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.
This is one of our Pee Wee Oakleaf Hydrangeas. It shows what happens when you prune them: almost no blooms. Even though it is a dwarf version Oakleaf, it outgrew its space and I had to shape it aggressively this winter.
Pot should not be illegal. It's just like Prohibition - everybody who wants pot gets it anyway. It's wrong to outlaw every dumb thing there is to do in life. Part of freedom is freedom to do dumb things - and to deal with the consequences.
There is something truly wrong about that. You might term it an implicit conspiracy against the people, similar to the conspiracies between governments and government unions.
It is a phenomenon we see over and over again: a liberal will make a wild accusation or engage in defamatory speculation about a political opponent. The accusation will then be taken up by left-wingers across the internet and, if it looks promising, it will be repeated in far-left newspapers like the New York Times. Liberals everywhere will eat it up and elaborate on it. Then, in due course, it will be proved entirely baseless.
What happens next? Do liberal web sites, columnists and reporters retract their fictitious claims and apologize? Hardly ever. By the time the truth comes out, they have moved on to some new libel or conspiracy theory.
It's an upscale village of 19,000 now, but 25 years ago it was just turning from semi-rural to suburban. The farms are all gone. Even with a train connection to NYC, it's a hike. Wiki again:
The town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States. In 2008, CNN Money ranked New Canaan first in the nation with the highest median family income.
(Prosperous, indeed, but what those stats really mean, in part, is that there are no poor neighborhoods there to drag down the average.)
In the last go-round, they accused the raters of being too lenient. I think the raters are trying to find a delicate way of opining that Greece and Portugal are technically bankrupt.
Catholics keep talking about “calling,” and asking people to stop yakking about what they “deserve” long enough to seriously ask, “Is it truly for me? Is it what I am called to? Is there a possibility that I am not supposed to have this, in order to open my life up to something else? What might that be? Am I being led somewhere I had not imagined?”
I know this supermarket well. It's the last supermarket before you turn north, last chance to stock up. After that, not much except Lema's and Cumbie's.
The overgrown thing had taken on a corroded aspect from the depredations of the beetles; it looked like a leprous dragon, smelled like a grandmother, and pinched like a mortgage when you touched it looking for errant shuttlecocks or wiffleballs.
What happened to all of those Japanese Beetles that used to eat the roses? I haven't seen one in years. My Mom used to send us out to pick them off of her roses and drop them in little jars of gasoline. Like picking blueberries.
Pork for all! Greece is bankrupt, and everybody knows it. There is no way they will ever pay back what they have borrowed to sustain their vote-buying politics. Maybe they could just sell the whole country to Club Med, and change those Euros or Drachmas into drink beads.
Brits can't get top students to go to medical school anymore (nobody really wants to work for the NHS) - so they have to import docs from Whereisitstan.
She sort-of agrees with David Brooks. I don't know what I think except that the Dems cannot stop spending money they don't have to give people stuff they don't want. Plunder politics.
"There are 80,000 bartenders in the United States with bachelor's degrees," Vedder said. He says that 17 percent of baggage porters and bellhops have a college degree, 15 percent of taxi and limo drivers.
Nothing wrong with that (a bartender who can discuss Paradise Lost with you is a good thing) - unless those folks were scammed into getting those diplomas as a financial investment. I see many parallels with sub-prime mortgage sales. Most colleges these days are all about sales - warm bodies with loans in hand. It's become the Big Education industry, built on debt.
No Republican has won the presidency without significant name recognition entering primary season since Warren G. Harding in 1920. That is because Republicans have to face down Democrats’ constant attacks on their personhood, attacks are made more effective because the Republican platform is supposed to be personal responsibility and aspirational performance standards, while the Democratic platform is handouts, pure and simple. The only way for Republicans to win is to make it widely known to the American public prior to their demonization that they are good and decent human beings.
President Obama’s only hope, by contrast, is to personalize, polarize, and destroy. It’s pure Alinsky, and it will work unless Republicans nominate someone so honest and eminently kind that Obama’s criticism seems as foolish as it clearly is.
One of our white mophead varieties - Blushing Bride - in bloom right now, and, in typical hydrangea style, with a little mid-day wilt from being planted (by me) in a tad too much sunshine:
"Just like we can’t make the organic morphology of slums fit into the modern rules of property ownership, we can’t make traditionally emergent cities through the current planning system. (All efforts to produce traditional neighborhoods have so far produced only imitations of them.) ..."
Indeed, a neigborhood can not be "made." I think of planned development like Disneyworld: phoney to the point of creepy. Stepford places where you can't grow things in your front lawn.
Have you ever seen a new housing development in the US with a corner store, a cheap barbershop, or a local pub? Apparently there is a market for the unreal and sanitized.
It is hard to understand politics if you are hung up on reality. Politicians leave reality to others. What matters in politics is what you can get the voters to believe, whether it bears any resemblance to reality or not.
Under Johnson, an important Democratic operative, Fannie Mae became, Morgenson and Rosner say, “the largest and most powerful financial institution in the world.” Its power derived from the unstated certainty that the government would be ultimately liable for Fannie’s obligations. This assumption and other perquisites were subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac worth an estimated $7 billion a year. They retained about a third of this.
Morgenson and Rosner report that in 1998, when Fannie Mae’s lending hit $1 trillion, its top officials began manipulating the company’s results to generate bonuses for themselves. That year Johnson’s $1.9 million bonus brought his compensation to $21 million. In nine years, Johnson received $100 million.
At Big Government yesterday, Phillip Dennis asked, “What Has Happened to Liberals In the Past 50 Years?” Here’s one answer: They went from viewing America as a beacon of freedom (or a Shining City upon a Hill, to borrow a phrase popular with both liberal icon JFK and former Roosevelt liberal Ronald Wilson Reagan) worth sharing with a beleaguered world to a Show About Nothing during that time. If only they had Upped Their Game during this period, instead.
Time-saving projects always take more time than one expects.
We have always been partial to a gardening mix with hanging baskets, large pots, and planters. According to my local expert Mrs. BD, pots can add structure and height to flower gardens. The only thing that drives her nuts are clashing colors, and she does not like to permit annuals to steal the show from precious perennials and flowering shrubs with their frequently more subtle colors. (Furthermore, she believes that varied and interesting foliage is just as important in a garden as are blooms.) Red annuals? Fugeddaboutit. She says they are for McDonald's and banks - commercial-looking. She is right that overly-bright flowers look commercial and tacky rather than homey unless they are the only thing you are growing.
You could say that she feels that using any annuals is cheating, but I am not so doctrinaire about the elite gardening rules.
Our gardening trick for in-ground gardens is to use plenty of mulch instead of using irrigation, but if you enjoy pots and planters the way the Italians do, and do not always remember to, or bother to, lug watering cans around every night or every morning with all of the other things that need doing, you can assemble one of these sorts of cool dripper systems, set the timer, and forget about them until frost. Our cousins on Nantucket use them for all of their rental houses, and they work great. The mini-hoses are invisible.
Trust me. They'll look much better and grow better with daily water. Pots and planters dry out in one sunny summer day. (Smaller pots don't even make it through a day.) The occasional light dose of Miracle Gro in planters doesn't hurt either.
“The question is, has the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce been so loosely construed that now Congress can do anything at all, that there is nothing it cannot do.
“Let me ask the three of you. Obviously, obesity and its costs affect interstate commerce. Does Congress have the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?”
Apparently none of the Dems on the panel could answer that question.
...in the frenzy of our entitlement mania, where happiness is viewed as an "unalienable Right," we are losing the freedom to fail. That loss is a major factor in America's decline. Much of the unprecedented growth of government aims to protect people from the consequences of failure and the vagaries of life.
The best rendition of America the Beautiful ever, by Ray Charles. (It could be a clearer copy, but still the best way to start the 4th of July - or any day in the good old USA.)
Our Founding Fathers are our Knights of the Round Table, and our revolutionary war farmer/soldiers were our knights, just as our soldiers today are our knights. All of these knights risked, and risk, their lives and everything, so we can live as we please. It is almost too much of a good deal, for which humble and deep gratitude is the only proper attitude.
We all do wonder whether we risk enough, sacrifice enough for the freedom we take for granted: probably not. Thanks to those who have preceded us, we have it easy; maybe too easy, and take it all for granted. Shame on me, if I do.
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Imagine the pics I could take for Maggie's with one of these sorts of babies instead of my Costco pocket point and shoots. Trouble is, I'd never carry one of those larger things around - just a pain in the ass to lug a camera around all day when you're hiking in the woods with bottles of water, or up and down the hills of Spoleto or Norcia with a shopping bag full of jars of truffles and truffle sauce and and cinghiale salumi and Umbrian olive oil and stringozzi. When you shrink all those magapixels down to size, you lose the detail anyway.
The experience is the thing. A pic is just a souvenir, and the camera can be a distraction from simply "being there". And, in general, nobody wants to look at anybody else's artful pics (altho some folks seem to enjoy my travel pics on Maggie's but I make extra effort to make them informative rather than artful, illos of a mini-narrative).
It's fun to go places, sometimes, camera-free so you don't end up a slave to the lens. Same thing with periodically going a week or two without looking at the internet, or without beer.
Freedom from habits, whether good habits or bad ones, can be enlightening.
We are accustomed to thinking that our country is in the midst of a long transition from an industrial economy to a "service" economy, and these figures would seem to confirm that perception. But the service economy is not what we often think it is. The images that most readily come to mind when we think of these sectors might involve retail sales, information-technology consulting, and financial services. But Spence and Hlatshwayo's work shows that, within the non-tradable sector, health care was easily the growth leader — increasing from 10 million to 16.3 million jobs, and accounting for almost 25% of total job growth in the past two decades. Government was second, growing from 18.4 million to 22.5 million jobs, and accounting for about 15% of total job growth. Of this expansion in government employment, nearly 70% was attributable to jobs in education. Today, the drivers of the American labor market are therefore clearly health, education, and government work; these sectors form the backbone of our post-industrial economy.
...illegal immigration has transmogrified into one of the most illiberal, reactionary phenomena on the current American scene, an ossified concept of racial solidarity and tribalism that attempts to privilege one group, solely on the basis of race or ethnic fides, in its exemption from federal law, and in a manner that would never be extended to other immigrant lobbies, with less numbers, influence, and potential electoral power. We have come full circle back to the 1920s when immigration was likewise largely seen through racial lenses — when one’s race determined how one navigated immigration law.
Should there now be 6 million Korean nationals — and more on their way — inside California without legality, would the proverbial Hispanic community in large part be calling for stricter border enforcement? Would it be amnesty or deportation? English-only or Korean-language interpreters?
Adams thought the day of independence should be commemorated by “Acts of Devotion to God Almighty,” and further “solemnized” (as he confided in a letter to his wife, Abigail) “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
2:8 The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.
2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.
2:10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
2:11 for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
2:12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
2:13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
I always thought it amusing when it was "the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." The Song of Solomon is good stuff, a glimpse into Jewish history and literature. Pic is our common North American Mourning dove.
Everybody has an opinion on pruning tomato plants. Here's my view of the subject.
First, I'll assume we are growing "Indeterminate" types of tomatoes, i.e. vine tomatoes as opposed to the tree-like ("determinate," aka "bush" tomatoes) ones often grown in pots. Left alone, vine tomatoes will grow 10+ feet along the ground, as you can often see in gardens in Bermuda, but we stake them.
Up here in New England (Yankeeland), we need to prune them because our short growing season doesn't allow much time for good fruit formation. We have to prune most of the suckers and plenty of their leaves, and we cut their tops off in July or August - all so they will put their energy into good fruit and not into further pointless growth.
Further south, diligent pruning is less important.
And even though I grow mine in fine soft soil, I fertilize them with liquid fertilizer whenever I think of it. I usually have lots of plants, but only ended up with 10-12 this year of around 5 varieties.
Here's the best site I have seen on indeterminate tomato vine gardening. For all of the effort, and despite our short season, it is well-worth it when you pick one on a hot day and eat it in the garden like an apple. A tomato should be hot, with little salt on it.
We owe Club ABC Travel a plug today because they have been so kind and helpful to my in-laws this past week. Yes, they will discuss your tours on the phone with you. Good folks.
Because of ABC's volume, nobody can claim that they cannot afford to see the world in reasonable comfort if they want to and, if you are an inexperienced or unconfident traveller, they arrange everything for you. If you want to spend a little more money for organized trips, you can try Tauck for the highest-end version - but it's not necessary.
If you would rather have new wallpaper or a new TV or iPad, it's your choice - and your loss.
I'd rather be hanging out and trying to get lost in Budapest than sitting on my ass shooting farts into my couch while playing with a new iPad.
Life is short, and getting shorter every precious passing minute.
Subprime Scandal: Democrats thought they'd dammed up the truth about government's role in the financial crisis. But the levees are breaking, thanks to a spate of rogue new books on the subject. The latest, "Reckless Endangerment," shreds the narrative carefully constructed by Democrats and the liberal media that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were only bit players in the crisis and followed Wall Street into subprime lending.
"Democracies endure until the citizens care more for what the state can give them than for its ability to defend rich and poor alike; until they care more for their privileges than their responsibilities; until they learn they can vote largess from the public treasury and use the state as an instrument for plundering, first those who have wealth, then those who create it” -- Jerry Pournelle.
Giant hogweed
It's 
American Front Lawn Update: 
Sipp recalls 
The 
Or, at least, some modest help towards buying one of them, which is far more likely. Just a little help. 
Robin Hanson: 
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Everybody has an opinion on pruning tomato plants. Here's my view of the subject.