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 proffered, on Monday, the theory that the media made a big deal about Obama losing the debate so as not to admit that Romney positivelywon with overwhelming presence, presence of mind, and firepower against a perfectly acceptable Obama presentation. To focus on Obama's loss is to diminish Romney's success - that's what we said. When winning a tennis match because your opponent had a broken arm, you deserve no credit - but Obama had no broken arm.
Just one more good Maggie's insight, utterly ignored by the world outside our farm and our friendly coterie of readers.
Today, Ann Althouse posts the same theory. What happens? She gets linked by Insty and then para-quoted by Rush on the radio. Dang! Rush doesn't even know we exist!
I know it's small of me to even care, but, darn it, life isn't fair. (And no, I don't think Ann reads Maggie's. Wish she did because she's likeable enough.)
Forty years ago, affirmative action (designed for Americans With Some African Genetics) was instituted on a temporary basis in an effort to make up for years of presumed socio-economic marginalization, or as compensation for a history of American slavery, or as a political maneuver, or something.
As a concept, it seems unconstitutional on its face. Today, it seems like insidious nonsense (eg, Is Obama more a black man or a white man? Or does the one-drop rule apply?).
The progressives on the Court are likely to desire to continue this unconstitutional entitlement for another 40 years or, God knows, forever. Why? Who knows? A reflex to condescension? Justice Kennedy is probably the swing vote. Here's Justice Kennedy and Affirmative Action.
I think affirmative action is insulting and condescending. Some related items:
Fire Dept of NYC required by judge to alter entry exam until racially balanced. I've seen plenty of Irish, Italian, and Hispanic NYC firemen, some black guys, but never an Asian fireman (are Indians also Asians? At some point, one can begin to sound like a Nazi with all of this genetic obesession).
NAACP goes after admissions policies at NYC's three elite high schools (once majority Jewish, now overwhelmingly Asian): NAACP Tries to Kill the Golden Goose.
Because of all of the bright and ambitious new Asians, the gene counters are beginning to categorize Asians as "White." It's all insane because we're all the same species of ape: Homo semi-sapiens.
It must be clear that I hate the idea of racial or ethnic discrimination in academia or in employment of any sort, but it doesn't happen these days because people will hire anybody who can get the job done. However, I think there are two subtle factors which might be holding back opportunities for Americans with African genes: 1, you can't be sure they aren't affirmative action applicants and, 2, if they don't work out in a position, there can be hell to pay to get rid of them because of their privileged situation. Just ask any HR department about this.
Firing Barack Obama for poor performance would go a long way towards integrating Americans with Some African Genes into the normal mainstream of American life. The Peter Principle knows neither skin tone nor gender.
A new comet has been discovered that is predicted to blaze incredibly brilliantly in the skies during late 2013. With a perihelion passage of less than two million kilometres from the Sun on 28 November 2013, current predictions are of an object that will dazzle the eye at up to magnitude —16. That's far brighter than the full Moon. If predictions hold true then C/2012 S1 will certainly be one of the greatest comets in human history, far outshining the memorable Comet Hale-Bopp of 1997 and very likely to outdo the long-awaited Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) which is set to stun in March 2013.
Comet brightness prediction, as evidenced by comets Kohoutek in '73 and Hale-Bopp in '96, both of which failed to live up to expectations, is a very imprecise science at best. Many comets have large 'outbursts' at great distance but tend to wane as they get closer to Earth. But both of the upcoming ones mentioned in the article look promising.
Astronomers predict that the comet will pass just 1.16 million miles from the Sun as it swings around its perihelion, or closest approach. (This may seem like a lot, but remember—the Sun is big. If we were to scale the Sun down to the size of Earth, the comet would pass well within the orbits of dozens of satellites.) The close approach will melt enormous amounts of the comet’s ice, releasing dust and gas and forming what should be a magnificent tail.
One of the most wonderful things which will come with a Romney presidency is that Romney will finally, once again, separate Church and State. The president, finally, will just be a man. Not a perfect man. Not a prefigurement of Jesus. Not a prophet and not a savoir.
Just a man. A good man, and a smart man. But ultimately just a man.
Sesame Street, a non-profit arm of PBS, makes over $200 million in profit each year. I think the show is retarded but, regardless, why does it need my money? Furthermore, I think the idea of government support of media is profoundly un-American. The nation and the world are going to hell, and Obama is advertising about Big Bird. Romney only brought it up as an example of something we ought not to be borrowing money from China to support.
They sure aren't. That's why we don't term them "diseases." But it's more complicated than that. Psychiatrists address most complaints which concern the mind.
Some are caused by wiring abnormalities in the brain (eg autism, PDD, probably schizophrenia), some by brain damage (eg strokes, Alzheimers, hydrocephalus, trauma). Many complaints seem to combine brain vulnerabilities of some sort with the mind and personality of the person (eg OCD, Bipolar spectrum problems, severe depressions, etc etc). However, most often in outpatient settings we deal with complaints which appear to be "all in the mind" or mostly so (eg neuroses, personality problems, relationship problems, character flaws and weaknesses, fears and phobias, addictions - first in the mind, then engraved in the brain -, emotional immaturity, major life dilemmas, milder and reactive forms of depression, etc etc).
Dalrymple's post is about Dr. Oliver Sachs' determination not to label his symptom as a neurotic one. There is much comfort in believing that one's complaint is "physical" or, as we often term it, "organic."
In fact, many Psychiatrists today seek to over-medicalize Psychiatric complaints. Did your beloved spouse of 60 years just die? Oh, you have Depression, a chemical imbalance requiring 40 mg of Paxil daily.
Our trademark term "Psycho-utopianism" refers to the idea that we would all be thoroughly happy and fulfilled in life were we only given the right drugs or psychotherapy. Reality would be undone, and Eden restored.
Thus there can be a sort of conspiracy between patients and Psychiatrists (perhaps aided and abetted by the structure of the DSM and the drug companies) to view all or most complaints and symptoms as external or alien to the mind, so to speak, instead of, often, embedded in it or part of it. Part of oneself, that is.
During one of my residency inpatient rotations, we were to sit with hospitalized schizophrenics, addicts, and Borderlines for 4 hours/week. We were instructed not to attempt any "therapy" or to try to fix anything, but just to use the time to try to comprehend where they were coming from, what was going on in them, and how they were interacting with us. This was a remarkable experience in more ways than I have time or space to write.
The neuroscience craze of the 1990s grossly overpromised future clinical usefulness. My advice to the neuroscientists is to be as humble as Eric Kandel because Oliver Sach's hysterical paralysis will never be located in brain matter just as my love for tennis never will.
Related: Was it really me? - Neuroscience is changing the meaning of criminal guilt. That might make us more, not less, responsible for our actions
And just why do I remember it well? Because a Republican was in the White House at the time so the MSM went nuts over the escalating gas prices and every third article was about high gas prices and if only we had a reasonable person in the White House gas prices would be lower — and accompanying the articles came a bunch of cartoons and photochops and GIF animations on the subject which I faithfully collected in my Art Gallery and have occasionally looked at over the years.
That's why I remember it well. I cheated.
In honor of those glorious days of yesteryear, I have forthwith ported over said Gallery collection for your whimsical sighing over happier times gone by, back in the good old days when gas was a mere $3 a gallon.
On Columbus Day, Mitt Romney went to the Virginia Military Institute to outline a starkly different foreign policy vision from President Obama’s approach of apologizing for America, ignoring Islamism, mistreating our allies and embracing our enemies.
Is that a temporary bounce? Or is it that people just hadn't seen unfiltered Romney and were happy to see a credible, appealing alternative to the Obama administration? At the least, it tells me that many people are openminded about considering Romney.
Contrary to many or most news reports, I don't think that Obama "lost" the debate. To emphasize that is to minimize Romney's positive accomplishment. I think Romney "won," won by being a more impressive, knowledgeable, and serious figure.
By the way, where are all the Obama bumper stickers this year?
The despairing but amusing and detailed post at Zero Hedge begins with this fine paragraph:
The majority of Americans seem OK with just waddling through life, accepting the lies and misinformation blasted from the boob tube and their various iGadgets by their owners, gorging themselves to death on Twinkies and Cheetos, paying 15% interest on their $10,000 rolling credit card balance, and growing ever more dependent on the welfare/warfare state to provide and protect them from accepting personal responsibility for their lives. A minority of critical thinking people have chosen to question everything they see and hear being spewed at us by the propagandist mainstream media, the corporate fascist government, and the powerful banking cabal that has an iron grip upon our throats as they choke the life out of the global economy in their never ending desire for more riches and more power.
Read it all. He predicts decline, mostly due to American character weakness and degeneracy.
Among many other wonderful details, the book undermines the notions that the Europeans arrived to find a primeval land on which the Indians left hardly a footprint. Quite the opposite is true. For example, the Northeast Indians had 100-acre cornfields, scattered wherever the soil was rich, and did massive burnings of their woodlands every year to rewind forest succession, for game management, and to clear the underbush. They viewed the woods as their gardens and farms, and when they made fields, they cleared them to the point of removing the stumps. No slash-and-burn: permanent farm fields that were hard-won with stone axes and fire. The Pilgrims took advantage of their abandoned fields in Massachusetts.
Similarly, the Amazonian Indians turned the rain forest into their own orchards. At least 20% of the Amazonian forest is believed to be dominated by fruit- and nut-bearing trees planted by Indians for their use. That's not to mention their manioc plantations. And the South American Indians, like the Meso-Americans, developed massive irrigation systems to support their populations.
There was little of the New World that had not been shaped by Indian activities, except for the mountains and deserts - and the Incas populated the Andes quite successfully.
I also liked learning about the Indian prophet Deganawida, the Northeast "Peacemaker" born, it was said, of a virgin birth. Hiawatha, the great Indian orator and politician, was one of his followers. Some of those folks are some of my ancestors.
Finally, the book got me interested in Cahokia, the largest Indian city north of Mexico with a top population of 15-20,000 farmers. The mound-building city in Illinois was abandoned 300 years before Columbus. Image on right is what Cahokia's mounds looked like.
(For a variety of reasons, many mysterious, the New World experienced enormous population declines from their millions before Columbus, making conquest and colonization immigration a much easier task. European illnesses like the common cold and flu viruses which could be fatal to Indians just made it all worse, it seems. )
My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.
North Providence retiree Jamie Reilly left her job as a secretary at age 50, thinking her 30 years of state employment would mean good benefits during her later years. But now she said she may be forced to re-enter the workforce at age 55 because the state has put off pension increases.
"I counted on that money," Reilly said of the increases, which she estimates would have started at $700 to $1,000 a year. "I retired knowing I was going to get a certain amount of money. You work all your life and you plan, and they take it away from you."
No, Christopher Columbus probably wasn't the first European to discover the Americas.
The history we learn in school is, understandably, Central Eurocentric, and the contributions from the Northern Europeans, aka 'Scandinavians', has decidedly been given short shrift over the years.
But in the past decade or so, more attention has been paid to the role the Norsemen played, and it's becoming fairly apparent that not only did Eric The Red or his son discover and colonize Greenland, but made it all the way to Newfoundland, a country he dubbed Vinland.
But wait!
'Vinland' in Norse means Wineland — and how could an ice block like Newfoundland be warm enough to grow grapes?
Of course, you're probably already ahead of me here. When the Vikings made their voyages, the earth was so warm that not only could Greenland be colonized and sustain crops (and be named Greenland in the process), but Newfoundland was warm enough to grow grapes.
And not an SUV in sight. Imagine that.
But wait again! The Vikings had no instruments to guide themselves as they crossed the vast Atlantic. No dipping needle, no compass, no clock, not even a sand glass, and certainly no astrolabe or sextant. All they had were the stars above, and since the stars rotate in a circular pattern overhead, all they could do was measure a star's height against a knot tied in a rigging line (on a bouncing ship, no less) and make their best guess.
Okay, so how did they discover Iceland, Greenland, and later Newfoundland, without any instruments aboard?
The same way Noah discovered land after the Great Flood.
The real criterion, of course, would be propensity to violence. If a group shows a propensity to violence when its icons are criticized, then it would in practice receive special protection under the 21st-century blasphemy prohibitions. Those advocating for such rules either don’t understand the incentive system this would create, or don’t care.
Last Wednesday, Zbigniew Brzezinski–yes, that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the one from the Carter administration–added his voice to the chorus of those calling for restrictions on free speech:
“I would like us to make it more explicit to the Muslim world: we not only condemn (the YouTube video), but if there are evil forces at work trying to provoke violence between us and you, we have the obligation to investigate and crack down.”
Be careful, Zbig. You are making me very angry with that kind of speech. Maybe we need to crack down on that kind of disturbing speech.
Pic: It's Oktoberfest. That's my beer and smokes from the deck of a Danube riverboat a couple of years ago. Just a boatride. Yes, that is the original Czech Budweiser
The Obama of the imagination is the media’s Obama. Out of their fascination with the color of his skin and their mindless awe at his windy teleprompted rhetoric, they constructed a man of stature and accomplishment. Now, with the White House on the line, they’re waging an ongoing battle against the undeniable evidence that he has never been, in fact, that man. The result in these quadrennial autumn days has been media coverage of a fantasy election, an election in the news that may bear no relation whatsoever to the election as it is.
Besides going after the infantile zero-sum narrative on economics, he extols the miracle of growth and productivity - the growing pie. One quote:
It was not until the Agricultural Revolution that men began to break free of the zero-sum existence of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. For the first time, production allowed men to increase the food supply—to expand the size of the "pie." No longer did one person's gain entail another person's deprivation. With the gradual increase of production under a division of labor, and with free trade among those producing specialized goods, the "pie" of wealth began to grow rapidly. With the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, living standards, which had remained at subsistence levels since the dawn of man's presence on Earth, suddenly began to soar, and so did life expectancy. But while the zero-sum social world was disappearing, the zero-sum Narrative did not vanish from the minds of men.
Man, does this tick me off.
Ya gotta laugh about this PBS/Big Bird thing.
Movie: Review of 
I have just finished reading 
Finally, the book got me interested in 
It's Cristoforo Colombo Day here in the USA
No, Christopher Columbus probably wasn't the first European to discover the Americas.
Image via