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.
If you’re shopping at Walmart because you believe it’s one of the last big chains with mainstream American values, you might want to rethink that idea.
The current coronavirus pandemic appears more comparable in terms of overall mortality to the influenza epidemics of 1957 and 1968, or the British flu epidemics of the late 1990s. Of course, the United States and United Kingdom did not only not shut down for any of those epidemics, they received little attention outside the health care system.
City politicians are covering themselves in shame in the current crisis. Take this loony tweet from City Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan): “If there is a spike in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks, don’t blame the protesters” but rather “racism” and the NYPD: “Police are increasing covid risk by using tear gas and putting people in crowded jails.”
Let’s all pretend a Republican now serves as mayor of Minneapolis rather than for one day out of the last 59 years. Let’s all pretend Democrats do not enjoy a political monopoly over every big city plagued by the worst violence. Let’s all pretend white supremacists and Nazis and Russians destroyed American cities rather than the people who vote for the people saying white supremacists and Nazis and Russians destroyed American cities. Let’s all pretend that one cop’s inhumanity indicts the entirety of law enforcement but many activists’ violence says nothing about the protests.
And just like that, it became clear that the national torture of three years of the Russian collusion investigation simply should not have occurred. The problems were myriad. In Rosenstein’s words, the FBI “was not following the written protocols, and that significant errors appeared in applications.” What has emerged from the recent inspector general’s report and this testimony is that the Obama administration’s efforts to investigate and prosecute Trump administration officials wasn’t based on facts, but negligence or malice.
CNN last week, "How are we going to stop these sunbathers on California beaches?!!!" CNN this week, "Masses in the streets walking arm in arm. Good for them."
Once the violence began, any effort to “understand” it should have stopped, since that understanding is inevitably exculpatory. The looters are not grieving over the stomach-churning arrest and death of George Floyd; they are having the time of their lives. You don’t protest or mourn a victim by stealing oxycontin, electronics, jewelry, and sneakers.
Unfortunately, we have yet to reach the bottom of that curve when we pass from epidemic to endemic stage, meaning a continuing small but steady number of cases and deaths. But it’s coming. Meanwhile, we still have time to rise to the occasion, to show sanity and sobriety. To reveal what The Great Emancipator called “the better angels of our nature.”
Mrs. BD notes that most of the mobs appear to be white in skin tone. This is no local "protest".
Another point I'd like to make - almost never mentioned - is the disinhibiting pleasure people can take in a no-rules situation. I do not see anger. I see mob disinhibition and excitement.
... it’s simply not true that black men have no power and are always victims, not even when some creepy white woman tries to make them victims. Society was not on Amy Cooper’s side and it’s not on the side of the cop who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck either. That’s not to say that all is well and we should just move on. But some recognition of the fact that this is not being shrugged off by most white people seems appropriate if we’re going to have this conversation.
I am not sure what success is, except in specific goals like deadlifting. This piece from MTC is Who Succeeds, and Why?
It is puzzling to me that family environment has so little effect. That does not apply to me. Most of my life-long interests, tastes, and pursuits were nurtured at home but that might not be statistically normal.
As a general rule, when the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN begin to parrot a narrative, the truth often is found in simply believing just the opposite.
We find 3 new hires for every 10 layoffs caused by the shock and estimate that 42 percent of recent layoffs will result in permanent job loss. Our survey evidence aligns well with anecdotal evidence of large pandemic-induced demand increases at some firms, with contemporaneous evidence on gross business formation, and with a sharp pandemic-induced rise in equity return dispersion across firms. After developing the evidence, we consider implications of our evidence for the economic outlook and for policy responses to the pandemic. Unemployment benefit levels that exceed worker earnings, policies that subsidize employee retention, occupational licensing restrictions, and regulatory barriers to business formation will impede reallocation responses to the COVID-19 shock.
More accurately from the German, "earworm." Anyway, the Quartermaster's Song was a WW1 Brit marching song which became a Brit Scouting campfire song, and later a US Scouting and ordinary campfire song. Also, a good car song. All with varied lyrics.
I have no doubt that the WW1 versions were bawdy. I heard "There was Hank, Hank, givin' himself a wank in the store...". The magic of a tune like this is that you just make up all the verses you can think of to keep it going.
The silly refrain about "My eyes are dim, I cannot see.." is great, but here are some of my favorite lines:
There was tea, tea, but none for you and me in the stores...
There were snakes, snakes, big as garden rakes in the stores...
There are eggs, eggs, eggs with hairy legs in the stores...
There is gravy gravy, enough to float the Navy in the stores...
There are rats, rats, big as bleedin' cats in the stores...
There are rats, rats, with bowler hats and spats...
The Gospel According to Peter Thiel - 
The winner of the riots/protests 
Image via 
Image: I forget whence 