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.
Common wisdom coming into today’s debate was that Obama needed a win to reverse Romney’s momentum, whereas a tie would have been sufficient for Romney to keep capitalizing on the new campaign dynamic. I think that was right. While I think Romney did a bit better than Obama tonight, neither side can point to an obvious, lopsided victory.
The core dynamic here is that Romney has proven himself to be a perfectly acceptable alternative to Obama. The silly portrayal of Romney in all those negative ads has been exploded. Obama’s inevitability is gone. The underlying state of the country, which is not at all good, has become the issue. All of that is bad for Obama and very good for Romney.
Frank Rich: The Tea Party Will Win in the End - This is a nation that loathes government and always has. Liberals should not be deluded: The Goldwater revolution will ultimately triumph, regardless of what happens in November.
The Politics of Impatience - For Michael Grunwald, the president’s vision matters more than his results.
We were driving around blue New England yesterday. We did not see a single Obama bumper sticker or yard sign. We saw one Romney yard sign. They might vote Blue, but the thrill is gone. We even saw a number of Priuses with the factory-installed Obama stickers removed or painted over.
It's still Fall Planting Season in the temperate zone. Most of these laurels will not thrive above Zone 7 unless in a shaltered location.
Lots of plants are called "laurel" without being real members of the Lauraceae family. Bay Laurel and Avocado are true laurels.
Our eastern Mountain Laurel, the state plant of CT which grows in dense, impenetrable 20' high thickets on our hills, is not a true laurel. Neither are the Cherry Laurels, which are (strangely) in the family Rosaceae, genus Prunus - same genus as roses, apples, and cherries. (Seems anything can get called "laurel" if it has glossy oval evergreen leaves.)
The Cherry Laurels (Prunus laurocerasus) appear in several forms, subspecies, or cultivars in the US, and few are native to the US. Here are a few of them. I like them for the lush, tropical evergreen appearance, and the birds like them for winter cover and for spring nesting.
Like hybrid Rhodadendrons, Zone 6 is pushing their limit unless they are sheltered, next to a warm building, or near salt water. The southern US is really a better place for them, but I like experimenting. Although they are considered semi-shade or filtered light plants, up here they seem to enjoy plenty of sun.
I have three varieties: the big, upright, fast-growing "Skip" Laurels ('Schipkaensis') which make a great tall (10-15' hedge), a few small hedges of Otto Luyken English Laurel, and a couple of handsome Portuguese Laurels, a compact, slow-growing rounded type with nice red stems. The latter two were produced by Monrovia.
Wonderful plants, all things considered, and a much better bet than trying to make the very picky Mountain Laurel and hybrid Rhodys happy in this neck of the woods. Mountain Laurel, like Blueberry, only grows well where it feels like growing. If they don't like the conditions, they just die, slowly.
Photos: Above: small row of Otto Luykens in from the of the wall, and some tall Skips behind. Left: A Portuguese Laurel, about 5' high.
My pic of a Congregational church carriage shed, just north of Hanover, New Hampshire. You'd be assigned a pew, and horse-and buggy shelter, by seniority. This was at a time when Congo services went on for several hours, at the least. Needed to protect horse, and buggy or wagon, from the northern elements.
In their desperation to avoid responsibility for the Benghazi debacle, Obama and Biden have pointed fingers in two directions: at the intelligence community for reporting incorrectly that the incident was a protest over a YouTube video clip, and at the State Department for not providing adequate security for the Ambassador.
Romney's Bain Capital, the object of constant Democratic denigration, invested private money in the following companies:
• AMC Entertainment • Burger King • Burlington Coat Factory • Clear Channel Communications • Dominos Pizza • Dunk n' Donuts • Guitar Centers • The Sports Authority • Staples • Toys "R" US • Warner Music Group
By all accounts, the main issue in this presidential race is jobs and their creation. One can only imagine the aggregate employment created by these companies. Once again, the key phrase here is "private money."
President Obama, playing businessman with your money, invested in:
• Solyndra • Ener 1 • Beacon Power • Abound Solar • Amonix Solar • Spectra Watt • Eastern Energy
All of these companies have two things in common: they were, coincidently, all contributors to Obama's campaign, and eventually all went bankrupt.
10:17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
10:18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
10:19 You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'"
10:20 He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."
10:21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
10:22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
10:23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"
10:24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!
10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
10:26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"
10:27 Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
10:28 Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you."
10:29 Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,
10:30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life.
10:31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
The Tiger Swallowtail of the Eastern US is dimorphic. This is a dark female on wild daisies.
She will not live very long. Except for our migratory, Milkweed-loving Monarch butterflies, most do not live very long in their winged form. Much more life as caterpillars and pupae. The brief task of the winged form is to produce eggs, then die. Short, sweet, and lovely.
I’ve spent my whole life hating the Cardinals. If I were to find an actual cardinal in the forest, twittering with happiness in the dappled sunlight, and I could get it to fly gently into my hand, I would squeeze it until I heard all its little bones break like tiny little twigs.
Power breeds paranoia and every group jealously hoards its privileges fearful that they will be taken away. The more these groups demand their rights, the more certain it is that they are already abusing the rights of others. When they call for freedom, they mean power. When they call for equality, they mean privilege. When they denounce hate, they justify their own hate. When they complain about the culture of bigotry, they are expressing how much they hate others.
Pie in the Sky, properly known as The Preacher and the Slave, is a parody credited to Joe Hill in 1911, and was published in the Industrial Worker's Little Red Songbook. (The tune is In the Sweet Bye and Bye.) The socialist-revoutionary Wobblies were big on songs. Brief entry on Joe Hill's life here- songs from an interesting piece of American history, when a Socialist revolution seemed near.
Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right; But when asked how 'bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet:
CHORUS: You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
The starvation army they play, They sing and they clap and they pray 'Till they get all your coin on the drum Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out, They holler, they jump and they shout. Give your money to Jesus they say, He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife -- Try to get something good in this life -- You're a sinner and bad man, they tell, When you die you will sure go to hell.
Workingmen of all countries, unite, Side by side we for freedom will fight; When the world and its wealth we have gained To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
FINAL CHORUS: You will eat, bye and bye, When you've learned how to cook and to fry. Chop some wood, 'twill do you good, And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
The Band with Dylan's hymn (live, 1970). So many of these good guys are dead now. Danko, Manuel, Levon. God knows where the incredibly talented Garth is today with his Lowrey organ and his sax.
You don’t win a nationally televised debate by being rude and obnoxious. You don’t win by interrupting your opponent time after time after time or by being a blowhard. You don’t win with facial expressions, especially smirks or fake laughs, or by pretending to be utterly exasperated with what your opponent is saying.
Also, read Bruce's post from last night.
RNC instant ad:
Ryan's main job was to establish serious credibility. Seems like he accomplished that. Seems like Biden acted like a drunk in a bar even if he won or tied on points scored. Bad optics, not gentlemanly or dignified.
Driving through the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, en route to grouse and Woodcock hunting in northern Maine on the Quebec border. Great fun and a great work-out.
Go Go Hi Ho! We must grab life while we still have it, with both hands. Plenty of time to rest, watch TV, and surf the internet in the grave, in hell, or in heaven, as the case may be. This life was not given to us to be a waiting room.
Not since World War Two has a great economy been as mismanaged as badly as the EU has fouled up the eurozone. For the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who have lost their jobs and life savings, the consequences of that mismanagement are very real. Is the answer to this catastrophe really “more Europe?” Do the authorities in Brussels really need more power — or deserve more public trust?
We proffered, on Monday, the theory that the media made a big deal about Obama losing the debate so as not to admit that Romney positivelywon with overwhelming presence, presence of mind, and firepower against a perfectly acceptable Obama presentation. To focus on Obama's loss is to diminish Romney's success - that's what we said. When winning a tennis match because your opponent had a broken arm, you deserve no credit - but Obama had no broken arm.
Just one more good Maggie's insight, utterly ignored by the world outside our farm and our friendly coterie of readers.
Today, Ann Althouse posts the same theory. What happens? She gets linked by Insty and then para-quoted by Rush on the radio. Dang! Rush doesn't even know we exist!
I know it's small of me to even care, but, darn it, life isn't fair. (And no, I don't think Ann reads Maggie's. Wish she did because she's likeable enough.)
One of the most wonderful things which will come with a Romney presidency is that Romney will finally, once again, separate Church and State. The president, finally, will just be a man. Not a perfect man. Not a prefigurement of Jesus. Not a prophet and not a savoir.
Just a man. A good man, and a smart man. But ultimately just a man.
On Columbus Day, Mitt Romney went to the Virginia Military Institute to outline a starkly different foreign policy vision from President Obama’s approach of apologizing for America, ignoring Islamism, mistreating our allies and embracing our enemies.
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How Do Vultures 
Pie in the Sky, properly known as 
Excellent t-shirt is h/t the excellent 
Man, does this tick me off.
