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.
I oppose any corporate taxes. They make no sense. We already have income taxes and dividend taxes and capital gains taxes, etc. High business taxes just drive business away. That's the opposite of a rational goal, which is to nurture business and thus job growth. This chart via NR
The slightest glance at political, entertainment, and business headlines demonstrates that the bourgeois virtues of restraint, frugality, reticence, self-control, self-discipline, and fidelity are not only absent in our public life. They are denigrated. Nor is this a mere political phenomenon. The liberation of the sovereign self transcends race and creed, religion and party. It has bloated our waistlines along with our national deficits, tossed families into a spin cycle of disorientation and breakdown, and endangered and addled children. And though a great many families of schooling and wealth have been able to insulate themselves from the gale-force winds of instant gratification and narcissistic self-expression, those in the middle- and lower-ends of our society do not have the luxuries of loving two-parent families, good schools, safe neighborhoods, well-paying jobs, and welcoming churches.
The idea of settlements for congressional misconduct being paid secretly with taxpayer money in a republic is absurd. On what planet does a government that makes even a pretense of accountability allow the miscreants in its ranks to engage in malfeasance and stick the public with the bill without even admitting their misdeeds?
“I come from the poor people and I’ve been here working my whole stinking career for people who don’t have a chance, and I really resent anybody saying that I’m just doing this for the rich. Give me a break. I think you guys overplay that all the time and it gets old, and frankly, you ought to quit it,” said Hatch, clearly agitated.
Let’s be clear: all claims that a person’s tribe or indigenous nationality can be determined from their genomes are scientifically inaccurate. First, this is because there simply are no currently known genetic markers that allow us to identify individual tribes or nations; although we see geographically patterned genetic variation throughout the Americas in ancient and contemporary populations which allows us to differentiate them (as done in this study), genetic lineages are not tribal or nation-specific.
“The sizeable portion of the Vietnam age group who declined to support the counter-culture agenda, and especially the men and women who opted to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, are quite different from their peers who for decades have claimed to speak for them. In fact, they are much like the World War II generation itself. For them Woodstock was a sideshow, college protesters were spoiled brats who would have benefited from having to work a few jobs in order to pay their tuition, and Vietnam represented not an intellectual exercise in draft avoidance or protest marches but a battlefield that was brutal as those their fathers faced in World War II."
(Anita) Hill was believed by the people who wanted to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court and not by those who wanted him on. Paula Jones was disbelieved by those who wanted to keep Bill Clinton in the White House, but believed by those who wanted him out.
"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help" was the usual warning. But somewhere along the line conventional wisdom discarded this injunction and media began to create the myth that there were special people to rule over us. Celebrities. A cultural elite. Role models. The only adults in the room. The smartest woman in the world. As social media exposes celebrity after celebrity as flawed, we are relearning just how fragile that foundation is.
"Anyone who doesn't know that Hollywood has been the epicenter of filth, perversion, sex, drugs, and other reprehensible behavior has been living in a cave in Afghanistan.
Scratch that. The Taliban gave that as one of their reasons for attacking us. So even cave dwellers in Afghanistan aren't immune to the disease Hollywood has spread."
Good news is hard to find at this year’s United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany. Diplomats from nearly 200 countries have gathered to review progress made on the “historic” Paris climate accords, signed two years ago. But as the champagne-fueled self-congratulation of Paris recedes into memory, the agreement’s underlying fraud is becoming obvious.
Next, we ban golf clubs. After that, how to deal with fists – boxing gloves? If killing is already illegal, does making the instrumentality thereof also illegal have any relevance
Eliminate all deductions in the individual income tax code except for a single personal deduction Eliminate the corporate income tax. Tax capital gains and dividends as regular income. Eliminate the death tax as well as the write-up of asset values at death
Mountain Climbers are plank position, so they are full body exertions: shoulders, arms, core, legs. And cardio of course.
To do them correctly, knees to elbow, and no humping your back or butt - flat back. No jumping either. A left and right leg counts as one Mountain Climber. Start slow, and do not try 200/day at first unless you are in tough shape. As with the pushups, divide your sets in time but push for the most you can do in one set. If too easy, push the speed.
And don't quit with your pushups. 100/day should be comfortable by now, so maybe go to every other day with them, or vary the type of pushup to reduce the number. I did.
Looking back, the improbable election of 2016 proved a Rubicon moment. Once Trump crossed over the Rubicon, carried by his base of “crazies,” “irredeemables,” and “deplorables,” the die had been cast, and those who were fearful where America had been headed had no choice but to follow him through the river.
Either Trump will restore economic growth, national security, the melting pot, legality, and individual liberty or he will fail and we will go the way of Europe.
For now, there is no one else in the opposition standing in the way of radical progressivism. At best, some not actively promoting progressivism are only begging it to slow down a bit; at worst, the “I told you so” others wish for now progressivism to prevail to demonstrate what happens when the hoi polloi do not listen to their supposed betters.
As we'd suspect, the shootings in Texas are being politicized by the anti-gun groups. It seems I can't turn around without some anti-gun nut calling for more laws, if not outright elimination of guns. As if that would actually stop these events. Of course, none of these people have called for elimination of autos or trucks, particularly after last week's events in NYC.
What we hear is 'but that was only 8 people killed by a truck while there were 58 in Vegas and 26 in Texas' as if scale is somehow meaningful. Frankly, I'm less concerned about numbers, and more concerned about means, motive and outcome. The assumption is that the means is a desire to use a weapon, so being concerned with autos is silly since few people use them as weapons. There is a massive flaw in this concept. Two flaws, really. First, they are used as weapons (Nice and London are just 2 recent examples, and ISIS has called for them to be used more...but I should add Charlottesville to the list) often enough to be of concern. Second, whether they are used as weapons or not, autos kill far more people every year than guns, and people aren't even trying. Imagine how the numbers would rise if they were. By any comparative measure, it's not even close. WE MUST BAN AUTOS AND TRUCKS!!
Bird hunting today with what I am told will be maybe the best dog we've ever used. Pheasants for Thanksgiving?
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Photo from 
Nachos 
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Thanks to all US military veterans, living and dead 
Via Dan Mitchell's 
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