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.
Less gullible. Makes sense to me. The people who preach to me about it know nothing. People who have studied the sciences at higher levels know that most scientific knowledge is never settled. Science is about theories, mostly, tested by observation, and eventually replaced by new theories and new information.
Climate science, in my view, is in its infancy, is overfunded compared with more compelling areas, and will ultimately turn out to be largely irrelevant except to those who study it - and to paleontologists.
As regular readers know, we are skeptical but have some hope that some global warming is happening. Gaia would like it. The next ice age would be quite unpleasant.
Only 17% of American physicians are members. I quit them long ago, over their politics. Like so many foundations and non-profits in America, they were hijacked by Lefties years ago.
The antipathy of physicians for the AMA is not just about money, turf, and guild. It goes way beyond that. However, apparently the AMA's strenuous support of Obamacare (seemingly without understanding any of its implications) has been the final straw.
There is a new breed of young physicians, especially women, who don't mind being employees, having bosses, or working as an agent of the government, but most docs over 40 are not interested in that. In general, docs like autonomy, flexibility, self-direction. Also, they hate paperwork and bureaucracy.
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined.... [T]he powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
This division of labor accords with the venerable principle of subsidiarity, which allocates governmental responsibilities to the lowest levels able to exercise them. The effect is to ensure that governmental decisions most immediately affecting people's lives will be made by officials who are the closest to them and have the most intimate knowledge of the relevant facts and conditions. This design served us so well during the first 150 years of our national existence that the eminent British historian Lord Acton, declared that our constitutional development of federalism "has produced a community more powerful, more prosperous, more intelligent, and more free than any other which the world has seen." Over the years, however, our federal government has engaged in massive raids on the constitutional prerogatives of the states. Today there is virtually no governmental responsibility beyond the reach of federal authority. As a consequence, our nation has been converted into an administrative state overseen by unelected officials who issue regulations that reach into every corner of American life. Few appreciate the extent of this transformation. In 1935, at the outset of the New Deal, the United States Code consisted of a single volume containing 2,275 pages of statutes. Today, it comprises 30 volumes of statutory law. When I was in law school, Title 42, which contains the federal laws relating to public health and welfare, consisted of just 128 pages. Today it contains over 6,200 pages, more than twice as many as the entire body of federal law at the beginning of the New Deal.
Bureaus and agencies issue endless marching orders to administer those federal statutes. By 2010, the Code of Federal Regulations contained over 166,000 pages of detailed, fine-print regulations that have the force of law and affect virtually every aspect of American life.
People have to spend tons of money on lawyers just to know what is in those pages. What a waste. Good for the legal industry, however.
Who would provide public education were it not for gov?
This argument is couched improperly. It can be rephrased as Who will force others to provide for my children’s education that I’m not willing to pay for myself? And for this, you are correct – you need government to do that.
I can hear the rebuttal… But what about the poor? Especially the ones who have a lot of children? Certainly you can’t expect them to shoulder any part of the responsibility for their actions! No, of course not. Government must step in to mitigate the consequences of poor planning and personal irresponsibility. Because without government, the poor would have to rely on friends, family, and charity – none of which can be forced to give as much as some might demand. What would the poor (or rich for that matter) do if they had to face the consequences of their own actions? That would just be horrible.
"... staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.
If I told patients that their records would be electronically accessible, I doubt anyone would speak openly with me. For that same reason, I keep very minimal paper records. My field of medicine is a little different, however.
Along with ordinary aerobics, this is all anybody needs to keep the lower bones and muscles fit for vigorous living.
Feel the burn: Squats and lunges, done properly. I just do them during spare minutes in my day, around 5 sets of each until it hurts too much. It's no big workout, but, like hitting your head with a hammer, it feels good when you stop.
With all due respect to the Bible and to Shakespeare, I say that it is obviously acceptable in casual and conversational English, and in poetic English, but not in formal English, and the same goes for run-on sentences.
America does run on Dunkin', as does Maggie's HQ. Mediocre coffee but good caffeine - and always a great ambience.
"Let's Take a Traditional City Break 4: Many Variations, One Theme." New World Economics likes The Old Urbanist (as do we) - and posted some dynamite urban street scenes
If you can remember only one fact, make it this one: The middle class (middle quintile) pays 14.1 percent of its income in federal taxes, while the rich (top tenth of one percent of the population) pay 30.4 percent.
"Nearly 16,000 migrated to California, while 10,000 moved to New Jersey, 8000 to New York, and 8000 to other American states," according to Gabriel. "Around 14,000 left to Australia, 17,000 to Canada, and 20,000 settled in the Netherlands, Italy, England, Austria, Germany and France."
Here's something you don't have in common with 10,873 other supporters of this movement who tell us they live in Connecticut.
That many of your neighbors have decided to own a piece of this campaign by making a donation of whatever they could afford. For some, that meant just $5. For others, it meant $100 or more. But each had their own personal reason for giving.
Our records show that you aren't one of the 10,873 people in your state who have stepped up for 2012. Now's your chance to change that.
Here's why you should join your neighbors in supporting this campaign: We've been running the numbers, and with hundreds of thousands of individual donors across the country -- we are now well on our way to a million people.
In the 2008 campaign, it took us more than a year to reach that milestone. This time around, we could cross it as soon as October -- just six months after the launch of the campaign.
Between now and then, we have an important fundraising deadline.
Our opponents have significant operations on the ground in key battleground states, full-time candidates without day jobs, and a lot of media attention to fuel their campaigns.
President Obama has you. And when you're building a grassroots organization from the bottom up, the first person gets the next one involved. And the first 10,873 provide the foundation and inspiration for the next 10,873.
Support the campaign before the deadline, and bring us closer to one million donors -- give $3 today:
Attended a wonderful Chopin recital last night, perfomed by Benjamin Hochman.
Among other pieces, he performed Chopin's Barcarolle, Op 60. It's a mind-blowingly charming piece, and there is something about the relatively-rare key of F# Major that works for me.
It is? What kind of "love"? What did Lennon/McCarthy mean, and who made them experts?
Our link yesterday morning from F- Feelings was excellent: Love Slaves. "The bad news is that most love won’t work, and you’ve got to leave it alone when you know it won’t."
If we let emotion control our lives, we are animals. If we let reason control our lives, we are robots.
There are more kinds of love than the Eskimos have (proverbially) kinds of snow. I once tried to make a list, and gave up. People vary enormously in their needs or wants for all of those sorts of need, desire, addiction, and attachment.
The people don't owe Warren and her vast government machine anything. She owes it to them.
For over a century, the public has paid far more into government than it has received back in benefits. That extra money has gone to people like Warren. It has gone into the entire rotten machinery of crony capitalism, welfare state machine politics and massive bureaucracy. So let's be clear about this. We don't owe Warren and her ilk anything. She owes us.
When Jimmy Hoffa threatens the non-unionists, one imagines that Detroit is building better, safer, more reliable cars at a better price and has for decades. When Barack Obama urges the Black Caucus to march for equality, and adopts the cadences and pose of a 1960 civil rights leader, one would think the right wing in Florida just picked Bull Connor, not Herman Cain, as their straw poll winner. When the third-generation, hip spokesman for La Raza talks about inequality, one would think she herself just crossed the border from Oaxaca, forced to flee a benevolent Mexico to work in the pits of an American Mordor.
I guess you can store them right next to your secret stash of incandescent bulbs, your stash of salt, your guns, your Bibles, your tobacco, your home-grown medical pot, and your gold coins.
Each of my pupettes (the female pups) are attending weekend-long weddings this weekend, one off in LA and one big one in NYC. And the media tells us that marriage is going out of fashion...
Is September the new, hip wedding month? Or does June just get too crowded?
Pastor was preaching today about our congregation being, or becoming, a "deep church" and not a "nice church."
Since our service ran 1 1/2 hours (as it often does), and the second morning service was coming up, I didn't have time to ask him exactly what was meant.
Thank God for these intertunnels. Here's one essay on the topic: Deep Church: A Third Way? If that essay is any indication, I think our church is pretty much there. I don't know about "nice," but we are darn friendly and welcoming. Growing quickly too, for better or worse.
Obama is quite a throwback. In some ways, he would return us to centuries past. His administration is spending trillions to build high-speed trains, despite minimal consumer demand. Trains are a 19th-century technology. Subsidies are also doled out for wind power, a medieval technology. Meanwhile, the space program is all but jettisoned.
Rather than rely on fossil fuels, the president would make America run on renewable energy. The last renewable in widespread use was the horse.
Imagine millions of Americans withholding mortgage payments to banks that refuse to adjust underwater loans. Imagine divestment campaigns to pressure public pension funds and universities to pull their money from the private sector and put it into government bonds. Imagine students staging sit-ins to protest teacher layoffs. Imagine families who have lost their homes squatting in vacant, bank-owned properties. Imagine a nationwide call to arms, as passionately nonviolent but as violently passionate as the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab world.
I enjoyed Bruce's post on the High Holy Days yesterday morning. I followed his link to the 
Today's toon via 
