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.
Only gummint could be this stupid. Last I heard, Spotted Owl is just a subspecies of Barred Owl. So they are killing the Barred Owls? I like Barred Owls.
We are seeing the greatest wave of economic transition since the mechanization of agriculture reduced the percentage of the labor force engaged in farming from more than half the American labor force in 1890 to less than two percent today.
I am sure that the energetic and ridiculously-productive (blog, books, newspaper opinion pieces - plus a day job teaching) Prof. Glenn Reynolds would enjoy having a law named after him.
A reader reminded us of Reynold's Law. Good comments there, too.
1. Dang compressor died in our icebox. Replacing it would be a few thousand $, half the cost of a new one. OK, get a new one. The KitchenAid lasted 20 years. Nice timing, it died 2 days before our Mother's Day party and cook-out. Ribeyes on the grill for 12. But why, I wonder, does the 55 year-old Frigidaire at the farm still work fine? The very pleasant, amusing, and smart refrigerator repairman (retired NYC cop on 75% salary) explained that it's because the old ones were low-tech. He said KitchenAids are the best, and Sub Zeros are just for show, not worth the $. He said modern refrigerators require surge protectors. Besides the cost, worst thing is that the failure defrosted my year's supply of frozen cranberries.
2. Gwynnie always tells me I need to get out more. Mrs. BD drags me out constantly for social events. Whenever I go, I meet charming ladies and guys who are far smarter and more accomplished than I am. That is life-enriching and humbling. At a cocktail party on Friday nite, besides touching base with old pals, I met a guy who builds nuke plants around the world and a physicist who loves modern dance and speaks intelligently about Thomas Nagel. He kept pressing me on whether I was a materialist (in the metaphysical sense), but his lovely wife said he had had too many gin and tonics. I kept saying "I don't know," which made him think I was smart.
3. Worked on the vegetable garden yesterday, with the lad. Deconstructing parts of it to make it smaller. It just got too big to keep up with. I realized that all I really care about growing are tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, and herbs. Everything else is just as good from the store, and no weeding required. In the afternoon, I split logs from a tree we took down in the winter. I ache all over. The good kind of ache. Some days I feel like I'd like to bring back slavery, but it just wouldn't be right in today's political environment. I don't mean black slavery - any color would be fine.
4. This morning, we had a Mother's Day wren in the bedroom. The house painter had not put the screens back on the windows. I figured it was a good luck thing of some sort. At least it wasn't a rabid bat. It was indeed a House Wren. Kind-of funny, because I saw this morning that a pair of Chickadees are nesting in one of my wren houses. We love to house the homeless here at Maggie's HQ. Still hoping that a pair of owls will use my Screech Owl house. I've heard them around a couple of times in the early morning, but I am not sure that they like my placement of the thing. My experience is that they seem to like their houses in full sun.
97:1 The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 97:2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 97:3 Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side. 97:4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 97:5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. 97:6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory. 97:7 All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him. 97:8 Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God. 97:9 For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 97:10 The LORD loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked. 97:11 Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. 97:12 Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!
In the US, before protection the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs were market-hunted year-round along with many other migratory shorebirds.
I suspect they tasted very good.
They are on their way north to raise their chicks in the tundra and boreal forests right now, and will begin to trickle back down in August on their way to the Southern US and South America.
Experts can tell a Greater from a Lesser by call or bill length, but I find it difficult unless they are in a mixed flock. Sometimes they are in flocks, sometimes solo.
Nice birds found in the nicest places: marsh edges, mud flats, water edges, etc.
Benghazi occurred seven weeks before election day. The administration's strategy was simple: Downplay the terror attack, change the narrative, and run out the clock. And that's what it did.
But now the dam has burst. Carney's "here at the White House" comment has essentially thrown Clinton under the bus. Republicans, who leaked the edited emails to Karl and Hayes, have succeeded on two fronts: They've got the administration on the defensive over Benghazi, and they've weakened the Democrat's most formidable 2016 candidate.
I think Peggy Noonan has it right: The Inconvenient Truth About Benghazi - Did the Obama administration's politically expedient story cost American lives?
What a character he was. He embodied all contradictions and futilities and was possibly the best pub or dinner companion of all time. Boswell's stuff is great fun to read (Boswell was quite a character himself), but nobody has run out of things to write about Dr. Johnson.
What sorts of nervous nellys would worry about a little warmth anyway? Myself, I worry constantly about the coming Ice Age.Visions of an advancing glacier towering over ye olde cabin.It keeps me up at night.The science is definite on this.It's just a matter of time.
Should the youth "follow their passions" in career direction? And what if they have no career passion? And is "passion" necessarily a wise guide to major life decisions anyway? (It's definitely a good guide to hobbies and avocational pursuits, but not always a good guide to talent.)
Hillary Clinton has been an utter disaster as Secretary of State. Syria
is awash in mass murder, chemical weapons, and Iranian missiles. Egypt
is under the control of the Nazi-esque Muslim Brotherhood. Libya is a
cauldron of terrorist activity. And Iran has -- or is about to --
acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, North Korea and the People's
Republic of China are seemingly at a tipping point.
Maybe some guy on the internet will break it eventually. But you realize Woodward and Bernstein became Woodward and Bernstein because what they did to Nixon. The key thing in that equation was Nixon. You had a free rein on him.
You can't go after this guy. You won't get Woodward and Bernstein status. You’ll be out of the game. If you’re the one who brings down Barack Obama, you will be out of the game. And if you go after Hillary, who’s going to run the next eight years, you’ll be more out of the game. So, in this case, it’s, you know, it's not going to happen. The press isn't going to dig on on this.
The Indians came here from somewhere else too, Mongolia or something, and totally screwed up the ecology, killed off all of the big animalsand set fires to the prairies
I was told that, when Leonard Bernstein retired from the New York Philharmonic and took on the Vienna he gave them hell for playing the notes perfectly but not playing the music.
If you have the ambition to energetically create the life you want, clarify your goals, clarify your principles, learn all you can from your errors, be a helpful but tough manager of yourself and of others. It worked for him.
Live, 1986. An energetic performance (thanks, Gerard). I think that's Tom Petty on guitar.
Play list (In The Garden is a Christian song. I'll Remember You is a magnificent song. That Lennie Bruce song is stupid):
1.In The Garden 2.Just, Like A Woman 3.Like A Rolling Stone 4.It 's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) 5.Girl From The North Country 6.Lenny Bruce 7.When The Night Comes Falling 8.Ballad Of A Thin Man 9.I"ll Remember You 10.Knockin 'On Heaven's Door
When I see the announcement that Salon has gone offline, having voluntarily given up its air conditioned Internet server rooms for the sake of preserving Gaia and staving off “the apocalypse,” I’m willing to revisit the cheeseburger argument.
"Mr. Bernanke has no clue about economics or currencies, and no clue about how markets work. You have to be very careful and watch those guys. Many people for some reason have some kind of faith, even worship of the Central Bank, like they know what they are doing. Its has only been in the past few decades people even knew who Central Bankers were. Nobody knew about these guys 100 years, 80 years ago yet now they have become exalted and that is a bubble.
Fortunately Central Bankers are going to pop and this particular crisis may well lead to it. In America we've had 3 Central Banks, the first two disappeared and this one will too in my view. They are making such horrible mistakes. "
“If you have the biggest computer and the biggest data, you can calculate how to target people with a political message, and have almost a guaranteed deterministic level of success,” says Lanier. “Politics then becomes about who has the biggest computer. The way Obama won the last US election was by having the best computer strategy.”
“If that is to be the future of politics, it will no longer have meaning. The path we are currently on now is not compatible with democracy.”
UN 
Readers know that my Mom died this winter, but we still have lots of Moms in the family.
In the US, before protection the 
The pleasures of Dr Johnson
Hollywood "Script Evaluators" Now Being 
Live, 1986. An energetic performance (thanks, Gerard). I think that's Tom Petty on guitar.