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.
I saw hundreds of people who want change, for the common good. I saw people who deserve a bunch more respect than any yahoo, always an employed person who doesn't have to sweat being unemployed, or their health insurance getting cut off, who barks, "Just get a job!" at them. I saw folks who were peaceful, and who appeared to me to be more grounded in reality than the Wall St barons who don't understand why anyone would find it repellent that CEOs make 343 times as much as the average worker. At Zuccotti Park, Day 54, I saw a brighter future for the nation.
90:1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
90:3 You turn us back to dust, and say, "Turn back, you mortals."
90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.
90:5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
90:6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
90:7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
90:8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
90:9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.
90:10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
90:11 Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
90:12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
A proto-bungalow, really. A happy family could have a fine life based in such a dwelling. That's all I need, but I'm not sure that Mrs. BD would agree. A little bit finer if they took the trouble to jack up that porch. This one is in Woodstock, VT (a village I am fond of, and not only for the skiing, and not to be confused with Woodstock, CT or the famous Woodstock, NY. The permanent population has not changed since 1859. Vermont is not about growth).
(Re cars in VT, Maine, and NH: Ever notice how the locals almost never have 4 WD in snow and mud country, but the summer folk and ski folk always do? You'd think that driving to the country is like Lewis and Clark.)
Just found this little stash of poor cell phone pics which one of the pupettes took around town a few years ago, for a school archecture project about roof styles. It's a random selection of where the !% seem to live.
Actress needs work, takes job as housekeeper. Before my time, of course. Gracie Fields was the best. Including "The artfulness, the sinfulness, the wickedness of men."
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
Where poor students soar - What works at a school dealing with poverty and a lack of English fluency? Tough love, hard work and a laser focus on achievement.
The Five Most Infantile Beliefs on Display at the ‘Occupy’ Tantrums - Most of the lot are, we can be pretty certain, pure hope-dopers from the Obama Youth brigade – the in-your-face and up-yours gang – now come to flaunt their disillusionment with their adolescent president.
There will be others. Blue municipalities, tethered to their unions, are the grasshoppers. They will borrow to get re-elected until the money runs out, and leave the mess to others.
I've posted too many pics of particularly charming or interesting houses, and too few of the ordinary houses which constitute the bulk of the housing in the Northeast. This sort of simple, Foursquare-style frame house is everywhere, but this one is in Woodstock, VT. For snow country, I'd prefer a better pitch on the roof:
The Temple of Athena, the Virgin (Parthena) Goddess. A relatively small temple, by ancient Greek standards. They believed the goddess inhabited the temple.
I have stood there. Like some other famous and dramatic spots on the planet, you have to pinch yourself to make sure you're really there and that it's really real.
Yale is responsible for introducing collegiate sports in the US, at first with rowing teams in 1843. And Yale's Walter Camp, of course, essentially invented the game of football.
When Yale Bowl was completed in 1914, it was the largest stadium built since the Roman Colosseum.
Before a federal tax on Christmas trees, why not a special tax on Thanksgiving turkeys first, then we can get to taxing the trees. By the way, CO2 makes Christmas trees grow faster and thicker, so how about a subsidy for CO2 production? Just a thought for the highly-educated geniuses in Washington.
Actually, what would be great would be for Rice University’s Baker Institute to invite me to be a visiting professor for a semester, and teach an interdisciplinary (the kinds of fields Nourbakhsh identifies, plus law and law-and-economics) version of this for non-STEM students, a version for STEM students, and then a separate course on military robotics — strategy and policy, law, and ethics (UAVs, other battlefield robotics, targeted killing and the future of covert action using robotic and remote-directed systems, and the future of autonomous systems and autonomous weapons systems.
I don't care about income inequality. I care about the absolute condition of the poor--whether they are hungry, cold, and sick. But I do not care about the gap between their incomes, and those of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Nor the ratio of Gates and Buffett's incomes to mine. And I'm not sure why anyone should. Other than pure envy, it's hard to see how I could somehow be made worse off if Bill Gates' income suddenly doubled, but everything else remained the same.
But while I do not care about gaps and ratios, I do care about opportunity.
Easist way to reduce income inequality is to tax the top 10% to the point that they decide that working hard just isn't worth it. Easiest way to reduce asset inequality is to tax property and assets until people give up on owning anything or saving any money.
Big Labor’s victory over John Kasich’s reforms in Ohio is a reminder to conservatives that we’re still a long way from closing the deal. A majority of the citizenry seem to agree that the nation’s mired and that their homes and jobs and futures are sinking with it. But that same majority is not yet sold on transformative rollbacks of government and the public sector. They seem to think that out there somewhere there’s a way to get the good times back that’s more or less pain-free. More fool them – which is to say Obama & Co will have a pretty good shot at fooling them.
A teacher put a sample of her 6th Grade summary math exam online, here.
I had forgotten what sorts of things 6th Grade math entailed, but found that I did not forget any that basic stuff because one keeps using it in daily life. 6th Grade math is fun math, no abstractions at all.
Full Civic Literacy ExamAre you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better?
Sowell on income inequality: Young people make less money than more experienced people, single-parent households have less income than two parent households. So what?
The lost Leonardo - London's National Gallery will exhibit 'Salvator Mundi' in a show of Leonardo da Vinci. The painting has attributes suggesting it's of the period, and experts have weighed in positively.
The big college scam - It's bad enough; the president's loan initiative will make it that much worse
"If it was a kill mission you don't need Seal Team 6; you need a box of hand grenades," he added, explaining they were forced to shoot Bin Laden as he reached for his AK-47.
...the chairman of the supervisory board of China Investment Corporation, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, put further distance between China and the eurozone bail-out, saying that Europe’s bloated welfare state meant that people did not work hard enough.
“I think if you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of their worn out welfare societies,” Jin Liqun said in an interview with Al Jazeera television. “I think the labour laws are outdated – the labour laws induce sloth, indolence rather than hard working. The incentive system is totally out of whack.”
Eurozone leaders had been hoping that China would use some of its trade surplus to back the bail-out fund.
“I don’t know what I am going to do!” said Katchpole, a freelance account manager at a political consulting firm called Winning Over Washington. (Its main client is the progressive group MoveOn.org.) “I am going to have to defer my loans. I have no idea. Why should I be expected to pay them off now? Why are colleges charging interest on that stuff? Give us a break. Really.”
She is infantile. Purchases a service, but doesn't want to pay for it. Borrows money, but doesn't want to pay it back. Boo hoo.
Buckley, If Not God, Returns to Yale-What the late, great controversialist would have said to Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and today's conservative talking heads.
The newly formed Spokes Council claims to adhere to the “statement of principles” adopted by the New York City General Assembly, including “direct-democracy, non-hierarchy, participation, and inclusion.” The Spokes Council differs from the NYC-GA, however, in three main respects: the Spokes Council has the power to exclude new groups that don’t receive a 90% majority vote for admission; in the NYC-GA, everybody technically has the right to speak, whereas in the Spokes Council each Working Group has a spokesperson, who can be recalled only by a 90% majority; and the NYC-GA allows one vote per person, whereas the Spokes Council operates more indirectly, granting each Working Group one vote.
When I pointed out the contradictions these differences present to the Council’s stated principles, the leaders of Sunday’s teach-in insisted that the Spokes Council was the most participatory, democratic organization possible—the same slogan they repeated last month about the General Assembly. I felt like I was watching a local production of Animal Farm.
"I think I have an ongoing conversation with God. Throughout the day I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why I am doing it." --Barack Obama
Confusing an inner dialogue with speaking with God is never a wise plan
That $35K for an 
In 2010, for the first time in our nation’s history, 
Toon via 
I know they want to tax the air, 
10 Unbelievable Things the Chinese Believe
...get a dog.
How New York City