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.
Thus you see, he is a Composition of Whim, Affectation, Wickedness, Vanity, and Inquietude, with a very small, if any Ingredient of Madness. … The ruling Qualities abovementioned, together with Ingratitude, Ferocity, and Lying, I need not mention, Eloquence and Invention, form the whole of the Composition
The rising cost of medical care comes from advanced, expensive technology (almost all created in the US), advanced expensive pharmacology, costs of malpractice insurance and absurdly excess expenditures to avoid lawsuits, and medical insurance and government insurance-subsidies for all medical care. Given all of the above things not changing anytime soon, the only way to control costs is bureaucratic rationing - which will entail the politicizing of any medical care which is covered by insurance. And that is a very bad idea, too. I see a future for medical care outside the entire insurance nexus.
Had I been a young, junior kid on the staff, I'm sure I would have done what McQueary did. Chain of authority. Had I been in Paterno's shoes, probably what he did: chain of authority. Arguably ethically wrong, but natural. (Update: I may not be well-informed about what was witnessed.)
A beautifully-restored turn-of-the-century summer "cottage" on the CT shore. These sorts of places originally had no central heat as they were indeed summer get-aways for prosperous New Yorkers, but they had plenty of coal fireplaces to take the chill off on cool summer or fall nights.
Third floor, as in most larger, pre-income tax era houses, was servants' quarters.
Very nice carriage barn too, with room upstairs for your chauffeur or gardener. In those days, there were tons of secure jobs for semi-skilled servants.
Theodore Dalrymple put it characteristically well in the City Journal a few years ago when he said that, had she survived to our own time, Woolf would have had the satisfaction of observing that her cast of mind - shallow, dishonest, resentful, envious, snobbish, self-absorbed, trivial, philistine, and ultimately brutal - had triumphed among the elites of the Western world. And if that seems a little harsh on someone who did I think have a considerable gift - Mrs Dalloway is surely a very good novel - just remember that she also wrote the most immitigably stupid book of the twentieth century.
It just goes to show that you should look at how people comport themselves towards the world before accepting that they have something worthwhile to say about turning away from it. But the good news is that, when you do look, what you see is not always a disappointment.
You can turn away from the world without a chip on your shoulder, perhaps without even really thinking that that’s what you’re doing. But of course it isn’t as easy as that. Most of us will turn away from the world because it displeases us, and displeasure with the world is usually going to be our own fault. By comparison, turning away from the world in the full bloom of its loveliness is a gift, and no one will grasp it who has not already begun to receive it.
and
But I think I went too far in worrying that even the best philosophical or literary talk about death was always going to be on the edge of vacuity. By comparison, I’d say nowadays that a well-adjusted sense of absurdity and meaninglessness is much more likely to be good practice for the truth of its expression. After all, death does define existence. And the refusal to face up to it - no, that’s wrong, almost everyone “faces up to it”; the real point is to let the thought of it mature over the years - is as good an explanation as any for our tendency to insist on defining ourselves in terms of contingent things, things that are vulnerable to change.
The examples are endless. A violinist can get her fingers crushed. A footballer can lose a leg. A devoted husband can discover that his wife is betraying him. Children grow up and leave home. We don’t always get the top job. All of these things can induce despair. But, according to Kierkegaard, the real despair is about something else. It is about the thought that one is nothing if not a violinist, an athlete, a man loved by his wife, a mother whose children still need her, someone moving successfully up the career ladder, and so on.
Mrs. BD's pic on the High Line Sunday evening. It's pleasant for a stroll, but surprising to me how much of an attraction it has become. No public funds.
Long-term mortgages may or may not be a good idea, but they do have willing sellers and buyers. In most of the world, mortgages are either rare or very short-term, ie 5 years, and are not tax-advantaged. From Forbes:
A 2005 paper by Adam Gordon describes the effects of federal mortgage policy from the 1930s until the 1960s. Congress created the Federal Housing Administration in 1934, and gave it the power to provide mortgage insurance to housing lenders. At the time, state and federal regulations strictly limited the kinds of mortgages banks could issue, which meant that mortgages were short—often as little as 5 to 7 years—and came with down-payments of between a third and half the value of a home. In the 1930s, the FHA convinced all 48 states to relax these rules for FHA-backed loans, arguing (correctly) that such loans were not as risky since they had the backing of the federal government. But most states did not liberalize the rules for banks with private mortgage insurance. In practice, this meant that FHA-backed loans were the only 30-year, low-down-payment loans on the market, giving the FHA de facto power to decide who would be eligible for such loans.
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The FHA’s standards became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Young, upwardly mobile families in the market for a first home (at least the white ones) went where they could get the best deal, and thanks to federal guarantees that was the suburbs. Meanwhile, urban areas were starved of capital thanks to state laws that banned private parties from making long-term loans in those areas. Not surprisingly, suburban home construction boomed during this period, while urban areas stagnated.
The FHA and the mortgage interest tax deduction introduced giant distortions into housing markets. Just add "free" government highways to the mix, and you get what you have.
In my view, the FHA and the mortgage deduction are simply subsidies to construction industries and unions, and the freeways simply indirect subsidies to the auto and trucking industries and suburban construction industries.
Nationwide, an estimated 250,000 students are enrolled in full-time virtual schools, up 40% in the last three years, according to Evergreen Education Group, a consulting firm that works with online schools. More than two million pupils take at least one class online, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a trade group.
Transnationals are not so much anti-democratic as post-democratic. They believe that in the 21st century, democracy should be updated to include the enforcement of "universal principles of human rights" that they, of course, will enumerate and define. They talk not of surrendering sovereignty but of "sharing" it "collectively." The result, they assert, will be a new age of "global authority" that will produce "global justice" under a "global rule of law."
Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, transnational progressives have been establishing international laws — really supranational laws — that no voters can repeal or even amend. One way this is accomplished is to draft a treaty and apply international pressure to get the U.S. president's signature and the U.S. Senate's ratification. Judges — often from undemocratic countries — in transnational courts then interpret the treaty to mean whatever they want it to mean. There are no courts of appeal.
And if the U.S. rejects the treaty or agrees to only parts of it by issuing "reservations," the transnationals declare that the U.S. is bound nonetheless — under what they call "customary international law" to which, they further insist, even the U.S. Constitution is "subordinate."
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.
That good old toon is via 
A 2005 paper
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, 