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.
New wheels for ye olde wheelbarrow. I done wore out the old tires. These are slick (Home Depot). Shiny and guaranteed never to deflate, and thus good for impressing the chicks.
Rides like a Beemer now. Get a new girlfriend, wheel her all over town in that thing.
Home Depot, unfortunately, had no whitewalls available.
The clam rake? It does double duty for clamming on Cape Cod and getting nasty roots out of gardens.
Alas, more of the latter these days. My honey-do list keeps getting longer, but I ain't askeered of work unless it's lectrical.
Give me a list, and I will do it. That's why I am here.
We sometimes wonder what the US Constitution would look like if it had been written by “qualified” political scientists with Ph.Ds and a solid body of peer reviewed published work behind them. We think it would probably stink in comparison with the current version ..
All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart Of the townland; green and heavy headed Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods. Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun. Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell. There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies, But best of all was the warm thick slobber Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring I would fill jampots full of the jellied Specks to range on the window-sills at home, On shalves at school, and wait and watch until The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges To a coarse croaking that I had not heard Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus. Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped: The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting. I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
I like the way he gets creeped out by his guilty imagination. Heaney's bio here.
It's just one more of the many NYC neighborhoods that I am fond of, meaning 53rd between 1st Ave and Park Ave. A good area to be young, single (and straight). The pubs are hopping on Friday evening, and all the young people look good.
I think it's kinda cool to see people hanging out on stoops, right in Midtown.
Photo shows the "Lipstick building," where Bernie Madoff's offices were. 7th and 8th floors, I am told.
I just came up this this at my desk. "New services" means new medical services people will use now that they have insurance - along the lines of preventative care etc, which in my option may decrease "S" in the long term but not enough for an overall economic benefit. This model assumes the cost of insurance will be the same for everyone. My colleagues think it is a pretty robust equation.
Seems to me she gets to the heart of it. No, insurance companies cannot afford it without raising rates to a level which is impossible for the middle class and unacceptible to the federal regulators. Like requiring people to buy hybrid Rolls Royces that they don't want and cannot use. Then the companies will be blamed for the prices and few will remember that the government required the whole mess (just like the housing bubble).
Many claim this is the best Italian antipasto. It is properly made with dandelion greens.
This alone is plenty of lunch for me, but I rarely bother with lunch anyway unless it is a fun or social occasion. The simple recipe here.
Tastes fine, or better, if the flattened meat air-dries a little bit. Maybe half an hour or so.
This one was served to me in a cute little restaurant in Todi last June, sitting under the grape vines. Glass of the local Orvieto - not a great vino but just right with this on a warm day.
I'm far more concerned with the precedent the Court will set regarding the further expansion of the Commerce Clause. If the Court fails to declare a federal mandate of this type unconstitutional, that would be an enormous triumph for "progressives"---far beyond the momentary victory of the Court's upholding Obamacare.]
Cahoon Hollow is a beach in Wellfleet, on good old unfancy lower (ie, upper, or outer) Cape Cod. It's their only ocean beach with a bar/restaurant - The Beachcomber - in an old life-saving station. They have bands. I believe Sippican played there in his dissipated youth.
The area is undeveloped thanks to JFK's Cape Cod National Seashore. Sometimes government does good things - but usually not. If you like warm water, the Cape Cod beaches are not for you. And unlike California beaches, at Cape Cod beaches people sit under beach umbrellas, sometimes have to wear wind-breakers in August, and tend to bury their heads in books while the cheerful sand fleas nip at their ankles.
These beaches attract some surfers, but the main water activity is body surfing: exhilarating fun, endlessly challenging, and the turbulence will pull down a gal's bikini top in an instant. Modest gals who like to body surf do not wear bikinis.
Lots of seals to swim with out there in August. The occasional Great White Shark, too. No fraidy cats allowed.
We probably don't eat as many hamburgers as we should, here at the Farm, but I am planning a friends and neighbors cookout for around 30 people and thought I would do some research on the best burger recipes.
Seems like a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce per pound, salt and pepper, and some Cuisenarted red onions is the simplest way to prep the meat. My preference for grilling is fatty beef, not lean. From Costco, of course.
My reading informs me that some people stir eggs, herbs, and all sorts of other things into the meat, but that sounds more like meatballs than burgers to me. Plus I like a burger rare, and who wants to eat raw eggs?
In less than 40 months, Obama destroyed the greatest bipartisan good will that any recent president has enjoyed, and has done more to discredit Keynesian neo-socialist politics than have all of talk radio, Fox News, and the internet combined. In just two years, he took a Democratic Congress and lost the House in the largest midterm setback since 1938. In other words, the people — fifty percent of whom either do not pay federal income taxes or receive some sort of state or federal entitlement or both — saw the best face of modern neo-socialism imaginable, and they were not quite sold on it.
Second, it is hard to screw up America in just four years. Look at it this way: gas and oil production has soared despite, not because of, the federal government. The rest of the world — the unraveling European Union, the Arab Spring, Putin’s Russia, aging Japan, authoritarian China, the recrudescent Marxism in Latin America — reminds us of American exceptionalism. The verdict from Wisconsin is that the statist model is over. The public union, big pension, non-fireable employee model is left only with an “après nous, le déluge“ sigh. The private sector is not doing fine, but shortly will be when it is assured taxes won’t soar, energy will be cheaper, and Obamacare will cease. The irony is that the last four years have reminded us of what we still can be, and how we differ from most other places in the world.
..."I'll say this, I don't give a damn about your dreams."
Thunder on the Mountain. How good is this? A masterpiece, in my opinion. The punch of the lyrics and the punch of the tune, plus the way the more recent Bob records sound under-produced. "I got the pork chops, she got the pie, she ain't no angel and neither am I..."
No president in memory has done more to divide America than Barack Obama. Exploiting every division for political gain, he has pitted poor against rich, blacks and Hispanics against whites, gays against straights, women against men, young against old, and union members against business and government leaders. Mainstream Americans are tired of these divisions, and they want a president who speaks of "believing in America," not believing in black America, Hispanic America, young America, female America, gay America, or unionized America.
The American people are tired of change. What they want is jobs, better wages, stability, and security.
...you directly imply that I am a “denier”, as I am highly skeptical of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (not just “anthropogenic global warming”, which is plausible if not measurable, although there are honest grounds to doubt even this associated with the details of the Carbon Cycle that remain unresolved by model or experiment). Since I am a theoretical physicist, I find this enormously offensive. I might as well label you an idiot for using it, when you’ve never met me, have no idea of my competence or the strength of my arguments for or against any aspect of climate dynamics (because on this list I argue both points of view as the science demands and am just as vigorous in smacking down bullshit physics used to challenge some aspect of CAGW as I am to question the physics or statistical analysis or modelling used to “prove” it). But honestly, you probably aren’t an idiot (are you?) and no useful purpose is served by ad hominem or emotionally loaded human descriptors
Well, it's about women but it might as well be about men. In a sense, everybody wants it all, but everbody's "all" is different. Furthermore, there is this annoying thing called reality which always gets in the way of wishes.
New wheels for ye olde wheelbarrow. I done wore out the old tires. These are slick (Home Depot). Shiny and guaranteed never to deflate, and thus good for impressing the chicks.
We had some internet glitches today but now the Farm is open for business again. 
Death of a Naturalist
Photos: Before and after views of 
We probably don't eat as many hamburgers as we should, here at the Farm, but I am planning a friends and neighbors cookout for around 30 people and thought I would do some research on the best burger recipes.
CNN: 
Those two peacocks 
I am taking Sundays off from my morning links this summer. 
Genius Israeli scientists have produced a