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.
The Spanish (Latino?) immigrants to the New World were just looking for the opportunity for a better life with free trade and open borders. (In NYC, Columbus Day is a celebration of Italian immigrants because Chris of course was Italiano. After all, without Columbus, there would be no tomatoes or peppers in Southern Italian cooking.)
Yes, our moral and intellectual superiors. Public servants. It reminds me of the old saying about Ma Bell, when she ran the US phone network: Why don't you care about me, the customer? Because we don't have to.
So much for that major threat to the US. The hype certainly keeps people watching the news, though, with the dopey reporters in rain jackets saying "Wow, look at that wind." Of course, if you live in storm or flood zones, you must always expect such things. The poor people of Haiti can not be prepared even though storms are part of life there.
Most likely very few American blacks care about it at all, but there is a noisy group in New Orleans who want to get rid of a statue of Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans. While the entire impulse to erase history seems crazy to me, there is not a single reason to hold anything against Jackson.
His post is grimly amusing, but I think he misses three points: 1)These "rioters" are rent-a-mobs," paid rioters and 2) rioting is fun, especially when you feel you have some sort of legal immunity and 3) I do not know any American blacks who would act like that.
Why bust your rear end when the government immediately will take at least 39.6 percent (actually more when you consider Medicare taxes, state taxes, and double taxation of interest, dividends, and capital gains) of your income, and then another 40 percent of what you’ve saved and invested when you kick the bucket?
Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to care about such matters. She actually just decided to double down on her destructive tax agenda by endorsing an even bigger increase in the death tax.
At Drudge, more reasons to go Trump even if you disapprove of him. Why the anger with Trump? Get mad at the American voters instead, because Trump is gaining with them despite his abundant flaws:
Credit to Glenn Reynolds for coining the phrase for this year's peak campus and SJW insanity. Here's my favorite of the day: annual hike at Claremont Colleges canceled for not being inclusive. Apparently not everybody can hike up a mountain in revealing clothing. Or, probably, in any sort of clothing.
My solution is to ban everything, starting with the fun stuff.
I think the Likeability Factor is overrated in American national politics. It matters more in more local politics where dedicated schmoozers are the usual fare. However, I would rather have a beer with Donald than with Hillary.
Part of it is that I think Donald is educable (and has a long way to go), but she is not. She is a snotty know-it-all, and mostly wrong.
Also, he strikes me as being warm and interested in people, while I imagine Hillary would have half of her attention on the door to see if anybody more important than my deplorable self might come in. Somebody with more money or with higher social status. I think she is that sort of deplorable person.
People who have only seen Trump in sound bites watched him go the distance without faltering. Were his remarks long on general observation and short on detail? Yes they were. Did Hillary know more than he did? Probably. Does it matter? Only to people who think the President should be a college professor. You don’t have to know how to do anything as President. You have to have the right instincts and you have to hire the right people.
So the weekend before the first presidential debate, four major news publications all print the same story, the content and tone of which (calling out one candidate over the other as a serial liar) Stelter concedes is “extraordinary,” and it’s all just a “coincidence” with no coordination between the publications and certainly none with the campaign? Uh huh.
Destruction of subpoenaed evidence, at the request of Hillary's flunkies. A crime that makes Nixon's cover-ups seem trivial. But never mind, it was just about yoga classes - but it doesn't look like Hillary does yoga with her weight and her inability to climb stairs.
...than listen to this woman screeching at me for four years. What is wrong with her? Her behavior is so inconsistent. Not that it matters. She makes it clear, for sure, that she is against Right to Work. Sheesh. Listen at your own risk.
Who advised her and coached her about talking and looking like this? It's either ludicrous or scary... which makes me think that she's decided to try to sound like Trump. In that view, this is her statement of what Trump seems to be. This is what she thinks Trump's fans are responding to in Trump. It's so wrong on so many levels. And I guess that's a clue why she's not 50 points ahead.
I tend to dislike zoning and urban planning in general. I prefer organically-grown spaces. I like commercial spaces embedded in residential spaces, and even in suburbia candy shops, corner drug stores, and pubs would appear as gathering places in residential areas if they were allowed. That big divide makes no sense.
Urban planners are central planners, meaning that they usually are arrogant and get things wrong. Nowadays, few people wish to live full-time in the countryside or in the woods except for misanthropes. People like a vibrant, human-scale community whether in New York City or in Rumford, Maine.
A friend returned from a bachelor party weekend in the US heartland. His report:
Fri nite: Cookout at his friend's parents' house, with kegs, a bonfire, and fireworks of course in the back field. Sat: 6 hours at the shooting range, with unlimited shotgun, handgun, and rifle sports. Sat nite: They drove a few hrs from Ohio to Pittsburgh for a nice big dinner event, had to wear neat, clean clothes. Sun: They went to a dirt track race after early church. Box seats! Then everybody drove home to wherever they came from. Nobody flew, cuz firearms are not carry-on.
I have never attended a bachelor party as good as that. This was outside the Beltway for sure. Flyover Country where people change their own oil in their cars and trucks.
Greek
I think the Likeability Factor is overrated in American national politics. It matters more in more local politics where dedicated schmoozers are the usual fare. However, I would rather have a beer with Donald than with Hillary. 
