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.
Nietzsche killed God in 1883, but man is hardwired to believe in something. Which explains why much of the 20th century was a search for alternate religions: The State, environmentalism, feminism, hallucinogenic drugs, and virtually all other aspects of the left take on religious aspects as they become more and more radical. But then, as Tom Wolfe wrote in “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” “It is entirely possible that in the long run historians will regard the entire New Left experience as not so much a political as a religious episode wrapped in semi military gear and guerrilla talk.”
Geraldo
Rivera Frets Planned Parenthood Scandal ‘Might Put an End’ to ‘Garbage’
Used to ‘Be the Cure for Cancer’ - See more at:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2015/07/28/geraldo-rivera-frets-planned-parenthood-scandal-might-put-end#sthash.9BBnJKEi.dpuf
A fun, wide-ranging interview. She gets it wrong on Clinton-Cosby though. It's not "wired-differently," it's a refusal to exercise conscience. Low-life pond scum. Most people manage to refrain from doing whatever they might feel like doing.
One quote from her re academic craziness:
I prophesied this in a piece I wrote in 1992 for the Times Literary Supplement called “The Nursery-School Campus”. At the time, nobody understood what I was saying. But I was arguing that the obsessive focus by American academe with students’ emotional well-being was not what European universities have ever been concerned with. European universities don’t have this consumer-oriented view that they have to make their students enjoy themselves and feel good about themselves, with everything driven by self-esteem. Now we have people emerging with Ivy League degrees who have no idea how little they know about history or literature. Their minds are shockingly untrained. They’ve been treated as fragile emotional beings throughout their schooling. The situation is worsening year by year, as teachers have to watch what they say and give trigger warnings, because God forbid that American students should have to confront the brutal realities of human life.
Some gal and guy pals and I biked up from the West Village to The Cloisters this morning on Citibikes, along the Greenway. Strolled through the Cloisters and grabbed a coffee there. Then we headed back downtown on Broadway, grabbed some light Dominican brunch with fried plantains and beer in a dive in Washington Heights where nobody spoke much English, then rolled back downtown while ignoring many traffic signals. Beautiful day indeed with light summer traffic. Harlem looks great, but where did all of those Asians come from? Harlem seems full of Chinese people with kids in strollers.
Man, I love this amazing city with one surprise after another.
Mayor DeBlasio hates Uber, as does Hillary!. Everybody else loves it. Let the market (the people) decide: Uber Wins a Battle With New York, Now It’s War. What an arrogant jerk, just like our last mayor. Not enough government controls on enterprise?
I am out on the town tonight, boating and fishing next weekend. Life is good here, despite all the political frustrations. NYC in summer is good stuff, beautiful, intelligent, ambitious, fun people everywhere you go. Just say "Hi." The annoying people are in the Hamptons. Trump for Mayor!
Addendum from the Editor below - could not resist -
Walker is not anti-union. He is anti-government employee unions. So was FDR. The real reason he is dangerous is because he rides a Harley, while Hillary! can't drive a car.
Italians Finally Rise Up Against ‘Migrants’ - Slow-motion but steady invasion of Europe by Africa and the Middle East gets some pushback.
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”
Answer here. This was a Democrat policy accomplishment, combined with a large dose of noblesse oblige. Mission accomplished.Thanks, greedy Dems, for killing our golden goose. You have fundamentally transformed our traditional Yankee state with its old traditional values of thrift and sturdy self-reliance.
And special thanks to Gov. Weicker, who rapidly exited the state after instituting his new taxes. His noblesse oblige is on us, not him.
When I left for Italy in May, I was aware of a growing pain in my left heel. Plantar Fasciitis is not something I'm unfamiliar with, I've had an occasional bout in the past. I powered through 2 weeks of walking and sight-seeing. The toughest part is always just getting going in the morning. Sometimes, after a brief sit-down, it can be painful when you stand up. After 2 months, though, the pain has continued with me. In the past, I'd just keep doing what I'm doing and eventually it went away. Youth has its benefits. At my age, it takes considerably longer to deal with this sort of thing. I've started stretching my calves and inserted arch supports in all my shoes.
I've learned that people have all sorts of ways to deal with this. My aunt suggested rolling my arch on a tomato soup can for 5 minutes every night before bed (haven't tried that yet). She claims her problems are gone, though she continues this ritual every night just to be sure.
Anyone here suffer from this non-debilitating, but downright bothersome ailment? Any ideas on how to treat it?
New Yorkers love Uber. The wealthy just phone up their limo or their town cars, but now middle class people and poor people can just summon Uber on their app.
McArdle: "Why was I so glad to read that my ancestors had, in fact, faced nasty discrimination? It's a reaction that needs scrutiny. It's an echo of what happens when activists go looking for outrages..."
Pension payments to Chicago public union employees have become so high that today all the property taxes paid by the households of Chicago go exclusively to pensions.
Obama Turns to U.N. to Outmaneuver Congress - Washington is working on a new Security Council resolution making the nuclear deal legally binding on the next president.
If an African American baker refuses to bake a birthday cake or a wedding cake with a Confederate Flag on top, should the African American baker be fined, boycotted, or otherwise punished?
Economically, the Clinton-Sanders-Warren-O’Malley project is stuck squarely in 1938. Theirs is a country in which tax rates can be set without reference to global competition; in which the taxi commission and the trade union are the heroes while the entrepreneurs and the dissenters are a royal pain in the ass; in which families can simply not be trusted to determine which services suit their needs and which do not. It’s a country in which our heinously outdated, grossly illiberal, neo-Prussian educational system is to be set more firmly in place — even as it crumbles and falls. It is a country in which the state must determine which firms are Good and which firms are Bad, and reward or punish them according to its whim. It is a country in which Upton Sinclair is an up-and-coming writer, and in which anybody who doubts the efficacy of federal control is in danger of falling headfirst into a rendering vat.
He mentions Sinclair. As we now know, his books were pure fiction
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In Praise of the Benjamin Button Babes
Helicopter Parenting
Pangolin 
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Microbiologists Hold 
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