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.
What’s so frustrating about these election spectacles is that they have nothing to do with creating the good life. For that we have to look elsewhere, such as the newly emerging light we are seeing on the economic horizon. For the first time in decades, there is a chance that the job market is becoming active again, that incomes will rise, that inflation is solidly tamed, that the young generation will have new opportunities, that new products and inventions will continue to improve our lives.
None of this has anything to do with smears, epic struggles, revenge fantasies, and winner-take-all scenarios. ..
Most people reading this were trained to think hard work built character so a desire to work was a sign of good character. That’s a perfectly sensible belief in a world of scarcity. In a post-scarcity society, one where automation is increasing taking over human labor, maybe those sentiments about work are counter-productive. Maybe the way forward is self-actualizing leisure.
Russia is a crappy country with an economy the size of Italy's. Still, Putin seems to know how to put his paws on all sorts of things. Clever little scheming SOB. Can't blame him for putting his country first, though. That's his job.
From where I sit, it seems to be because of a lack of critical thinking combined with the simple fact that imagining mysterious forces and mysterious people is much more fun than ordinary humdrum life and ordinary people.
Wasn't there an old song about "your mother and me, we're just ordinary folks..."?
You Won't Be Able to Pay Taxes on a Postcard, and That's Exactly How H&R Block Likes It - The Republican tax bill means most Americans will keep more of the money they earn. But the process will still be frustrating and terrible.
As I said to Tucker Carlson the other night, the demographic transformation of the western world is "the biggest story of our time", and it will indeed determine all the others.
Maybe Donald Trump is just not your type of guy, and certainly not the guy you would want to be President; but keep in mind who was the alternative. Before these things fade into the memory hole, bring back to mind a few of the wildly incompetent policies of the previous administration...
Wherever men and women spend time together, emotional things can happen. Actually, whenever any people spend time together, emotional things happen: attraction, enjoyment, revulsion, admiration, irritation, enchantment, envy, disdain, boredom, indifference, and everything else.
It's a given that the propensity for love/romance/sexual interest, to varying degrees, is a common, normal, and healthy subtext of human interaction. No number of social rules or boundary-construction can get rid of that, so it is common enough for people to fall so heavily that they arrive at "Damn the rules, the heck with everybody. I want this more than anything else". I see it all the time because things often do not work out well.
The way I see it. Conservatives like me did not elect Donald Trump. The Liberals did by driving ordinary working class Americans round the bend with their left-wing insanity, their incredible arrogance, and their contempt for America and Americans. Trump is the ordinary American-in-the-street’s rejoinder. And they obviously deserve it.
As an anti-Trumper, he advises not listening to Trump at all but to just see what his admin is doing
The final night of Hanukkah and Christmas is bursting out all over. Lots of things to cover so let us commence. Leading off we have President Trump who delivered a national security speech for the ages. Calling his strategy "principled realism," it is exactly that. In short, for the world to be a better and freer place, America must be an economic and military powerhouse. He also urged tighter, saner immigration policy and renewed his pledge to build the border wall. With the Dow Jones poised to hurtle through the 25,000 point barrier, business and consumer confidence is at an all-time high; certainly at a level we have not felt in nearly 20 years. The President knows and understands that American decline is not inevitable. Despite the lost decade of the Obama years, where we had political and cultural elites who not only thought that the best we could do was manage the decline but who actively took a sledgehammer to our institutions to hasten the decline, this president's first year in office has been a rhetorical and actual declaration of "not one inch further."
The Palestinian statelet is in no way viable, and the Palestinian cause is less and less useful to the Islamic powers with each passing year. … and the Palestinian cause has in no small part devolved from instrument of civilizational conflict to instrument of ordinary grift, a phony jihad used to fortify the alliance between fanatics and financial interests that is the default model of government throughout much of the Muslim Middle East.
Let's not fool ourselves. "I believe Juanita" doesn't just mean that you're generally in favor of believing women when they report sex crimes. It means you believe that for eight years our country was in the hands of a violent rapist.
My Alabama friends say they'll vote for Moore regardless, given the alternative. He was not their choice in the primaries, but the primaries were screwed up. They also hated Trump personally, but voted for him anyway. Lots of voting is voting against, not voting for.
I'm not talking about Urban Hiking, which we always do in Europe and in NYC. I'm talking about off-road "hill walking" which is how they term challenging hiking in Europe.
Mrs. BD and I have explored most of the parts of Italy (and pretty much all of Sicily too). Still need to get to Bologna, tho. Anyway, Mrs. BD's favorite area is Umbria. It has the mountains and the villages, the Sibillini national park, the black truffle, norceria, and of course Norcia itself which is all about food, St. Benedict, and our friends the Monks of Norcia. Also, Assisi - but one visit to that tourist trap is enough.
A Feast of the Seven Fishes Menu That Won't Take a Week to Cook - 
Yale Secular Humanists 
IAN MCKELLEN RECALLS ACTRESSES 
Portland’s Disgraceful Anarchy - 
Why ‘The Last Jedi’
The Western Elite
Geological Phenomenon: 
Starving Polar Bear Video