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.
Let no crisis go to waste. It's always a "crisis" when government wants power and control, and it is in the nature of governments to desire those things.
Nock’s essay on the Right Thing is a reminder that the advocates of the paternalistic state, whether “left” or “right,” have it backward: good conduct isn’t a precondition of freedom; it is a consequence of freedom. He contrasts the “region of conduct” regulated by force, that is, by government, with the region regulated by the individual’s sense of doing the Right Thing.
The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys argues for repealing those non-dischargeability provisions, at least for private lenders. That is actually a good idea, as long as, on the public side, the federal government gets out of the student-loan business altogether. No direct lending, no loan guarantees to the private sector--and no disability-rights oversight, either. Without the twin safety nets of non-dischargeability and taxpayer guarantees, a lender would be entitled to ask the next Carol Todd, without even broaching the subject of her Asperger's: "We've already lent you tens of thousands of dollars that you haven't repaid on degrees that you haven't used--why, exactly, should we lend you even more for yet another likely useless degree?" There would be nothing like having to live with the consequences of one's imprudent lending decisions to put an end to irresponsible adventures in higher education at public expense.
Unfortunately, Judge Gordon's ruling in Todd's case seems to point in another direction: toward relaxing the non-dischargeabiity rules by judicial fiat, so that ever-large numbers of people can load their student debt onto the backs of taxpayers on the basis of some chronic ailment that should have barred their borrowing in the first place. That's the worst of both worlds.
We attended a delightful Jubilee party that some Brit friends threw yesterday. Jolly good fun. Buckets of Pimm's Cup. Our friends were also celebrating their achievement of American citizenship, about which they feel proud. There are tight citizenship quotas for northern European immigrants despite our friends' being a Cambridge-educated economist and mathematician. I think he has waited ten years, working with a green card. Their house was flying both Brit and American flags for the occasion.
One of a bunch of cool pics from the year of the Queen's coronation (h/t AVI). What are those bags hanging on the wall?
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
In the fall of 1971, in grad school, I did a 60-page analysis of the Nixon/Kissinger détente policy. I concluded it was largely a holding action meant to slow down what otherwise was believed by its primaries as the inevitable declining power of the West in the face of rising Soviet and Chinese power. I termed it “existential defeatism”. Although pragmatic coping in many ways, defeatism or its better cousin called nuance, has not been terribly beneficial to US interests since.
There isn’t a linear relationship from 1971 to now, but rather a trend. This trend is toward restraint in asserting our interests, with the confused interruption of our Iraq experience. It is increasingly coupled with deference to the alternate or contrary interests of other countries, called internationalism.
These policies can take little credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, under the weight of its own internal contradictions, in 1989. On the other hand, China kept ascending, US fecklessness in Indochina is touted by Islamist radicals as encouragement for their causes, and Russia is following its old path contrary to Western interests. Meanwhile, many of today’s foreign policy gurus tout international law and international organizations, usually most often in play to hinder or attack Western interests.
Restraint in foreign engagements, particularly military, is certainly to be prized unless clear US national interests, mechanisms, and follow-through plans are pretty clearly present, and articulated by our national political leaders so necessary to domestic support. However, instead, what we’ve increasingly seen is muddling and disparagement of the very concept of US national interests, substituting outright negativity, conceptual distractions, and refusal to actively engage unless elusive or impossible international consensus is reached, to include Russia and China who aren’t shy about exerting themselves actively in opposition to US or Western interests. In effect, as well, the US and Western Europe have too often abandoned its moral core, as well, to the favor of those who don’t share it or deride or hate it.
All that said, this critique must face the serious real-world problems we face immediately in the Middle East and coastal Asia, and the influence of financial problems.
Understandably nervous and hesitant to confront crazies in the Middle East, we have defaulted influence to Iran and to Russia.
Not wanting to indiscriminately support or arm possible future foes, as we did in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviet Union, there is little effort to discriminate and strengthen those not antagonistic to the West. Syria has been a cat’s paw of Iran to ferment conflict. Our non-action furthers this, rather than decrease it, aside from the humanitarian toll on Syrians with Iranians on the ground adding to the murders and Russian arms arriving in torrents. The US is rightly seen in the region and elsewhere as ineffectual, hardly worth allying with. Meanwhile, enough said, Iran continues its steady march to nuclear weapons, stirring others in the region to possibly also do so, further destabilizing international order and security.
One would hope that the US is doing more behind the scenes than is apparent, but no observers have seen such which is telling in the usually open sieve of reporting and NGOs. The US should be doing more in Syria, and more openly and assertively, including arms to those less problematic. The US should announce a date certain in 2012, after which all informed analysts recognize it will be too late, by which the US will devastatingly bomb—as only the US could -- Iran’s nuclear installations if there is not a convincing abandonment of Iran’s nuclear war-making capacities. Neither in Syria nor Iran are US military forces necessary on the ground. But short of that we have done far too little to influence the outcomes, leaving the threats to grow and to undermine confidence in the West, and influencing Middle East countries and citizens to accommodate or ally themselves with Iran.
The primary rationale for the US Senate to ratify its decades-pending Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) may be to strengthen the hand in an international forum of the states in coastal Asia against the expansiveness of China. However, all, including China, have long since joined LOST, and that hasn’t slowed China’s claim of virtually the entire South China Sea as its own. China’s navy is expanding, often acting aggressively toward other states, and its oil and gas exploration is reaching into deep waters near other countries. See this map, the red lines far away from China being ocean borders that China wildly claims.
The little coat embroidered with birds Is irretrievably ruined. We bought it in the spring. She stood upon a chair And raised her arms like branches. I leaned my head against her breast Listening to that heavy bird Thudding at the center of our happiness.
Everything is dragged away. The clothes that were so gay Lie in attics, like the dolls With which wild children used to play. The bed where the loved one lies Is a river bed on which Enchanting haunting life Is carried where the current may - Tangled among blocks of ice. Nests and singing branches Were the springs of yesterday.
Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907). Ronald Lauder paid 135 million for this painting in 2006. It resides in NYC's Neue Gallery. (Gallery, and the restaurant, are a nice touch of Vienna.)
A pupette and I spent a very pleasant day seeing the Klimts, and other good stuff (Schiele, Kokoshka), at the Belvedere in Vienna two years ago, then moved on by foot, trolley, and subway to lots of other fun things and tasty food treats - Viennese pastries and beers - along the way. She likes Schiele.
...what Obama wasn't able to make stick to Romney with Bain, Romney intends to make stick to Obama with Solyndra -- define him as a reckless job killer who squanders our money for his own personal and political gain. And from where I stand, this is working , mainly because everything Romney is saying is 100% true. Which brings me back to the media.
The reason the use of the media is so crucial in this ad is because the Romney campaign obviously learned much from 2008 and therefore understands that in order to protect Obama, the media has devised any number of ways to kill narratives damaging to Their Precious One. Phony fact-checkers like Politifact come to mind.
Clinton, unlike Cory Booker, is not spankable by the O team. In fact, Team Clinton, still the de-facto heads of the Dem party, has carefully announced that it's OK not to pin your future on Obama. That is politically devastating, I think.
Romney is a JFK-era Democrat. Or, you could argue, a JFK-era Repub. They weren't all that far apart, back then. Back then, the federal government did not play such a large role in daily life, and did not aspire to it so it did not matter too much.
Does Obama have any friends at all? I mean, besides the notably unappealing David Axelrod who is a guy who makes you want to take a shower after listening to him, and government union thugs who will expect to be paid off, Chicago-style?
Do you like the concept of Scrabble and dominos, but don't like the actual games? Would it be fair to say that Scrabble is extremely frustrating because of the limited number of words you can play, and dominos seems like a kid's game?
Well, that's because you haven't played Unscrabbleink and Grandma's Dominos yet.
Below the fold is the way to play these two great games.
From VDH's Culture Still Matters -You can learn a lot about a country’s destiny by just watching how people behave:
A warm sunset with an ouzo on a Greek-island beach may be more relaxing than schnapps on the foggy Rhine shore, but to learn why Greeks will probably not pay back what they owe Germany — and why they do not believe that they should have to — take a walk through central Athens and then do the same in Munich.
It’s certainly hard to argue that the Romneys’ horse-riding habits today are worse than the Maraniss revelations, which have gotten little mainstream coverage.
And the horse-riding story came a few weeks after a second story that made Republicans see red – another front-pager, this time in the Washington Post, that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay, in high school nearly a half-century ago. The clear implication to readers: Romney was a mean, insensitive jerk.
Maraniss works for the Post and his pot-smoking scoop, which included details of Obama’s college-era dope-smoking club and waste-no-weed rules for inhaling it, never made the front of his own paper.
The story landed on page A6, and Maraniss’s reporting included colorful details of Obama’s pot-smoking prowess: “As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called ‘TA,’ short for ‘total absorption.’ To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” Maraniss writes in his book.
Obama does have one thing right. If you’re a Democrat who wants to make a ridiculous claim, put it out there and watch the mainstream media carry your water like Gunga Din. While they’re at it, they’ll suggest that your long-time relationships with extremists such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers are irrelevant while your opponent’s one-time appearance at an event with one of the most famous men in America, Donald Trump, is a sign of moral turpitude.
On the small scale, these seem to be close to universal in studied American populations. On the large scale, quite rare.
From the WSJ,Why We Lie - We like to believe that a few bad apples spoil the virtuous bunch. But research shows that everyone cheats a little—right up to the point where they lose their sense of integrity:
We want to install locks to stop the next Bernie Madoff, the next Enron, the next steroid-enhanced all-star, the next serial plagiarist, the next self-dealing political miscreant. But locking our doors against the dishonest monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in. It is the woman down the hallway—the sweet one who could not even carry away your flat-screen TV if she wanted to—who needs to be reminded constantly that, even if the door is open, she cannot just walk in and "borrow" a cup of sugar without asking.
Some of our readers were discussing trust and "trust cultures" the other day, in the comments. I suppose, when I consider the word "trust," I refer to the confidence that a person will not lie (except for white lies), cheat me, steal from me, be unreliable, or try to harm or take advantage of me.
In other words, trust is a gift given to someone that says "I have decided that you will behave reasonably benevolently towards me - or at least not malevolently - regardless of how you may feel about me." That is a big gift, and not lightly given until earned.
As our commenters noted, cultures vary in degrees of trust (as we in the Western world define it), and, of course, different cultures have entirely different expectations of others which would not meet our definition of trust (eg you can "trust" an Istanbul rug dealer to never offer you his best price, even if you are his best friend).
Robert Mugabe, and his Zambian sidekick, Michael Sata, have been appointed United Nations international tourism ambassadors in recognition of the promotion and development of tourism.
To sum up my simple message: Empirical data are important; scientific discoveries are important; the disclosure of malpractices in the IPCC and other “bastions” of the global-warming debate are important; but we have to take part in the undergoing ideological battle. The subtitle of my five-year-old book is What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? There is no doubt that it is all about freedom.
Our latest title image is a Currier and Ives print of The Great Eastern, the largest ship ever built when launched in England in 1858. Double-hulled, compartmented, and capable of ferrying 4000 passengers from Europe to good old New York City. It was claimed that she could circle the globe without refueling. (The pairing of fossil fuel with wind persists today in many recreational sailboats - and in all tax-subsidized wind turbine schemes scams. Wind was always undependable - and the reason the Pilgrims ended up in a chilly and mostly food-free Massachusetts instead of their intended destination in a welcoming Dutch New Amsterdam.)
She represented a revolution in global transportation but ended her career as a humble cable-laying ship, thus participating in another tech revolution. Here's another Currier and Ives image of her majestic self:
It often confuses me why so many in my "helping professions" are Lefties. In fact, it probably makes more sense for us all to be Libertarians at heart. Like many Maggie's people, I am sort-of Conservative-Libertarian, if that makes any sense to you.
What it means is that if people want to smoke, or to get fat and out of shape, or play with guns, or shoot animals, or watch TV or play video games all day, or do reckless or stupid things, it's fine with me as long as it doesn't cause me any personal trouble or impinge meaningfully on my family's life. Does tax-funded medical care alter that balance?
Adults make their own decisions. I don't care a whit what other people do. The main thing that bothers me, socio-politically, are those who have somehow concluded that they are my betters and believe that they have a better plan for my - and for your - life. Such people often gravitate to government careers where there is some power to be wielded. We used to term such people "cranks," but cranks have gone mainstream.
Desire for power over others is almost a sickness, or is a sort of sickness (except for parenthood). The desire for freedom for others is, I believe, a virtue. (In case you wonder, I am against the criminalization of drug use despite believing that it is a poor life plan.)
That's a fairly-consistent Maggie's Farm theme, isn't it? Experts tend to lack common sense.
How about a little government coercion to deal with intrusive, annoying, nanny state busybodies who would claim to have either a) my best interest or b) the Greater Good, in mind? The world is run by crazy people.
Let no crisis go to waste. It's always a "crisis" when government wants power and control, and it is in the nature of governments to desire those things.
The entirety of 
My Mom, an avid gardener and an avid reader, recommends Richard Mabey's 
Deconstructed Fluffernutter sandwich via Laughing Squid. Some blame the fluffy Lefty brains of Massachusetts residents on being raised on this stuff.
The Little Coat
Do you like Scrabble and dominos? 
Bombshell Study: 
On the small scale, these seem to be close to universal in studied American populations. On the large scale, quite rare.