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.
“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
We have some number of readers who think NYC is Gomorrah. It's Gotham, not Gomorrah. I'm a country boy, but I love it and find the neighborhoods endlessly fascinating.
I spent yesterday overseeing a relative who had a procedure at the Hospital for Special Surgery. It's ranked #1 in the world for Orthopedics. I have rarely seen any place run in such a friendly, cheerful, efficient, and well-organized manner. Even their security people are full of Good Morning and Welcome and How Can I Help You?, etc.
A chilly day in New York. As various things were going on, I got out to stroll around 1st and 2nd Avenues a bit, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the pleasant but not fancy part of the East Side, and I made a wonderful new 83 year-old friend in the Ambulatory Surgery waiting area too. A retired Econ. Prof from Chicago with a remarkable life story but I won't go into it. Everybody has a story, don't they? His wife was getting a shoulder repair.
Tourists never see the Upper East Side, way over near the East River. Lots of people live and/or work there, but it's a hike to the Lexington Ave. line (The Second Ave. El was torn down in 1942, and has not been replaced yet).
Marianne used to enjoy these sort of pics - just a random street photo gallery -
The problem now is not the delivery system of the program, it’s the program itself. Not the computer screen but what’s inside the program. This is something you can’t get the IT guy in to fix.
They said if you liked your insurance you could keep your insurance—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said they would cover everyone who needed it, and instead people who had coverage are losing it—millions of them! They said they would make insurance less expensive—but it’s more expensive! Premium shock, deductible shock. They said don’t worry, your health information will be secure, but instead the whole setup looks like a hacker’s holiday. Bad guys are apparently already going for your private information.
80+% of Americans were comfortable with what they had, before all of this. That's a high % for anything.
On paper, the $4,955 family is poor. But so were the Polynesian beach combers. Poverty is relative. From the perspective of a white male capitalist, the $4,955 family is ridiculously poor, but its life is actually comfortable and worry-free compared to the $110,729 family.
The famous rebel spy Nathan Hale taught in this one-room school in East Haddam, CT (then a part of Moodus, CT), for a short while after graduating from Yale. He felt too isolated there, apparently, so took another teaching job in the city down in New London.
OCare is not about health care, or even health insurance - See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51795#sthash.L2U40FPJ.dpuf
We
keep saying it but it bears repeating: OCare is not about health care,
or even health insurance - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51795#sthash.L2U40FPJ.dpuf
We
keep saying it but it bears repeating: OCare is not about health care,
or even health insurance - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51795#sthash.L2U40FPJ.dpuf
Then he said the magic words for a liberal: "Do you think you could keep an open mind about it?" Well, of course. "I'm very open-minded!" Even though I wasn't at all. I derided Christians as anti-intellectual bigots who were too weak to face the reality that there is no rhyme or reason to the world. I had found this man's church attendance an oddity to overlook, not a point in his favor.
As he talked, I grew conflicted. On the one hand, I was creeped out. On the other hand, I had enormous respect for him. He is smart, educated, and intellectually curious. I remember thinking, What if this is true, and I'm not even willing to consider it?
1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;
1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
1:15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
1:18 Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
That is from What is it like to be a man? A quote:
A conviction in physicalism, and the possibility of science fully explaining conscious experience in the future, is extraordinarily widespread among contemporary philosophers, almost to the point of constituting a professional creed (though there are some notable exceptions). Implicit in this position is the deeper conviction that for conscious experience to be truly understood – for anything to be truly understood – it must be understood scientifically, that to understand a thing in an essential way is to understand it scientifically. Such an attitude is bound up with that common belief among modern philosophers, traceable to the logical positivists, that their discipline is merely an auxiliary to the more fundamental work of the sciences, a belief adequately summarized by Jerry Fodor as “the world picture that the natural sciences have a sort of priority…to which other discourse is required to defer insofar as it purports to speak literal truth.”
I think many citizen supporters of the ACA are well-intentioned -- they believe that this program will increase insurance coverage, reduce prices, and make Americans better off. After all, that's what they've been repeatedly told by their leaders. I don't believe that advocates of ACA among the political class are well-intentioned at all, nor do they believe what they've said about it. That's why Congress specifically insisted on exemptions for themselves and their staffs. That's why union leaders and some big businesses have been crying for exemptions. That's why Obama himself is exempt. They know it is a bad plan and also know the implementation is being bungled badly. But their goals never were to fix problems in health care and to make Americans better off. Their goals have always been power and wealth, to be had at the expense of the America people.
My baby Sis, on the right, sent me this pic she found of us messing around with boats many years ago. I was helping her tune her Laser's rigging. We both remain happy to mess with boats of any sort, anytime. Sail or power. We have a feel for water. In adolescence, this one particular sis of mine was a great sailboat racer (Lasers, as in photo) but always scowling. Tough competitor. Happily, she outgrew the scowl, hasn't really scowled for years, has three cool, scowling kids now, and a distinguished career.
Lightnings were my racing boat. Our threesome of young fellows even got into Sports Illustrated, with my cuz as skipper. We took strategic risks, often, to break from the pack and we studied the winds, currents, and tides. Wonderful boats for learning seamanship, and seaworthy in most weather including those nasty summer squalls which always added excitement and danger.
I consider basic seamanship to be a fundamental adult life skill, along with swimming, shooting, tennis, land navigation, quoting Shakespeare and the Bible, catching and cleaning a fish, how to start a fire, play an instrument, budgeting, fundamental principles of cooking, handling tractors on hills, riding a horse, public speaking, log splitting, using correct grammar when called for, handling tools, appropriate grooming, dressing, and manners including table manners; pleasing social conversation, making basic judgements about other people, making a Martini, and a few other things - most of which which I have not yet perfected but there is still time.
I suppose every person has his own idea about the Basic Life Skills needed to negotiate the world effectively. I know some who would even include Golf!
The youth need parents to teach these things - or to pay to have them taught. It's called parenting, and it can't be outsourced. It's a serious enterprise.
The Unbearable Lightness of Obama - The president didn't know the NSA was spying on world leaders, but he's found time for at least 146 rounds of golf.
Can Brewing Beer Be as Simple as Brewing Coffee?
Friction Physics Reveals Details Of How People
Photo of one of the Maggie's Farm fact checkers via 
American progressivism is 
"Thomas Nagel's article "What is it Like to Be a Bat?" is undoubtedly one of the 
Mead: 
How Americans 