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.
Playboy Mansion bacteria points to Legionnaires’ disease outbreak. Is that all?: “DomainFest released a statement Tuesday that urged those who attended the Feb. 3 fundraising event at the Playboy Mansion to fill out a confidential survey to assist health officials with their investigation.” – I’d like to see that “confidential survey.” Will it rival Penthouse letters?
What were #s 1 to 5?
– In 1998, a friend, newly married, went (sans bride) to a party at the Playboy mansion. He said it lived up to his expectations. He is since divorced.
Michael Barone: The public no longer sees government shutdown as a 'train wreck'
The Decline of U.S. Naval Power: Sixty ships were commonly underway in America's seaward approaches in 1998, but today there are only 20. We are abdicating our role on the oceans.
Gallup: Americans Maintain Broad Support for Israel: U.S. adults nearly four times as likely to side with Israelis as with Palestinians
Between 1995 and 2008, according to the researcher Stanley Kurtz, Arab Gulf states gave $234 million in contracts and about $88 million in gifts to American universities. Although amounting to only a drop in the bucket of total university endowments, such targeted gifts, like the $20 million contributed by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to the University of Arkansas, and various multi-million-dollar donations to Berkeley, Cornell, Princeton, Texas A&M, Columbia, Rutgers, and other schools, have meant a very great deal locally.
The aims of these investments are very specific: the creation of a particular sort of cultural "understanding." And in this respect they have paid off, especially in the area of faculty hiring and concentration.
Tank defense: Israeli Trophy Technology May Prove of Great Value to U.S.
Here's how it works: A person passes through a passageway in which a Bioexplorers system is installed. A fan passes air into a sensor receptor, and delivers it into a chamber with several mice. The mice, having gone through intensive behavioral training, sniff the air. If the odor is one associated with items the mice have been trained to recognize, like drugs or bombs, they move into another chamber - setting off an alarm. Security officers can then move in and stop the appropriate suspect.
"The mice rarely make an error, and the entire procedure is far less invasive or intimidating than the alternatives, like using dogs or X-ray machines," says Lumbroso. "There's no radiation, and no concern about being seen naked," he adds.
ZINGO!: “the Bob Woodward and Sy Hersh brand of “journalism” will remain what it is: little more than self-serving accounts relying on anonymous or biased sources who often had little role in decision-making.”
Another reason to have liked Jane Russell (Hint: not her six-shooters)
“Benedict's arguments expand on what church leaders at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s wrote in a historic document exonerating Jews of the past or present for collective responsibility in the death of Jesus.”
You don’t have to be Arab to protest:
Despite protests,Navy to name ship after Congressman Murtha who defamed Marines. “A better name would be the USS Stab Us In The Back”
In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent "Tea Party" movement that was then surging across the country.
Meanwhile, Obama’s Attorney General Holder’s race-based view of voters rights:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. played the race card in congressional testimony on Tuesday, referring to blacks as his “people” while neglecting the rest of Americans. That race-based lens pervades his Justice Department, causing consistently skewed enforcement of the law.
3 cups fresh blueberries 3 cups fresh raspberries Cup of strawberries, cut up 3 cups fresh blackberries or boysenberries peel of a whole lime, cut into strips peel of a whole lemon, cut into strips 1 cup of fresh mint leaves
In a saucepan, combine 3 c. of water with peels and bring to boil. Remove from heat, add mint leaves and steep for 30 minutes.
Strain, then put liquid back in saucepan with the sugar until boiling and sugar is fully dissolved.
Remove from heat again, cool or chill until at least room temp, and add about a tablespoon of juice from your lime and the lemon.
Gently mix liquid with the berries and chill in fridge for a few hours.
I am always behind the curve on gizmos. I was so pleased with the Keurig machine at the inn we stayed at a few weekends ago that Mrs. BD was moved to buy one for us - really for me - with spare miles.
We usually consume only half of each pot of coffee we make, except on weekends. I can drink coffee that has been sitting around for 8 hours, but it isn't my favorite.
My beef with those Keurig cups is that they haven't made a deal yet with Dunkin' for their terrible but comfortably familiar coffee, or with Chock full of Nuts for the same, or with Starbucks, Bustelo, Gorilla, or any of the good Italian brands. Those Green Mountain coffees don't do it for me except in a pinch at a minimart.
Prof. Donald Douglas investigates UCLA’s “Students for the Extermination of Israel”: “the Muslim students were not only hostile to scrutiny, but extremely belligerent as well. Clearly the group has much to hide.”
Who knew!: The Olympics is part of the Zionist conspiracy.
What’s in the Brooklyn College pro-Palestinian’s syllabus I exposed to scrutiny? An attorney with a practice dedicated to the defense of faculty in promotion and tenure disputes, and faculty and students in disciplinary matters, is shocked, just shocked: “The syllabus was just what was wanted and, as with all administrative wrongdoing or stupidity, a challenge was never expected.” See for yourself; click the "shocked.".
Government Accountability Office report: The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development. Billion$ of bloat:
“makes us all look like jackasses," Coburn told reporters, arguing both the legislative and executive branches can barely track federal programs.
With Cuba and its foreign partners preparing to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. embargo [Obama’s on US drilling in the Gulf of Mexico] prohibits American companies from joining Cuba in efforts to extract offshore resources, denies Cuba access to U.S. equipment for drilling and environmental protection, ties the U.S. government's hands, leaving it unable to plan adequately for a potential spill,and puts our coastal assets at great peril.
These are among the findings contained in a report, "As Cuba plans to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. policy poses needless risks to our national interest," released today by the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA).
A closer look shows that the president is not lifting the burdensome requirements ObamaCare imposes on states.All he's doing is proposing to move up, from 2017 to 2014, the date on which states can apply for federal permission to impose a different but equivalently or more coercive plan to expand health insurance coverage.
Talking of assholes, "Robert Reich has actually argued that the rich should welcome redistributing more of their income to prevent an angry American populace from turning on them."
To leave you with a better taste, give this certificate to the next woman you lust after:
She may reward you by telling you to put a hat on it
A friend reminded me the other day about breakfast at the Regency. That's where he meets with people for business breakfasts when in New York, as do many heavy hitters and financial types who seem to own their regular tables.
He told me that they make an excellent corned beef hash. I love corned beef hash for breakfast.
Pic of breakfast at The Regency from this site (good pics, obnoxious writing).
I'm a bit jealous. I don't own (or need) a suit expensive enough for a Regency breakfast. This is more my speed:
The USA is unusual because wild game meat can not be sold in stores. All "game" meat sold in the US is farm-raised, whether venison, quail, pheasant, duck, or whatever.
That is the correct and righteous legacy of the devastating, 12 month/year market hunting of the past which devastated the seemingly endlessly abundant American wildlife populations.
There is no bird as special for the table as Woodcock, but you have to get out and shoot them yourself. One way to do justice to this diminutive bird (smaller than the European Woodcock) is a ravioli dish I learned from my Cordon Bleu chef friend.
Take a few Woodcock, and cut all of the meat off them - breast, thighs, etc. Chop the meat into roughly 1/2" pieces. Throw in a bowl and mix with a bit of sauteed very finely-chopped shallots and carrots, salt, pepper, a bit of fresh thyme and parsley and a little bit of truffle oil.
Take some wonton squares and brush some whisked egg on the edges as glue. Put a teaspoon or two of the mixture inside, then seal the squares tightly to eliminate any air inside, and place carefully into gently boiling water until done. It only takes a few minutes.
Serve two or three raviolis drizzled with somewhat reduced gibier sauce, with a few shavings of black truffle on top.
A chat with a Physical Therapist today at noon. She told me that they enter the codes of diagnosis etc, and Medicare or Medicaid generates a response telling them how many sessions the patient can have, of what duration, and at what payment.
"What do you do here?", I asked.
She said that their department's policy is this: Patient gets whatever is reimbursable. If 8 sessions are allowed and they only need 4, they get 8. It can't hurt. If 8 are allowed and they need 30, they get 8.
"We don't even bother anymore asking them to pay for more therapy if they need it. If it's not free, they never take it."
If there is any better mental training, or any better test of training and intellect than Chess, I don't know what it is.
(Other than real life, of course. Mastering the vicissitudes, raw deals, unfairnesses, subtleties, luck, and challenges of real life is the real test. Of course, dealing one's own personal limitations is a big part of that game.)
A friend of mine with three young kids recently banned all electronic and computer games from the house. "Enough stupid crap in this house." He announced that they would henceforth play Checkers, Chess, Backgammon, Poker, Mille Bournes, Euchre, or Hearts in the house - and that he would give each kid one game every night.
He's been working on Fritz though, to make sure he can stay ahead of them, and his eldest (9 years old) requested a Chess tutor. But even Fritz is banned for the kids. "I want them to play a real human, to learn to read them and their game."
Daubigny is considered part of The Barbizon School of realism and naturalism, but he is better known as a forerunner of Impressionism. As a friend said, Impressionism didn't come out of nowhere.
Perhaps it’s also time to dispense with the idea that European education gives the progeny of Arab autocrats — be they Saif Qaddafi or Bashar al-Assad — liberalism. Rather, it gives them Western style and skills necessary to better deceive Western audiences.
•There is nothing sophisticated about moral equivalence.
•Engagement does not change dictators; regime change does.
•Think twice before apologizing for America, because you look foolish when those you are apologizing to are guilty of far more than the university-club cocktail circuit can imagine.
•What Arab autocrats (and their sons) say behind closed doors is irrelevant; what they say to their own people is what we should judge them by.
Strangers No More tells the tale of children from 48 different countries who attend the Bialik-Rogozin School in south Tel Aviv. Many of the students have escaped genocide, war and hunger to arrive in Israel at a school where "no child is a stranger."
Der Spiegel reports Erdogan Urges Turks Not to Assimilate:'You Are Part of Germany, But Also Part of Our Great Turkey': “It was a speech that did nothing to reinforce any feeling of belonging to Germany -- Erdogan steadfastly appealed to the Turkish national pride of people who have been at home in Germany for four generations.” – Also, a leading Turkish newspaper reports why Turkey opposed sanctions on Libya: ““The business lobby’s concerns have prevailed in determining the Turkish position. The Turkish businesses fear their lucrative contracts with the Gadhafi administration may turn into valueless pieces of paper if or when Gadhafi leaves.””
Ted Kennedy, the early years: “What part of an assistant DA’s job requires a tour of Latin America, let alone brothels and interviews with “angry young men” of the Left?”
Erin O’Connor and Maurice Black are research fellows at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni: “Academic freedom belongs to the public — it is not the property of academics. Professors must explain why academic freedom is vital to our democracy — and prove that they deserve it.” Read it all.
Philadephia: How One City’s Maritime History Changed The World
“I'm sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay. And I'm sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts.”
I have always been interested in the history of the idea of retirement. Not interested because it is something I want to do (I could financially do it today if I wanted to), but interested in why an intact, healthy person would not want to fully participate in society by being a productive member.
My Grandpa worked until he was felled by a stroke at 86, and my Dad worked until macular degeneration made him incapable of driving around age 76.
Private pensions (especially from the railroads) began in the late 1800s but it wasn't until the New Deal and Social Security that the option to be put to pasture became widely available. Roosevelt was, of course, highly motivated to remove workers from the labor force in an effort to reduce unemployment, and that was the main impetus for Social Security.
In 1900, 65% of men over 65 worked. By 2000, it was 17%. Of course, nowadays many jobs build in forced retirement. I saw some stats somewhere that about 40% of retired men return to some form of paid work within three years of retirement, but I don't recall the source.
Although some employees sitting in cubicles may long for the end to their work lives, sun-drenched days with tee-times, knitting and visiting the grandchildren, Howard Stone said retirees shouldn't retire, at least in the traditional sense of the word.
"Those who say 'I'll never work again' are making a major, major mistake. Because they're going to find themselves adrift, away from a community purpose and a sense," he said.
I found a good piece, with lots of numbers, on the economic history of retirement in the US. It begins:
One of the most striking changes in the American labor market over the twentieth century has been the virtual disappearance of older men from the labor force. Moen (1987) and Costa (1998) estimate that the labor force participation rate of men age 65 and older declined from 78 percent in 1880 to less than 20 percent in 1990 (see Table 1). In recent decades, the labor force participation rate of somewhat younger men (age 55-64) has been declining as well. When coupled with the increase in life expectancy over this period, it is clear that men today can expect to spend a much larger proportion of their lives in retirement, relative to men living a century ago.
Comment from Dr. Bliss: Excellent subject. A few random thoughts:
- I think many folks want to be able to retire. Many enjoy their jobs much more once they have the financial freedom to quit.
- People I have talked to who have retired young, such as cops with full pensions at age 45, and Wall Streeters who walk away with bags of money around the same age, almost always take on a second career of some sort.
- Psychologically, being retired can feel like being unemployed or sent out to pasture. When people retire in their 50s or early-mid 60s, a workplace loses their experienced wise ones who have "seen it all before", and the experienced wise ones feel useless.
- A comment about people who "hate their jobs." People love to bitch about their jobs. But without the job, they lose a lot of human contact, a structured place to use their brains or abilities, and a role in the world.
- Hedonistic retirement: The idea of the fun and sun and travel retirement has been sold hard to the middle class over the past 30 years. From what I have seen, it isn't all it's cracked up to be. A vacation can be a refreshing change of pace and change of senery, but an endless vacation can be like a meal made of all dessert courses: cloying and unnutritious.
- People who do not return to work after retirement, but who jump into unpaid labors of love, like community service projects, local politics, working for charities, churches, and non-profits, often seem to feel a good sense of satisfaction in "giving back."
- "Meaningful work." I hate that expression. All work is useful and contributes to society, whether it is raising one's kids, milking the cows, flipping burgers, or selling bonds. People who use that expression should think hard about what they mean by it. Furthermore, folks who want their work to provide them with meaning may be barking up the wrong tree.
Unless you cover them up too much, men always glance at them. They can't help it. (Women often furtively glance at men's junk too.)
Readers would be amused by the ways Psychologists and Psychoanalysts talk about men's curiousity about our boobs. Very deep and academic, things about mothers and breast-feeding and regressions and so forth.
More to the point, I think, is this explanation from a guy that I found somewhere, and which I recently quoted in a talk:
Why do we like breasts? Cause they're warm and snuggly, bouncy and soft, friendly and cute, playful, kissable, hot and nasty, pointy and happy, round and curvy, squeezable - and there's two of them!
Artwork is from Theo, who is dedicated to the appreciation of the stunningly-designed female format.
1. Frayed cord on my cool Italian desk lamp was sparking. Brought it to my local lamp shop, since I am wary of electric repairs. Guy repaired the wire while I watched. Then he said it's a little wobbly, let's fix it. Took it apart, tightened all of the parts. Then he said that the frosted glass panels needed cleaning. He showed me how they can be removed, and cleaned them all up with their special chandelier-cleaning spray stuff. He replaced the four bulbs with the proper bulbs. They he wrapped it in bubble wrap for the ride home.
Total time: 30 minutes. Total charge: $6.25, which was for the new bulbs.
2. My Dell office computer was making terrible sounds. The IT guy I phone when I have a problem said it wasn't worth fixing, being 4 or 5 years old. My genius son replaced the fan for $10.99 and it's as good as new. Yes, I have a back-up hard drive.
From our brief inquiry into some left-wing groups, we've learned a few things. First, they share many of the same donors. Second, they often pursue the same agenda ("Get the Koch brothers!") And, while they talk an awful lot about "transparency" and the menace of "anonymous donors," their own disclosure is limited, at best.
San Francisco gets better and better: The gold-painted table that belonged to the city's first openly gay supervisor is part of an inaugural exhibit at the GLBT History Museum, the first of its kind in the nation.
Mr. Sandbrook’s not daring thesis in “Mad as Hell” is that during the ’70s a “new kind of populism” became “the most powerful political and cultural force” in America. “The notion of the virtuous citizen locked in battle against big government, big business and a decadent elite,” he writes, “was the single most compelling theme of the 1970s.”… “One of the biggest mistakes liberals ever made,” he writes, “was to underestimate their adversaries as kooks, eccentrics, losers, blindly lashing out against progress and modernity.”
Nowadays the late American literary critic Edward Said passes for a moral authority on the historical relations of the Arab and Western worlds, and every single month a multitude of clever, ambitious, wind-sniffing young academic researchers pay homage to his memory. Said fitted himself perfectly to the needs of our era: though his entire adult life was spent in Manhattan, he purported to present the authentic voice of Arab victimhood to an intelligentsia yearning to reject everything their own countries stood for, as an act of spiritual self-purification. Like his soulmate Noam Chomsky, Said presented a political perspective of almost child-like simplicity: the West, in its domineering ignorance, was forever doomed to "other" the Orient, and to treat it as its inferior, even while Said and his disciples blissfully "othered" the Middle East themselves, as a sepulchre of Arab suffering, in a mirror-image of those they deplored. Said's acolytes are probably less familiar with the articles he wrote over many years for the Egyptian state press - articles devoid of the criticism of any existing Arab government; (least of all Mubarak's); and which reduce all the problems of the Arab world to the actions of those two familiar pantomime villains, the US and Israel. You will not be surprised to hear that Said had nothing whatever to say about Libya's absurd Mussolini imitator, Gaddafi - except to heap abuse upon the US when it responded to the colonel's various terrorist provocations.
…Instead, like any good Orientalist, he wanted the Arab world to remain pre-modern, atavistic, romantic - a figure out of his own fervid imaginings. You can search Said's articles in vain for the words now on the lips of young people across the region: democracy, freedom, women's rights. Instead, like earlier colonialist bromides they are souvenirs of pure social and political reaction.
Far from being a cause of the revolution, antagonism to Israel everywhere served the interests of oppressors. Europeans have no right to be surprised. Of all people, we ought to know from our experience of Nazism that antisemitism is a conspiracy theory about power, rather than a standard racist hatred of poor immigrants. Fascistic regimes reached for it when they sought to deny their own people liberty.
For us to balance the $3.6 billion deficit we have, not only now, but to insure we can continue to do it in the future, so our kids don't inherit the same dire consequences, we've got to have assurances. And over the past two weeks even after they made those promises we've seen local union after local union rush to their school boards, their city councils, their technical school boards and rush through contracts in the past two weeks that had no contribution to the pension and no contribution to health care.
"Favorite" is not a helpful word. Let me ask our scientific poll questions a better way:
I am always behind the curve on gizmos. I was so pleased with the Keurig machine at the inn we stayed at a few weekends ago that Mrs. BD was moved to buy one for us - really for me - with spare miles. 
Got any Woodock left in the freezer?
It's the cat's meow: 
Unless you cover them up too much, men always glance at them. They can't help it. (Women often furtively glance at men's junk too.)
1. Frayed cord on my cool Italian desk lamp was sparking. Brought it to my local lamp shop, since I am wary of electric repairs. Guy repaired the wire while I watched. Then he said it's a little wobbly, let's fix it. Took it apart, tightened all of the parts. Then he said that the frosted glass panels needed cleaning. He showed me how they can be removed, and cleaned them all up with their special chandelier-cleaning spray stuff. He replaced the four bulbs with the proper bulbs. They he wrapped it in bubble wrap for the ride home. 
Until I saw that particular picture, though, I didn't realize how much she looked like my Lovely Bride.