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.
Frugality used to be a central middle-class theme. What happened to it? We now read the stories of middle-class families in free fall because they lost a job and had no savings. Back in the mists of time, there was a rule about setting aside six months of salary to cover a possible job loss. Not only did the middle class stop saving, but it famously borrowed to maintain extravagant living beyond what its stagnating salaries could support.
Nobody is perfect. Was Obama a perfect candidate? As far as rabid celeb enthusiasm goes, that's more appropriate for Hollywood than for governance. That's kid stuff.
I've been around the block enough times to learn that you will never have perfect political candidates, and that Messiahs are not for this world. Mostly, the best people avoid the toilet of politics. Obama's Messiah shtick was boob bait (but it worked as a trick).
Romneycare? Yes, wrong move - but Newt loved it. There will never be a Conservative Utopia just as there will never be a Socialist Utopia. Freedom and politics are messy, and depend on who can collect votes and cash. Obama will be flush with automatic union, blue state, and ethnic votes - and with automatic Wall St., union, and California cash.
People forget that, last go-round, Romney was considered too Conservative. Hence "moderate, maverick McCain." Go ahead if you want and beat me up about it, but the time for dating is over.
For statists like Mr. Obama, no matter how bloated our government has become, America is forever just one legislative act away from utopia, if only those untrustworthy Americans would just get in line. The man who ran on hope has instead embraced a tragic pessimism that views all free Americans with disdain as either incompetent rubes in need of his salvation or unrighteous villains in need of his rules. Either way, Mr. Obama embraces a command-and-control government and rejects American freedom.
Mr. Obama’s distrust of Americans is his fatal flaw, and Republicans would be wise to exploit it fully.
OK, but how many Americans trust themselves anymore? Judging from the video we posted earlier today, the youth seem to be trained to want Uncle Sam to be their parent for life.
Slightly adapted from a recent observation by Neptunus. It can seem like a shame that ignorance is painless, but maybe it's all for the best...People used to say "No brain, no pain," but I like the way Imus says "That is so dumb it makes my hair hurt."
The college pupette sends us her first small batch of photos from Nam. Small hotel or friend's apartment? I can't tell. "district 3, tran quoc thao, ho chi minh"
I have no idea why Flickr says "April 2008" because these are from earlier today. Hope she keeps 'em coming.
Did he ever find the plot? The guy is a first-class putz. If this bozo believes that the C of E is about money and politics instead of about saving souls, I suggest that he donate all of the C of E real estate and buildings to the poor - if they can find any poor in the UK with all of their government freebies. Looks like more parasites than poor.
...too many people, of both parties, of both political philosophies, believe that when housing prices fall, the federal government has a duty to skoosh 'em up again. And since the federal government cannot, however fervently it wishes it could, suspend the law of supply and demand by edict, the only way to sop up excess supply is to increase demand. And the only way to increase demand in a shortage of qualified buyers is to bring in a lot of unqualified buyers.
And that's precisely what we've been doing by, for example, lowering creditworthiness standards, forcing down interest rates, and reducing the percentage of purchase price required for a down payment.
Always surprising to me how many amateur cooks have no clue about how to handle knives in the kitchen. Plenty of knife skill vids here. One basic example:
"I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores," she says. "It stopped being fun for me, so I'll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is."
Remember, back in the day, when a bankruptcy was simply called a bankruptcy? Naturally, this was well before ISDA came on the scene and footnoted the living feces out of everything by claiming that a bankruptcy is never a bankruptcy, as long as the creditors agree to 99.999% losses at gunpoint, with electrodes strapped to their testicles, submerged in a tank full of rabid piranhas, it they just sign a piece of paper (preferably in their own blood) saying the vaseline-free gang abuse was consensual. Well, now we learn that as the global insolvency wave finally moves to China, a bankruptcy is now called something even less scary: "deferred loan payments"...
Welcome to Cairostan - Egypt’s radicals eliminating country’s connection to West, but does anyone care?
Bruce wonders whether you've ever seen a Jewish Zebra:
The Wall St. daughter's pup was visiting this weekend. Nice sweater, eh? This Yorkie pup, named Emily (from Devil Wears Prada) has quite an elegant wardrobe. They have hair, not fur, so they get cold. Yorkies were bred to be ratters. They do like to chase and destroy little dog toys with their tiny sharp teeth. They have ADHD, I think.
I know, I know: it is shameless to use dog pics to build traffic.
We are putting our other, youngest, college daughter on a plane to Saigon Ho Chi Minh City this afternoon, via Shanghai, with a pocketful of cash, a backpack, a carry-on, and her best camera. She's done a fair amount of world-traveling on her own and with us, so it's no big deal for her. Like me, she travels casually. She threw some stuff into her bags in 15 minutes this morning like I do. She's doing a film. She promises to email pics, but she probably won't bother because she is always driven to focus on her immediate goal, and ignores everything peripheral to it. Goal-directed almost to a fault, which seems to be what life requires these days. A terrier. She'll be meeting an American friend in Hanoi via the train at some point. I gave her a kiss and had to say "Kill a Commie for Christ." Somehow, PC eludes me and I always say the totally wrong thing, even on Christmas Day. Harvard would fire me.
My Vietnam Vet pal Gwynnie asked "She's going there voluntarily?" My parents felt that way about Germany.
Flight from NYC to Shanghai almost touches the North Pole, so we suggested a hearty shout-out "Thanks" to Santa. He deserves it. He brought me a new leather office chair. Those Great Circle air routes are always surprising, aren't they, until you get used to them?
I had thought she was planning to go straight from Nam to Prague in three weeks but she decided to schedule to come back home for a few days first because it's tropical in Nam, winter in Prague. Change of chic wardrobe. Wanted to catch a play or two in NYC, and to grab some fresh cash (but she knocks herself out almost beyond belief to fund her adventures). Sheesh. The kids these days are so ambitious, determined, goal-directed, adventurous, and hard-working - much more than my peer group ever was. Like many of the hip youths these days, she loves Ron Paul. Sheesh, again. "Dad, Libertarianism is the only right, principled thing for the American attitude." "OK, sweetie. Whatever."
All three of my kids crack me up, each in his/her own way. Where the heck did they come from? From God. I take no credit or blame.
Want to read a good, short Christmas vignette today? Sipp's Open Is A Time.
The meaning of Christmas is much bigger than the trite clichés that usually come up in this context; I won’t just be writing about the Importance of Giving and the Desirability of Being Nice. Christmas, at least the way I was taught, is a lot more than a merry interlude in the darkest, nastiest time of the year. It is more than getting or even giving. It is more than carols and candy, more than wonderful meals with the people you love best in the world. It is much more than the modern echo of the pagan festivities marking the winter solstice and the moment when the sun begins to reverse its long and slippery slide down the sky.
For Christians, 78% of the American people according to a recent Gallup poll, Christmas is the hinge of the world’s fate, the turning point of life. It is the most important thing that ever happened, and we celebrate it every year because it is still happening now. Whether we know it or not, whether we appreciate it or not, we are part of the Christmas Event that has turned history upside down. There’s a reason why we date the birth of Christ as the year 1 and why traditionally the world’s history was divided into BC, before Christ, and AD, anno domini, the year of the Lord.. (Actually, the monk who tried to calculate it seems to have gotten it wrong; Jesus was probably born four to six years “BC”. He also did not know about the use of zero as a number; there is no Year Zero between AD and BC — which is why irritating pedants remind people at every turn of the century that the “real” new century or millennium doesn’t begin until 2001, for example, rather than on January 1, 2000.)
Thanks for doing this for us, Prof. Mead. It's a good gift.
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Why 
He's the Repub candidate, OK? 
More nice Adirondack Christmas pics from Tiger 
Book Review: 
For many, 
