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.
Government power, a vast, organized, and living body, naturally tends to grow. It feels cramped within its supervisory mission. Now, its growth is hardly possible without a succession of encroachments upon the field of individual rights. The expansion of government power means usurping some form of private activity, transgressing the boundary that I set earlier between what is and what is not its essential function.
The mile, as the word implies, was 1000 paces of a Roman soldier (mille passus), but the concept evolved and changed and now there are all sorts of miles despite the kilometer taking over in most places. The American mile is about 1700 yards, but the origin of the yard is obscure.
People with serious, large compost piles often throw in a pile of Red Worms, but I like Nightcrawlers for my vegetable garden and flower borders. Of course, they spread into turf and shrub areas too if the soil is nice. If your turf is lousy, with clay and no food (ie no lawn clippings or shredded leaves), they will not go there to do your aeration for you.
You can buy them here, and other places. They will work hard for you, and reproduce quickly. Release them at night, preferable on recently weeded or tilled soil.
AKA doughnuts, aka donuts. It seems like almost every culture has some version of sweet or not-sweet fried dough. The problem in the USA is people baking it instead of deep-frying it in fat. To me, that's just sweetened bread.
Because I do not work in law-enforcement, I am not a fan of jelly donuts. The only kind I like are "plain" donuts, not too sweet, deep fried and crusty, with or without a dusting of confectioner's sugar or sprinkled with sugar crystals. If the bag doesn't show grease, they are no good.
Donuts and coffee. Good ones are hard to find these days.
Most people have many more important interests than politics. For example, constructing a good productive and fulfilling life in the brief span allotted us. If anybody expects politics to deliver them a good life, they must dream on.
Other than to stay out of trouble, that is. From Quillette. It begins:
Today we are witnessing an irrepressible and admirable pushback against the specters of ‘cultural relativism’ and moral ‘nihilism.’ On the Right, thinkers such as Patrick Deneen and Jordan Peterson have responded to an increasingly cynical postmodern culture by arguing for a return to traditionalist and/or local values. More centrist thinkers such as Steven Pinker and Sam Harris have argued for a return to the Enlightenment’s emphasis on using reason and its handmaiden, empirical science, to develop an ever more objective set of ethical norms. And even on the far-Left, radical thinkers such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek have levelled scathing attacks against postmodern relativism and ‘totalitarian’ identity politics, calling for a return to ethics properly understood...
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old... They literally know nothing... We created an echo chamber... They were saying things that validated whatever we had given them to say."
Obama White House aide Ben Rhodes, describing how the Obama admin clowned willing journalists for 8 years.
These complex astronomical machines were all the rage in Medieval Europe after they had been brought by the Spanish Muslims from the east. Chaucer wrote about them with enthusiasm. Early versions seem to have been separately invented in China and in Greece.
Astrolabes were rendered obsolete by sextants, telescopes, and timepieces but are still used for instructional purposes.
Well-meaning white progressives... treat black Americans more like the family pet than the family friend, condescending to praise us when we align with their views, and ferally attacking when we don’t. The conversation about race in America has been framed by progressive media and co-opted by the Democratic party to supplement the coalition that supported Obama during his presidency—presumably in the hope that blacks would gratefully support Hillary in her run for office. But Democrats have come to take the black voting bloc for granted—even though 44 percent of black voters consider themselves moderate and another 27 percent consider themselves conservative, black Americans still overwhelmingly vote Democrat (90 percent).
The idea behind giving professors lifetime tenure is that this will enable them to speak out freely. But it would be hard to name any other occupation with a more cowardly record than academics, who have been giving in to politically correct campus bullies ever since the 1960s.
Yes. It's been a trend since the early 20th century. I think it's been fashionable for a long time to be condescending elites. This black immigrant professor sees the BS in it all.
Arthur Laffer wrote the Republican tax policy on a cloth napkin in D.C. restaurant on September 13, 1974. It read, "If you tax a product less results/ If you subsidize a product more results./ We've been taxing work, output and income and subsidizing non-work, leisure and unemployment./ The consequences are obvious!" with an image of the Laffer Curve in the middle."
Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan at Flint and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, recently calculated that his university has nearly 100 diversity administrators, more than 25 of them earning over $100,000 a year. Collectively, they cost the University of Michigan, with fringe benefits, about $11 million annually. Adding in other costs such as travel and office space expenses, the total cost rises to perhaps $14 million, or $300 for every enrolled student at the U of M in the fall semester 2017...
Lefty Harvard Math Prof Eric Weinstein is Brett's brother. Like Brett, a rational calm lefty. I find Shapiro smart as a whip but annoying, and the 3 ads are annoying too but it's good to hear people have a serious talk.
Eric Weinstein joins Ben from the shadows of the intellectual dark web to discuss the lack of free thinking on the Left, the costs and benefits of low skilled vs. high skilled focused immigration, and how the Facebook monopoly negatively affects online publishers.
Why would they think politics has anything to do with it? The authors seem overly worried about science skepticism. I think skepticism about the latest "science says" reports is the only rational approach. Indeed, besides curiosity and intelligence, skepticism is a hallmark of a serious scientist.
Science is not a list of eternal truths. It's a tool, a respected method for testing hypotheses for the purpose of theory-building. It's not a faith. Due to countless factors, the results of this testing tool are frequently in error.
So-called 
AKA doughnuts, aka donuts. It seems like almost every culture has some version of sweet or not-sweet fried dough. The problem in the USA is people baking it instead of deep-frying it in fat. To me, that's just sweetened bread.
These complex astronomical machines were all the rage in Medieval Europe after they had been brought by the Spanish Muslims from the east. Chaucer wrote about them with enthusiasm. Early versions seem to have been separately invented in China and in Greece.
