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.
Why is this America's problem? As I say, the Russians and Chinese are laughing at us for getting involved in tribal and religious fights in the Middle East. It's about time for a shake-up there anyway, and the national borders are nuts.
Given the effectiveness of marriage in reducing poverty and other social problems, you would think that strengthening marriage would be a top priority for the welfare state. Wrong. The welfare system does the opposite. Welfare actively penalizes marriage by reducing benefits when low-income couples do marry.
Nearly all the Islamic State’s decisions adhere to what it calls, on its billboards, license plates, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology.”
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
It's a challenge to be multiculturally-understanding when the cultures want to kill youbut, like the Swedes, Danes, Germans, Brits, and French, we must tryanyway.
Like most religions, the Green movement attempts to define codes of right behavior. It contains an original sin: Existing. The battle against entropy requires the consumption of resources and the production of waste. These actions wrack the environmentally conscious with tremendous guilt, which can only be assuaged with an act of contrition.
A friend researched where our local recyling goes. It all goes to a landfill in West Virginia, along with the rest of the garbage.
The release posted on Kakuhidou’s website for this year’s anti-Valentines parade says “the blood-soaked conspiracy of Valentine’s Day, driven by the oppressive chocolate capitalists, has arrived once again. In order to create a brighter future, we call for solidarity among our unloved comrades, so that we may demonstrate in resolute opposition to Valentine’s Day and the romantic industrial complex.”
At previous events, leaders of the group have yelled slogans such as “I hope all riyajuus explode! But we’re still a little jealous!” while wearing shirts that say, roughly, “sex is useless.”
The story of the changing American diet over the last 60 years is a story of junk science funded by both government and corporate interests, as well as a cascade of health panics and regulations aimed at one "demon" ingredient after another. The result is an unhealthier, more obese population than the one that ate more dairy and nearly three times as much red meat a century ago.
Eggs may finally be coming off the demon list, but it seems like it's going to be decades more of industry-corrupted science, lobbyist-corrupted government, Olestra-like food substances, obesity and heart diseases, and a whole lot of nonionic surfactants before we figure out that traditional staples like butter and pork fat really are best.
...it’s one of the blackest jokes of history, that the Holocaust enabled the Islamization of Europe and the Islamization of Europe has enabled the destruction of what remains, post-Holocaust, of Jewish life in Europe.
Rauner has it wrong. Republicans do not want to "kill unions." They do want to tame or, ideally, eliminate government unions. Government's relationship with government unions is corrupt by definition, incestuous.
Photo above - winter Robins taken by a reader. Many Robins and Bluebirds in New England do not migrate, and live on old fruit. Sometimes they get drunk on fermented fruit and berries.
From It’s The End Of Sex As We Know It - Feminism has gone off the deep end, commercializing both sex and women and claiming that their subjugation is instead a demonstration of their power:
Given the Dr. Frankenstein aspects of modern medical technology, Kendall’s biologically mystifying claim, “You don’t have to have a vagina in order to be pregnant,” is true, but a more obvious explanation seems to be that Kendall and a great many of her peers have lost their minds...
I never saw the need, or use, for Google Glass. People who had them were weird, a bit stuck-up, and their quirky behavior was not a selling point. It's no surprise to me that the entire project fell apart over differences in marketing, but the addition of an illicit affair just makes the story that much more interesting.
There are a few things to take away from a story like this. First, keep it platonic. I've never felt there is a good reason to get involved with anyone you work with. I have a hard enough time with people in my own industry, having to date someone at the same company would be murder. The old "Don't crap where you eat" are words to live by. Second, it's clear Google is not without its imperfections. Those who think Google is becoming a monopoly or overly dominant have some legitimate fears. Perhaps those fears are overblown, though. Back in the 1980's a friend of mine used to say "Someday, we'll all work for IBM." By 1995 it was "Someday, we'll all work for Microsoft." Today, you can figure out who we're all going to work for. I doubt it. Google is very good at what they do, but there are no guarantees they will take over everything. Finally, while I don't see any reason to dislike the idea of Google Glass, I just don't see the fit today. Apple's Newton was about 10 years ahead of its time, but there is clearly a market for handheld computing. Maybe computing glasses will make a comeback. I wouldn't be hopeful, but I don't see why they can't be the next thing, either.
Want an idea of how big Google is? Submitted for your approval, a video that has a tinge of conspiracy paranoia, but is completely clear in its intent to just show you everything Google is doing without making judgments.
The Right is finally coming around to the understanding that what mainly distinguishes it from the Left is not its general preference for muscular foreign policy, its not always convincing defense of the Judeo-Christian tradition, or even its relatively faithful reading of the Constitution, as important as those things are. Rather, the fight between Right and Left is about coercion.
Bingo! It's about freedom.King George's yoke was light indeed compared to our current feds, but I guess our current yoke is more or less voluntary.
Obama made his foolish and condescending prayer breakfast talk a too-easy target for mockery. Surely unintentionally - I believe he thought he was conveying an important perspective about tolerance and understanding to us benighted, ignorant citizens. Our moral and intellectual superiors, of course.
Best comment was from Bobby Jindal: "The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President."
Thanks, David Warren - Good Health May Be Bad for You- for commenting on our short piece. A bit from him about the Yankee spirit:
Through Robert Frost and many predecessors, poetic and other, I recognize strengths and weaknesses in the species. Currently I am focusing on strengths.
There is a certain rough-hewn spirit of independence that goes deeper than any politics, and is expressed with a laconic drollness that cannot be defeated by the world. You could not enslave these people. They would not cooperate.
Cooperate only when we want to.Often, our bias is not to.
We must strive to be multiculturally tolerant and understanding of different views. Anyway, Christians do it too, right? Heck, we behead adulterers, gays, and blasphemers routinely in our church. It's a lot of fun. The masturbators, we bury alive just like the Muslims but we're running out of space for that in the churchyard and are considering using the Town Dump.
Barack Obama’s plan to tax the earnings from parents’ “529” college-savings plans lived just long enough to indicate why some progressives perhaps prefer slow rather than rapid economic growth. Rapid growth reduces the appeal of redistributive policies and the need for the bitter, jostling, divisive politics that advance such policies. The 529s help enable families to achieve self-sufficiency. This excites progressives’ dislike of any private provision that impedes implementation of their dependency agenda.
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Leslie Gore, 
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St. Valentine's Day 
