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.
Sippican has published his first book, and it's about time. He calls it "flash fiction." As many of our readers know, the guy knows how to repair a chair and to spin a yarn.
It's the time of year when the Box Turtles have emerged from hibernation and begin to roam, like singles on the East Side of Manhattan, looking for food, drink, and one-night stands.
There are several versions of this charming turtle - the Florida, the Eastern, the Ornate, Western, and the Gulf. Within each type, the coloration is highly variable. The above male Eastern happens to be highly colored.
The Eastern is under a good deal of pressure, especially in the Northeast, where development, "progress," dopey humans, pet collectors, dogs, and lawn-mowers impinge on its ancient habitat, or just plain kill them. In much of their range, especially in the Northeast, they are either endangered or "of special concern."
Land-dwelling, but not true tortoises, Boxies like to have water nearby, enjoy shady woodlands, and can swim a little bit if they have to but never live in water. They can live over 60 years in an area smaller than a football field, and they learn their way around it very well. Since they rarely encounter one-another, the females are able to store live sperm for up to 6-10 years, it is thought, using it as needed. Very feminist and modern. Still, they tend to live in "colonies," more or less.
If you see one on the road, please stop and help it across so it doesn't get squashed. I have been known to barely avoid multi-car pile-ups to help a Boxie across the road. If your dog gets one, punish the dog harshly so that it will never want to bother a turtle again, and let the thing go free. They are wonderful and lovely critters, and endangered in New England. Very few of their young survive to adulthood, so a wild adult is a rare and precious thing that has survived many obstacles, but it was not designed to cope with roads and cars. Don't take them home - they are wild animals and not pets, and where they are is where they belong, unless you are working on a population transplant project.
If you are lucky enough to have Box Turtles living near you, learn more about them, also here.
There's always the option of throwing it in the back of your truck, giving it a stick, chopping its head off and making a soup out of it. They are known to be quite tasty. That's what Chinese people do when they find a big Snapper on a road. FYI, any Snapper on a road is probably a female headed for her egg-laying site.
That must be because Americans are so darn smart. I took an Econ course in college where the Marxist prof gave everybody an A, and said he would do so on the first day. It was a popular course...
Australian Prime Minister Julia “Toast” Gillard has hit on the ingenious idea of clobbering one of the world’s most thriving – and also one of the most carbon-intensive – economies with a tax on one of its main industrial by-products, CO2, which will punish business, hamstring economic growth, boost unemployment and make life for everyone outside the enviro-rent-seeking professions more difficult and expensive. And all in order to achieve the wonderful goal of ensuring that by 2020 the world’s temperature will be altered with such refinement and subtlety that not even the most sophisticated measuring equipment yet devised is likely to notice the difference.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
I never meant this to be a Hinckley week (the Offical Maggie's Farm Sailboats are the Alerion line, or maybe plain Cape Cod catboats), but this is an example of what Hinckley used to be best known for: classic, elegant cruising sailboats. In my experience, they can't point worth a darn but they are a good ride.
This 1986 Hinckley Bermuda 40 yawl is for sale for a reasonable $330,000.
I’d rather die. I respect the wishes of people who want to live as long as they can. But I would like the same respect for those of us who decide — rationally — not to. I’ve done my homework. I have a plan. If I get pneumonia, I’ll let it snuff me out. If not, there are those other ways. I just have to act while my hands still work: the gun, narcotics, sharp blades, a plastic bag, a fast car, over-the-counter drugs, oleander tea (the polite Southern way), carbon monoxide, even helium. That would give me a really funny voice at the end.
I have found the way. Not a gun. A way that’s quiet and calm.
Knowing that comforts me. I don’t worry about fatty foods anymore. I don’t worry about having enough money to grow old. I’m not going to grow old.
"Obama once again showed the true face of a Chicago ward boss when he dangled the threat of interrupted social security and veteran benefits checks over the heads of the American people. This is thug politics."
“Government should not be involved in the bedrooms of consenting adults. I have always been a strong advocate of liberty and freedom from unnecessary government intervention into our lives. The freedoms that our forefathers fought for in this country are sacred and must be preserved. The Republican Party cannot be sidetracked into discussing these morally judgmental issues — such a discussion is simply wrongheaded. We need to maintain our position as the party of efficient government management and the watchdogs of the “public’s pocket book”.
The U.S.'s projected long-term welfare costs, including the new health-care law, are the justification the Obama economists give for pushing spending to 25% or more of GDP. The tax increase the president is fairly shrieking for this week isn't for the August debt limit. It's for the next 25 years.
"If we're going to move to a European welfare state," says Prof. Lucas, "we're going to have to pay a European price." And that price could be a permanently lower level of GDP per person. The U.S.'s amazing 100-year ride would slow.
She is fed up with lies. I guess it took her a long time to realize that politicans are liars and that our MSM is, for some reasons I cannot fully understand (I do have my theories) totally in the tank for anything Leftist and runs interference for them constantly. Still, for her, better late than never. Naive as heck, but a nice gal. h/t Moonbattery:
I went to a consultant a few years back, and he said, “You want to make your life better?” I said, “Yeah, sure.” He said, “Stop drinking and don’t read the newspapers.” So I did both.
Ace thought this piece in Esquire, How Can We Not Love Obama?, was a satire, but finally concluded it isn't. One quote from the florid piece:
The turning point came that glorious week in the spring when, in the space of a few days, he released his long-form birth certificate, humiliated Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and assassinated Osama bin Laden. The effortlessness of that political triptych — three linked masterpieces demonstrating his total command over intellectual argument, low comedy, and the spectacle of political violence — was so overwhelmingly impressive that it made political geniuses of the recent past like Reagan and Clintonseem ham-fisted. Formed in the fire of other people's wars, other people's financial crises, Obama stepped out of Bush's shadow that week, almost three years after taking over the presidency.
To tell the truth, I still can't tell whether it's tongue-in-cheek or written by a guy with a serious man-crush. Perhaps our readers can help me out.
...well, on further thought, reading this 'graph convinces me that the author is pulling my leg:
We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we're the same way — both inside and outside our jobs, our races, our cities, our countries, ourselves. With great artists, often the most irritating feature of their work is the source of their talent. Obama's gift is the same as his curse: He's somehow managed to be like the rest of us, only infinitely more so.
It. Hasn’t. Worked. If by worked you mean lived up to a single of our ‘expectations’, and if by expectations you don’t mean this is really just how we grab power from the flyovers.
Where are the results, if not in the statistics? The left has destroyed black America.
They have shot their bolt with cheap money and stimulus spending and cranked up the National Debt by 40 percent. But here we are in Summer 2011 and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.
To fix things the Obamis would have to adopt the Republican agenda and reduce the weight of government. They would have to repeal ObamaCare, reverse their green energy boondoggle, lower tax rates, and cut wasteful government spending.
You can see the problem. For the last 40 years, ever since the "unexpected" success of Reaganomics, liberals have been telling themselves and everyone else that supply-side economics is a mirage. Now they have to admit that everything they believe is wrong.
But the Met Office is less than happy with the accolade. It said in a statement: “We recognise that our DEC rating [carbon dioxide emissions] is large but it is also necessary. Our supercomputer is vital for predictions of weather and climate change.”
Apparently he has no Plan B and is plumb out of ideas. Thanks, Timmy. We understand that a government cannot control an economy, but you guys did the opposite of what Reagan did. You guys jumped on the recession as a golden opportunity to increase the size of the federal government - and for pork.
Sippican has published his first book, and it's about time. He calls it "flash fiction." As many of our readers know, the guy knows how to repair a chair and to spin a yarn.
It's the time of year when the Box Turtles have emerged from hibernation and begin to roam, like singles on the East Side of Manhattan, looking for food, drink, and one-night stands. 
How to 
Sweden update: 
Toon via
House turns out light on old-style bulbs
Ace 
The Class-Size Debate Never Graduates High School 
