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.
...leading Progressive defenses of freedom of expression, such as Zechariah Chafee’s, relied on utilitarian considerations and not on freedom of expression as a fundamental individual right. Progressives identified freedom of speech as a civil liberty to differentiate it from what Progressive understood to be the obsolete, individualist, natural-rights based liberties of the American past. While activist government was inimical to such rights as liberty of contract and property rights, it arguably buttressed a Progressive case for freedom of speech. According to Progressive advocates of constitutional protection for freedom of expression, the more active a role played by government, the more important it is to ensure that public policy is subject to vigorous and uninhibited debate. Such debate not only could bring important considerations to light, but also could serve as a check on those who would use public power for private gain, which in turn would lead to better public policy, which in turn would create a welcome demand for even more government.
Freedom is not utilitarian, and not meant to be. Freedom is, by nature, messy, difficult, and contentious. Furthermore, freedom is not meant to help government, or to help anything in particular other than the human spirit. If anything, freedom is meant to be against government power. Where is Breyer coming from?
America is not a government. America is a bunch of individual people. Who bankrolled Tom Paine's writings? The wealthy Tom Jefferson did, as I recall, out of his own fat pocketbook.
Yes, the 1st Amendment lives to fight another day. Maybe New York was right to insist on the Bill of Rights. Should never have been necessary, though. The fascists and statists hate it.
Every comment I have read or heard about this terrible incident is ignorant beyond belief.
In fact, all too ignorant and stupid for me to respond to. This time, I have neither the time nor the inclination. It's tragic, unavoidable. There is no perfect safety from either nature or from human nature, and any perfect safety would be a living death.
The Kochs are needed to counterbalance Soros. If you want to do character assassination, Soros is a Jewish Nazi collaborator, a market manipulator, and a convicted felon. How's that for starters?
Official
Policy: Male Federal Workers Can Use Women's Restrooms, Locker Rooms -
See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/official-policy-male-federal-workers-can-use-womens-restrooms-locker#sthash.FjcOgjgH.dpufKoch: I'm Fighting to Restore a Free Society - Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.The Kochs are needed to counterbalance Soros
Who's been getting rich in the US? It's not the 1%, it's not even the 0.1% - it's the 0.01%
Do we all really hate and envy those star athletes, pop stars, movie stars, TV stars, inventors, successful entrepreneurs, and captains of industry? I sometimes envy their talents, skills, and money, but I sure don't hate them.
I agree with that. (I also believe that not all poverty is via 'culture of poverty.' There are a thousand sorts of poverty, including genteel poverty.) Dr. X summarizes that debate:
Is racism fundamentally causing the problems that afflict large swathes of urban black America or does an independently self-sustaining culture itself account for the afflictions? I think many people all too readily take one position or the other, feeling certain about it. I don't see things as quite that tidy. Jonathan Chait and Ta-Nehisi Coates have been hashing this out in a series of posts. Begin here with Coates, then a reaction from Chait, response from Coates, then Chait answers.
The United States passed its first sugar tariff in 1789, before Rhode Island got around to ratifying the Constitution. We’ve had some major public-policy changes over the years — abolishing slavery, women’s suffrage, direct election of senators, gay marriage here and there — but the sugar tariff stays and stays, the economic version of drug-resistant syphilis. It is a matter of pure political power: The sugar producers believe that the price that Americans are willing to pay for sugar is not the right price — which is to say, it’s a lower price than the one they would prefer — and so we pay more thanks to the cowardice of Congress and the predictable victory of the producers’ concentrated benefits over the consumers’ dispersed costs. As Willi Schlamm said, the problem with capitalism is capitalists, a motto that should be engraved in marble above the entrance to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
I agree that it is unfair and market-distorting - just like 1000 other government "favors."My view is that I want the Feds to have less money, less power, and less control.
Plato,
Rawls and the Liberal 'Comfort Zone' at Harvard - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2014/03/plato_rawls_and_the_liberal_co.html#sthash.t65m8fsX.dpuf
I plan to turn on every piece of electric I have. Make some banana/strawberry daiguiris with the blender, too. Electricity is the greatest invention ever, and it deserves one hour of celebration and gratitude.
"Even with its too-high, too-fast assumptions, the recently leaked draft of the IPCC impacts report makes clear that when it comes to the effect on human welfare, "for most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers," such as economic growth and technology, for the rest of this century. If temperatures change by about 1C degrees between now and 2090, as Mr. Lewis calculates, then the effects will be even smaller.
Indeed, a small amount of warming spread over a long period will, most experts think, bring net improvements to human welfare. Studies such as by the IPCC author and economist Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University in Britain show that global warming has probably done so already. People can adapt to such change—which essentially means capture the benefits but minimize the harm. Satellites have recorded a roughly 14% increase in greenery on the planet over the past 30 years, in all types of ecosystems, partly as a result of man-made CO2 emissions, which enable plants to grow faster and use less water."
Fasten Your Seat Belts – Yet Again? – Fabled money manager, Jeremy Grantham did a recent, rather sharp-edge interview with Fortune. He was very critical of Fed policies, claiming they were ineffective and/or counterproductive. At the end, he seems to be looking for an imminent roller coaster ride in the stock market. Here's a bit:
Okay, but then I guess that means you think stocks are going higher? I thought I had read your prediction that the market would disappoint investors.
We do think the market is going to go higher because the Fed hasn't ended its game, and it won't stop playing until we are in old-fashioned bubble territory and it bursts, which usually happens at two standard deviations from the market's mean. That would take us to 2,350 on the S&P 500, or roughly 25% from where we are now.
So are you putting your client's money into the market?
No. You asked me where the market is headed from here. But to invest our clients' money on the basis of speculation being driven by the Fed's misguided policies doesn't seem like the best thing to do with our clients' money. We invest our clients' money based on our seven-year prediction. And over the next seven years, we think the market will have negative returns. The next bust will be unlike any other, because the Fed and other centrals banks around the world have taken on all this leverage that was out there and put it on their balance sheets. We have never had this before. Assets are overpriced generally. They will be cheap again. That's how we will pay for this. It's going to be very painful for investors.
Man
Arrested for Public Consumption of Iced Tea Urged to Take a “Deal” from
Prosecutors - See more at:
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/man-arrested-for-public-consumption-of-iced-tea-urged-to-take-a-deal-from-prosecutors_032014#sthash.0kaZdyYd.dpufBoko Haram: How a Militant Islamist Group Emerged in Nigeria
Two weeks ago, I questioned if we were in another bubble based on the (then upcoming) IPO of King Digital Entertainment, makers of the highly addictive Candy Crush game.
Well, the IPO has been launched, the early returns are in and... you can decide on whether we are in a bubble.
Or maybe it's just a Buble and everybody is feeling good...
There is no official information about who selected the individuals to write the Common Core standards. However, none of the writers of the math and English Language Arts standards have ever taught math, English, or reading at the K-12 level. In addition, the Standards Development Work Groups did not include any members who were high school English and mathematics teachers, English professors, scientists, engineers, parents, state legislators, early childhood educators, and state or local school board members.
Every small-to-medium-sized business in America pays quarterlies, as do all Maggie's Farmers. It's simple: you just write a check to the US Treasury, and they pay it to the Chinese as interest on our national debt.
Everybody is a felon. There are 40-50,000 federal crimes, but even the government cannot count them all, but they can do a legal search and find one that fits you. Do you know what they all are?Ignorance of the law is no defense.
In recent years, we have had authors and commenters come and go. We're a voluntary commune. (nb: We encourage commenters. Please comment, readers, if you have anything to say even if it's not brilliant. Just show good manners, please. Polite disagreement - with hard facts - is always welcome.)
Our collective favorite Commenter was Marianne Matthews, a wonderfully-reflective Texan, a Barnard grad, a Taurus (the handy-dandy firearm, not the car) owner and a Greenwich Village folksinger in her youth who died in her early 80s with a pulmonary embolism. We miss her. She once mailed me, at my request, a CD of her recordings with a photo of her lovely self playing guitar. She loved NYC, but she loved her Columbia-trained oil-engineer husband more. She always wanted to come back from Houston after he retired, but was responsibly and lovingly caring for him there when I believe he developed a dementia.
Also missing - our old irascible pal Dr. Mercury. No mystery there. He's a ramblin' man, and rambled on to other things after a while (I do not know what) but left behind the useful Dr. Merc's Computer Corner.
Missing in Action: Buddy Larson, a popular and frequent Texan commenter who always brought something to the table, either deep, witty, or usually both. That's a mystery. I hope he is OK, and I hope we didn't do anything to piss him off.
Capt. Tom: He wrote posts for us for a while, but seems to have lost his writing desire. Writer's block? Perhaps the muse might return. I hope so, because he has lots of experience to share, and can write about photography, fishing, boating, engineering, guitars, and all sorts of things if he wants to. Maybe he is too busy living. He does find time to comment on occasion under his real name, Tom Francis. A Yankee, moved to the Carolinas.
Roger de Hauteville? Not to worry. He is around and healthy, but locked in the uninsulated attic for the moment. Those Norman barbarians need time-outs on a regular basis. He'll be back after the next war. In fact, we have planned a job of work for him which naturally involves Sicilia.
Bruce Kesler, our San Diego/New Yorker. He's sort-of on Sabbatical, but he is in touch with me almost daily and (among other emailers) contributes to our morning links, for which I am quite grateful. At some point, I think he may be back on the payroll unless he gets a better offer (he has had many newspaper op-eds published). And he has a day job plus young kids at home. Anyway, always take the better offer if you can get one!
Here's a poor recording of Marianne in New York, in her younger days (1950s), probably in some folkie den in the Village, long before Joanie, Bob, Phil Ochs, Sebastian, and all the others:
The only poverty this girl suffers from is a poverty of the soul–made plain by her obvious disregard for all those who love her and who have sacrificed to give her every advantage in life.
... But Miriam Weeks will never escape the choices she has made, never be able to leave it all behind. Friends, relatives, neighbors, future relationships. These memories and images will live on forever – following her and the ones who love her for the rest of their lives.
Deciphered Roman Soldier’s Papyrus to Family Complains: ‘You Never Wrote Back to Me’
- See more at:
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/deciphered-roman-soldier-s-papyrus-family-complains-you-never-wrote-back#sthash.5P9I7Zl5.dpuf
I agree with Bernstein: 
A friend took that pic of a gamer at a gamer convention in Boston last week.
Rare Stradivarius 
The incredible 
Thanks to our pal at 
A recent study has shown that 
Are 
New dinosaur