each other. On one side was PETA, echoing my own personal belief that eagles have the right to eat, too.
On the other side are people who apparently want to see eagles starve to death. I'm honestly not sure why these virulent animal haters are even given a say in the matter, but such is the nature of a modern society that allows the voices of all to be heard.
The seizure of the child was caught on smartphone. I think it should be obvious that this is not for the squeamish. Management strongly urges all liberals and young children to immediately leave the room.
Luckily, there's not a lot of blood.
I think it's safe to say the eagle learned a valuable lesson that day in nutritional management.
But for an inside look into this horrific nightmare, let's go to the video:
I thought it amusing that both sides of the interview said something quite naive.
"Did it surprise you that everybody thought it was real?"
No, you mental midget, six people spent over 300 hours on it so it would look fake!
But one of the guy's comments was even more innocent.
"We never thought people would analyze it frame-by-frame."
Guys, I was analyzing it frame-by-frame the first time I watched it expecting it to be fake!
Not in the exact sense he means, but as an acknowledged video guru, I know what to look for. I bought the whole thing right up to the close-up of the afternoon snack kid and saw how big he was. My next thought was, "That snack sure looks big for a squirrel!"
I suppose it was also a point of naivete when the teacher set the grade of 'A' at a mere 100,000 views. When something goes viral these days, it's almost always in the millions.
I realized I had a very special Christmas gift for these very special people.
The gift is, thankfully, you're all dead wrong.
It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
You're very welcome. Merry Christmas, after all.
And greetings from the incredibly awesome state of California.
You remember California, don't you? From the tall virgin forests of the Trinity Alps in the far north, to the Death Valley deserts in the far south. From the eerie volcanic fields of Mt. Lassen in the Sierras, to the pristine white talcum powder sand of Pismo Beach on the central coast. From the majesty of the sharp, towering mountains above Lake Tahoe, to the greatest agricultural valley the world has ever known.
You know. That California.
Current temperature back home in the Florida Keys?
A delightful 71.
Current temperature here in Palo Alto, California?
46.
I sure wish that global warming stuff would hurry up and get going. Overnight would be preferred.
Best Christmas wishes to our readers all around the world.
As we light the candles in church on Christmas eve, we recite "Come, Lord, dispel my darkness" as each candle is lit and as each sin of the spirit is confessed. Those without dark corners of the soul need not attend. The upside is that you get to sing all of the carols. In church, you get the carols just one night each year - unlike in the dentist's office and the mall where you hear cheesy versions of them for a month.
I have attempted to lure readers with some Christmastime totty ( I just do not have it in me to post any half-nude hunky guys in Christmas outfits for our gal readers), but I would suppose that most Christians are now either frantic with last-minute gift- or food-shopping, or preparing for evening church services.
The B team will be out of range, skiing and cavorting in beautiful snow and invigorationg cold for a week after Christmas, but I have pre-posted mostly to keep my generous paycheck coming from Maggie's.
So perhaps only our Jewish, Hindu, Ba'hai, Buddhist, and Muslim friends will be reading this post, but that's fine with me.
Top pic of global warming is via Pirate. Pic of the super-special Christmas present below is probably from Theo but I am not sure.
In my view, the Christmas Eve candlelight service is not to be missed, even though I do not think of Christmastime as a particularly holy day in the church calendar. Christmas is a magical, miracle, beautiful time, but not too holy really, as least in the Protestant tradition.
The prayer: Be born in us today.
Our family doesn't do gifts, but we will assemble to church tonight to squeeze in, and will host a fine Christmas feast for 32 tomorrow at the Barrister homestead. The feast is the gift, bringing home-made foods are the gifts to eachother. Family, friends, and neighbors, coat and tie dress code including the youth, plenty of eggnog and good wines but no Festivus Pole.
Non-Christians, including the 5% of Americans who adhere to a non-Christian religion and the 18% who either claimed no religion at all or chose not to answer the pollsters, need to know about Christianity too. Religious education has pretty much fallen by the wayside in American life today. That’s a problem in more ways than one; I see the consequences all the time when students I teach – and policy makers and journalists I know – simply do not comprehend the cultural foundations of American politics and cannot understand the ways that so many people here and around the world are moved by religious values and ideas. I have taught a course on the relationship of American religious ideas to American foreign policy in some of our leading colleges, and I have had smart, well traveled and otherwise well-read students in that course who have never opened a Bible (or any other holy book) in their lives and simply had no idea why so many other people read and study it every day of their lives.
Indeed. FYI, Prof, I may be an older Ivy-Leaguer but I read a Bible verse each morning, contemplate it, and pray. Before the morning coffee. As I always say, it has never harmed me to follow that discipline. Find a church tonight, you agnostics and atheists and unbelievers, etc. It won't hurt you at all.
The federal government has emerged as one of the most potent factors driving income inequality in the United States - especially in the nation's capital.
...if Republicans continue to be led around by, and live in fear of, a base that denies global warming after Hurricane Sandy and refuses to ban assault weapons after Sandy Hook — a base that would rather see every American’s taxes rise rather than increase taxes on millionaires — the party has no future. It can’t win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time.
I had this at a very good Italian restaurant the other day. They served it on top of some thin potato slices sauteed in olive oil. A couple of slices of fried polenta on the side would be an alternative. Or gnocchi. Pasta, I think, a poor fourth choice but readers know that, with a few wonderful exceptions, I think of anything with pasta as being a low form of Italian cooking. Call me a snob, but I think I've had more great, pasta-free Italian food in Italy and Sicily than the average American bear.
In my view, for this sort of recipe, stew the chunks of meat until you can cut them with a fork.
When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed for science and its practitioners a broad authority with which many practicing scientists themselves were uncomfortable.
The temptation to overreach, however, seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth.
another quote:
Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence. Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. The ultimate outcome will be an increase of radical skepticism that questions the ability of science to address even the questions legitimately within its sphere of competence. One longs for a new Enlightenment to puncture the pretensions of this latest superstition.
This is one of the most depressing Christmases many can remember. Many feel that way this year, and not just Libertarian-Conservatives. It seems gloomy out there.
There are many factors, Mrs. B. theorizes. A world of kids with lousy job opportunities, higher taxes, decreasing incomes, the horrors of Newtown, unemployment, the election, etc.
She is quite shrewd about politics. From a political standpoint, her view is that a tipping point has occurred. Yes, Repubs won some elections, yes, it was fairly close, etc., but her main point was the decline of marriage and the rise of childbirth outside of marriage. The single woman vote. Emily or whoever she was.
She says African-Americans and immigrant Hispanics will trend Progressive for the indefinite future because their political goal is to get stuff from the government, but that is nothing new. Not everybody understands what America is all about. Married white people, and especially married white Christians with self-reliance as a fundamental socio-cultural goal, are descending towards a minority.
Many men are no longer in any hurry to get married despite marriage's provision of the comforts, partnership, social circles, and supports needed in life in general and for child-rearing in particular. Single women emotionally look to government for what they once looked to men for. She believes that American acceptance of dependency has reached a tipping point, predicted for over 200 years, which will forever alter American politics.
Her somewhat defeatist view is to hunker down and just to take care of your family as best your can, and to stay away from the news.
It's not pretty. It's not glamorous. It's not ivory tower stuff. This is a backyard brawl now. This is Chicagoland. This is Obamaland. Either fight or go home.
It is no "assault weapon." "AR" means Armalite Rifle, not assault rifle. It's good for target shooting and for small game and critters like coyotes and groundhogs. Some consider it a lady's rifle, but might best be termed "gender-neutral." It is easily customizable. Very popular rifle. I think what most people understand the term "assault rifle" to imply is an automatic rifle, like a Tommy Gun or an AK-47.
The press seems usually not to to get that the vast majority of firearms are "semi-automatic." As we have mentioned here, a cowboy six-shooter is semi-automatic. As Rudy Guiliani said yesterday, a would-be killer can kill with anything no matter what it looks like. Killers in the US generally use 9 mm. handguns.
...what makes the AR-15 prime for these attacks? Simply the cosmetic make up of the gun - no less, no more. The AR-15 uses modern synthetic stocks, which make it look (to some) more menacing, but I am guessing you probably own a firearm right now that sports a non-wood stock. The AR-15 also has a detachable magazine, but I am also guessing you probably own at least one .22 rifle with the same feature. Some claim that the AR-15 can easily be converted to fully automatic. Well, it cannot... at least no more so than any other semi-auto firearm and doing so is illegal to boot. So it is easy to see that an AR-15, aside from sheer looks, is really no different than a standard semi-auto firearm you probably already own.
We always say that "freedom is messy" and that "Freedom is not for sissies." From Sultan's 
Among the more irritating manifestations of political correctness, at least to this historian, 
I have attempted to lure readers with some Christmastime totty ( I just do not have it in me to post any half-nude hunky guys in Christmas outfits for our gal readers), but I would suppose that most Christians are now either frantic with last-minute gift- or food-shopping, or preparing for evening church services. 
My pic is the Congregational Church of lovely and quaint 
Why 
