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.
An internal investigation at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has uncovered academic fraud involving the department of African and Afro-American Studies
So many issues come up in the course of a presidential term and so much of what happens can’t be predicted in advance that it makes a certain amount of sense to vote for the person rather than the platform.
But whether or not this is a smart way to vote, in the real world it is the way many Americans do vote, and Mitt Romney has to figure out how he can make a stronger personal impression on undecided voters.
It isn’t an easy problem to solve. One senses that Romney is more George H. W. Bush than Bill Clinton; he comes from a world where privacy is valued and where sharing can seem like showing off.
Disgusting. Even more craven is Ms. McMillen’s concluding apology “for the distress these incidents have caused our readers.” Are the Chronicle’s readers really such delicate plants? Well, as I say, almost all of them are academics, so the answer is undoubtedly Yes.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has long been receding into semi-senescent irrelevance. This latest episode underscores its moral bankruptcy as well. What a pathetic showing.
All those "distressed" academics know that what Riley wrote is accurate. They protest too much. However, academia has rules about what you may and may not say in public.
Interestingly, the now-racist-branded Riley is married to a black guy.
(Etymology of "sop": O.E. sopp- "bread soaked in some liquid," (in soppcuppe "cup into which sops are put"), from P.Gmc. *suppo, related to O.E. verb suppan (see sup (2)), probably reinforced by O.Fr. soupe (see soup (n.)). Meaning "something given to appease" is from 1660s, an allusion to the sop given by the Sibyl to Cerberus in the "Aeneid.")
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.
A colorful, not uncommon finch-like, sparrow-sized bird often seen in the Eastern US during migration - which is right now. During breeding season, the male is dramatically-pigmented but, depending on the light, they can appear black.
We now live in a country where sixty percent of the households get more from the federal government than they put in. We now live in a country where the Democratic Party has gone a long way towards fulfilling its long-term dream of turning citizens into clients of the state.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The condescension inherent in this vision is apparent in every step of Julia’s pilgrimage toward a community-gardening retirement. But in an increasingly atomized society, where communities and families are weaker than ever before, such a vision may have more appeal — to both genders — than many of the conservatives mocking the slide show might like to believe.
... liberalism does not work, contrary as it is to human nature. I wish I could just say that about every thirty years or so, forgetful Americans take an allergy shot of it, suffer the reaction, and then get another three decades of Carter/Obama immunity. But instead statist redistribution and intrusion are an insidious process, no longer specific just to Democrats, but bound up in the growing affluence and leisure of the West—both serving its various needs of alleviating guilt to the masses, subsidizing half the nation, and providing much envied power and lucre to a highly educated and technocratic elite who have little talent for acquiring either in the private sector. That it is not sustainable does not mean that it will not cause havoc as it totters and collapses. Look at Russia and Eastern Europe circa 1989, or the present-day EU, or Greece proper, or California or Illinois today.
15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.
15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
New Mayan Calendar Discovered 
On the
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.
Image from 
John 15:1-8
The well-known excerpt from Blake's rarely-read poem "Milton" is called "Jerusalem" when used as the popular English wedding hymn.