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.
Noonan: The First Amendment Needs Your Prayers - Jumping on anyone who publicly expressed a religious feeling after the San Bernardino massacre. Where are we heading?
Indignation is always selective, it cannot be otherwise; but because it is so pleasant and self-satisfying an emotion there is always the temptation to simulate it. It can be a genuinely generous emotion where it is in response to the outright injustice, cruelty, or neglect of others, but it can also be used to justify one’s own bad behavior (throwing bottles in the Place de la République) and to exile the locus of one’s moral concern from one’s own conduct to that of matters far beyond one’s personal control. In other words, purity in the world, libertinism in one’s life.
Was San Bernadino Islamic Terrorism, Workplace Violence or just a run-of-the-mill shoot 'em up? For some, it doesn't matter, as long as guns were involved, the evil isn't in the who and why but the how (while the Daily News has every right to offend, their cover today was disgusting).
There's no law that can keep us safe. After all, there are laws against bombs. Still, the Bath School Massacre, Oklahoma City, Boston Marathon and a host of others, are all examples of how mass death can take place without guns. When deranged people have a goal, they will usually achieve that goal regardless of the laws in place.
Misguided folk, who believe laws can keep us safe, feel there are ways to keep guns out of the hands of 'deranged' people. Unfortunately, the definition of 'deranged' is likely to be open to political maneuvering. I know, because of my deep distrust and dislike of government, that I could easily land up on a politicized list of 'deranged' people. I don't want to invoke Godwin's Law, but it suits this discussion...the Nazis classified political opponents as 'mentally unstable'. Is it so hard to conceive of a future where people like climate skeptics (who are already hearing calls for their views to be criminalized) would be classified as 'mentally unstable' and have their guns taken?
Even more misguided is the belief that banning guns will make us safe. Because strict gun laws always make us perfectly safe. Like in Chicago. Or California. Or France.
To make a case compelling, you have to make it seem like science, so you'll call up data and misuse it. Which is what WaPo did on this blog. Alternatively, you can pick and choose your data to suit your meme. It doesn't have to be scientific. It just has to look scientific.
There is something wrong with the general state of education in the US today, and part of it seems to be some lack of grown-ups with integrity and maturity. What do adults do when kids stage tantrums?
If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.
If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.
A few stereotype observations from our recent trip:
- They all smoke too much, and everywhere. Strange to see everybody smoking in bars and restaurants. Sort of fun, too.
- They drink too much
- Except for Germans, they tend to be thin. Germans seem to think they look good as overweight people. They do not, and they should not wear thongs or take their clothes off at the beach. Stop that, you Germans.
- Europeans do not work out. Only Americans use gyms. Europeans think going to the spa, stretching, taking a steam bath or a sauna is a work-out.
- Italians do not travel much. But why would they?
- Brits and Germans like to go to sunny climates, get drunk and fall asleep in the sun and burn their pasty skin.
Columbia University has called in the emergency diversity squad after a sorority hosted an Olympics-themed costume party featuring students dressed as members of various nations. You can guess what happened next.
Closed Minds on Campus - Today’s student protesters start with valuable observations, writes John H. McWhorter,
but then they drift into a mistaken idea of what a university—and even a
society—should be
Students
Referred to Counseling Services to Deal With Trauma After Seeing
Confederate Flag - See more at:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=65769#sthash.my6lkdz2.dpuf
Mead: Getting to the Next American Dream- Forward-thinking politicians need
to develop a reform agenda that can help our society move toward a new
version of the American Dream.
Thanksgiving is about the weird ancient America...
What we built here wasn’t only good — it was better, better than anything the world had seen, and we shouldn’t give a second’s hearing to those who say otherwise. Yes, even with slavery, the mistreatment of the Indians, and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”: better. A world better.
There are many badasses throughout history, depending on your definition of the term and/or willingness to believe their stories. Certainly Hemingway falls into that category. For others, John Wayne fits the bill (though he was an actor and his tough guy image was mostly on film). Any single Marine could probably fall into that category, and quite a few soldiers, such as Audie Murphy or Sgt. York. Horatius Cocles stood at the bridge and held off the Etruscans. I'd toss Molly Pitcher in there, for good measure, because certainly women can be badasses.
It takes a special breed to be a rough and tumble sort. I recently stumbled on the story of Carl Akeley, who brought taxidermy into the modern age. His adventures seem like dime novels. He crossed a crocodile infested river on a carcass, and beat a leopard to death with his hands. I doubt that could be repeated today, but maybe these stories are fairly common for men who wind up dead. What made Carl unusual was his survival. His stories live on, much like his taxidermy and dioramas. In that survival, I believe, comes the official stamp of 'badass'.
His career path didn't start out as one which put him on the path as a most interesting guy. He had been fired from his taxidermy jobs for napping. It wasn't until he met P.T. Barnum and stuffed the elephant "Jumbo" that his life changed and he began taking an intense interest in making his creations more life-like. It's doubtful you could get away with living a life like his today, given the current political environment surrounding animals and hunting, in general. In fact, Akeley himself shifted his views later in life and began to promote conservation and nature preserves. I guess anyone's life can change at any point and take a turn for the exciting and adventurous.
When I studied French in high school, the teacher told us that Louis XlV had two baths in his life - the first when he was born, and the second one killed him. Like spices for food, perfume had a practical purpose.
Princeton Students Fight Back- A group
of sensible Princeton students is standing up to the mob, and demanding
that Princeton’s president Eisgruber do the same.
This conviction that “bourgeois democracy” is a mere façade for the ruling capitalist class to exploit the masses has its origins, of course, in the theories of Karl Marx. German philosopher Herbert Marcuse later devised the term “repressive tolerance” to characterize Western democracy as a massive confidence trick: Its vaunted “tolerance” for classical liberal rights like freedom of speech, voting, and the rule of law is actually “repressive” as it “impedes possible improvement of the human condition” by blinding people to the inherently unfair and oppressive system under which they live. What Marcuse proposed, by contrast, was “liberating tolerance”, a deviously oxymoronic concept meaning “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.”
The Gray Lady, to her credit, realizes that something terrible has happened, and she is doing what she does best: sounding the alarm. But she is still doing her utmost to pretend that there is no real cause for this terrible, multi-trillion dollar hole in the pension system. She sees no systemic flaw in the way that the modern progressive city and state are both designed, no structural defect that produces these terrible consequences in cities as different as Houston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and in states ranging from tiny Rhode Island to giant California, New York, and Illinois.
Language is pressed into service to create victims where there are few, but where many are sorely needed, psychologically -- and on the chance such a prized status might lead to a profitable trajectory otherwise impossible by passé notions of work and achievement.
For the past two weeks, Maggie's readers have been treated to the morning links and morning reflections of Roger de Hauteville. Roger was pinch hitting for me while I was sailing the ocean blue.
I am grateful to him for doing that, and for approaching the job with daily dedication and with his gifts on full display. If I owned the Wall St. Journal, I would hire him to replace Taranto. Taranto has fine wit but more cleverness than wisdom, I feel, in his observations of the passing scene. Plus Taranto needs staff. Sheesh.
I'll tell you a little bit about Roger. Roger ll was of course the first King of Sicily - the Viking who conquered Sicily from the Moslems but who wisely kept most of the Moslem viziers and bureaucrats in place because of their skills and education. Roger ll did another fine thing: he grandfathered Frederick ll, King of Sicily, later Holy Roman Emperor, a remarkable man who is often considered the first "true European".
So thanks again, Roger. And, as always, feel free to contribute at will because you are a master of this medium and I will never be one. I am a plodder.
Photo is of the big schooner (5 masts, 5 Marconi rigs and 1 jib) that we've been traveling on in the eastern Atlantic. Can make 12.5 knots under those huge sails. When I get organized, I'll do my usual travel posts with pics, food, etc., but what I will get around to first will be a few posts about some of the people we met. Corny as it sounds, if you travel enough it's the experiences and the people that make an impression. New foods are somewhat fun, but sights are just pictures, old churches and buildings are a dime a dozen and can be seen on the internets and in books, and history can be read in books at home by the fire. I can say, now, that hanging out in the souk and in the medina in Marrakesh for a few hours is something worth experiencing once. Just once is enough, for me, tho. I am all souked out and there is nothing I wish to buy anyway.
Well, another Monday has rolled around. Time to leave the old rack and earn the spondulac. Exit your cribs to get the dibs. Act the noble savage to get the happy cabbage. Brave the debris to get the dough-re-mi. Feel the balm of the oil of palm. I hope by close of business that you pile the oof up to the roof.
Your humble blogger (I've never encountered of one of those, but stay with me) doesn't get a day off, even though blogging is dead. Oh, you haven't heard? You know; that blogging is dead? It was all over the blogs a year ago.
I have my doubts. I read blogs, including this one. Then again, I'm not like most people, so maybe you should take what I say at a heavy discount. I still bring my lunch to work in a plaid metal lunchbox. You should probably find a more forward-looking guru, like H.G. Wells or something.
Let's test out the blogging is dead theory. We'll visit the first blog in the Maggie's blogroll listed under "Mostly Political", Ace of Spades, and take a look at their blogroll. If it's full of going concerns, we'll forget the whole idea of the end of blogging. If tumbleweeds reign supreme, I'll be the first to throw a handful of dirt in my own face:
Alarming News: Just a bunch of links to writing done elsewhere Ambient Irony: Dead American Digest: Very much alive The Anchoress: Dead Anticipatory Retaliation: Dead Antidisestablishmentarianismesque: Abandoned Anwyn: Abandoned Armies of Liberation: Dead Attu Sees All: Contains one post from five years ago Bad State of Gruntledness: Taken over by a porn site Bastard Sword: Nothing since 2006 The Baron: Dead The Bastige: No idea what's going on there, but it's not a blog anymore Beautiful Atrocities: Taken over by a Thai spammer, then abandoned anyway Beleaguered Conservative: Abandoned or hijacked. I'd rather touch Charlie Sheen's pecker than press the redirect button on that page
Well, you see what I mean. I can assure you that the percentage of live blogs to festering pixel corpses doesn't improve as you continue down the blogroll. I guess it's true what Sir Walter Scott said about blogging:
Despite those URLs, PayPal buttons, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unlinked.
I'm not picking on Ace, of course. He doesn't have time to read his blog. If he's like most bloggers, he leaves his blogroll as it was eight years ago, as a kind of shrine to his friends, many of whom are his commenters, I'm sure.
So blogs are dead, I guess. Long live ... I dunno: Short-form articles written daily?
"Don’t do stupid shit" was a synonym for "I'm not going to get trapped in a Vietnam". However Rothkopf observed that the most important Red Line in Obama's world could be crossed the other way around. You could get into Vietnam by backing into it. The administration's greatest weakness was failing to realize that inaction was also policy. Not doing something could also be "stupid shit" and passivity was no protection from landing ass backwards in a quagmire.
Obama is barely smart enough to order the most expensive thing on the menu at a Sizzler, and the press corps thinks he's a polymath.
The most organic and eco-friendly way of dealing with weeds is the old-fashioned way: physically removing them. “Physical removal” can mean pulling weeds out completely, but that involves both grasping the weed and doing something with it. A better solution is to just smash it way down into the ground, which is faster, easier, and something a robot can do excellently
If this works better than the current eco-friendly method, which is having illegal aliens crapping on the weeds, then Chipotle and I are all for it.
“Unless you want to go live in a cave away from society,” Nissenbaum notes, you need to be online—often for work or to access government services. Online services claim they’re voluntary, but the cost of being a refusenik grows every day.In this context, obfuscation is a clever judo move. It’s a way for people in a relatively weak position—which is to say all of us, compared with Google or Facebook—to fight back.
Living in a cave is the alternative, huh? You could, you know, shut the goddamned thing off.
Federal and state regulations for burning firewood are increasing yearly. If you’re worried that you might not be able to heat your home using your existing wood stove or wood furnace, changing over to burning wood pellets is a smart move.
I say the old ways are the best ways, so I'm going to stick with burning peat in a brazier in the middle of my great hall, thanks.
Participant A maintained a stable blood glucose level after eating a cookie but responded with elevated glucose levels after eating a banana. Conversely, participant B experienced an increase in blood glucose level after eating a cookie, but not after consuming a banana.
In order to test my personal reaction to ingesting a cookie, a banana, and seven scotch and sodas, you're going to have to give me a banana and a cookie.
Less than three months after his arrival, Luo and 76 other Chinese were arrested. They have been in jail for nearly a year, accused of running an illegal call center and engaging in or intending to commit cybercrime—charges of which they say they are innocent. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison.
Help, I'm a Chinese businessman being held in a Kenyan jail, and I'll transfer one million dollars to your account if you'll just pay my bail. Please enter your bank account information...
The “music industry” is a misnomer itself since it lends credence to the thought that there is a singular music industry in which to exist and do business. This is incorrect because there are in fact multiple paradigms that exist within the music universe, all of which operate according to very different rules. Independent music is a whole different world than major label music, and thus the opportunities that lie there do not necessarily mirror the opportunities that lie in the latter.
After reading the article, I realize I have no idea how anything works anymore, but neither does anyone else, so I don't feel bad.
When I speak about the failure of Italian films to translate, I’m not only referring to the work of auteurs beloved by a fairly esoteric circle of scholars and cinephiles. An excellent picture like Gomorra, for example—based on an international best seller and the winner of the Special Jury Prize in Cannes—did poorly at the U.S. box office: it shows the worse of Italy with neither a clear plot nor the possibility of redemption. The protagonists imitate Scarface and the mobsters from Goodfellas, but we hardly understand their names or their motivations, and we witness only the violent squalor of their lives.
Why has Italian cinema lost its appeal? Sophia Loren's bustline finally dipped below the horizon. It's really that simple. And stop calling her abroad.
The first thing our salesman did was to ask for our leads that did not convert. Big portion of these leads were from trade-shows. So he asked for the business cards we collected. I remember asking myself “Why the hell would he need the cards for”. He was looking for phone numbers, it turns out a prospect that did not answer to 30 emails will answer the phone and might even be a pretty easy sell. Yes, phone is intrusive, it’s bold and maybe the other side does not expect it but it works big time.
The author talks in wonderment when the salesman asks about the health of a customer's family members before trying to sell them things. The concept of using good manners, or any manners at all, doesn't even register as "a thing" with the author. Honestly, iPhones have utterly destroyed an entire generation of human beings.
Dutch tissue engineer Mark Post made international news last year when he cooked up a beef burger made from lab-cultured cow muscle tissue. He claims that within a couple of decades, fairly priced cultured meat could satisfy the world’s growing demand for meat while eliminating the ethical and environmental problems of raising animals for food.
I've raised chickens. Chicken breast grown in a petri dish will be 10 percent smarter than any chicken I've ever met.
Well, it's Sunday. That means Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes in the morning, and Sunday-go-to-hell clothes in the afternoon. You know, for puttering around the house.
What's that? You don't putter? That's a shame. It must be hard to putter when you live in a concrete martin house in the city like you all do. You need a jackhammer to hang a picture, and they're a bear to get past the doorman without a lengthy explanation.
Me, I live in the country. I can get dressed up like a scarecrow and have at my house any time I want. I can point to the gutters or point to the lawn or point to the snow-covered driveway with the best of 'em. Then I say yo no entiendo and point at my wife when it's time for the crew to get paid. After that, it's off to the couch to watch America's true pastime: Filling out spreadsheets with football players' names on them, and betting on them.
I must admit I don't keep up with the gridiron game as closely as I used to. Say, did you know the Rams moved out of Cleveland? Well, Los Angeles is a better home for them anyway, and I'm sure they'll stick there indefinitely. I've noticed the cheerleaders don't look like girls in college anymore, either. They look like cocktail waitresses in a lounge on an oil platform. C'est la vie.
I put a picture of The Maid of Orleans I swiped from our friend Vanderleun's page atop Maggie's page this morning. At least I think it's old Joanie. The hairstyle and blank eyes could also indicate that the statue is the rhythm guitar player in Badfinger. I'm not sure about the sword and armor, though. That's more of a heavy metal thing, I think.
A little lower down on his webpage, Vanderleun seems to think Marine Le Pen is a new Joan of Arc, but I'm not feelin' it. Before they gave Joan the hot stake instead of the cold chop, she seemed rather more serious about being Catholic than getting a corner office at the Quai d'Orsay. France doesn't need someone that dislikes Moslems. France needs Moslems who fear Catholics. Jeanne bent her eye on vacancy and with the incorporeal air did hold discourse. And the sword wasn't a prop. Unfortunately, she's not on the ballot.
The Vatican on Saturday ordered five people, including two Italian journalists, to stand trial for leaking and publishing secret documents, in the latest development in a leaks scandal which is rocking the papacy. The trial stems from the publication of two recent books which depict a Vatican plagued by mismanagement, greed and corruption and where Pope Francis faces stiff resistance from the old guard to his reform agenda.The Holy See was embarrassed and angered by the books, which it said used information that should never have been allowed to leave the walls of the city state.
Let's borderline blaspheme and ask, WWJAD? (What would Joan of Arc do?) I'm no expert, and think it presumptuous to speak for her, but I have an inkling whatever she'd do, she'd do it to Frankie, not the reporters, and it would leave a mark.
Surveillance video released by the New Orleans Police Department shows a hooded man dragging a staggering woman around 4:30 a.m. Friday. Moments later, a car stops and another man, identified as Peter Gold, 25, gets out while appearing to make a call on his cellphone."The victim drove up and attempted to assist the woman at which point the suspect pointed a gun at him and demanded money," New Orleans Police said in a statement."The victim explained to the suspect repeatedly that he did not have any cash. The suspect became enraged and shot the victim once in the stomach," the statement said.
Speaking of Orleans, WWJAD? It's not for me to say, but I imagine she would kneel down and tenderly kiss that brave man on his furrowed brow, nurse his wounds, and then go off to see if it was possible to fit the second man into a tuna can.
When he tore open the man's t-shirt, David quickly realized that what he initially thought was a gas explosion at the cafe close to the Bataclan music hall where gunmen killed 89, was actually something far worse."There were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different colors," he told Reuters. "I knew then he was a suicide bomber." The man David was trying to resuscitate was Brahim Abdeslam, one of those involved in a series of deadly attacks that killed 130 people at bars, restaurants, a soccer stadium and a music hall. No one other than Abdeslam died at the cafe.
WWJAD? I am a sinner, not a saint, so don't trust me, but I figure she would commend that nurse for showing simple Christian charity to all. Then if the bomber recovered from his wounds, she'd give him a 12" haircut.
As the 10 a.m. service began, the church was filled with strangers who came to say goodbye to a man they never knew. The funeral director says more than 1,000 showed up.“What started out as small internal service for a forgotten individual turned into a public affirmation I think not only of his life, but every life,” said Bruce Buchanan of Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers.
WWJAD? This one is easier. She would weep, as did I.
Twenty-two-year-old Leroy Stolzfus finished the 26.2-mile Harrisburg Marathon on Nov. 8 in just over three hours and five minutes, all while wearing his community's traditional clothing, Pennlive.com reported.Stolzfus said he's used to running in slacks and suspenders, and he believes he would have run closer to a three-hour marathon if he hadn't started out so fast."I was feeling good, but I kind of almost crashed at mile 15," Stolzfus said.
WWJAD? She'd run next to him, clanking all the way. Then they'd stop five yards shy of the finish line and pray for the other runners to catch up.
Now aged 48, the naturalized American says he is so worried about the future of his two children, eight and 14, that he's returning to the water to raise awareness of the dire problems in the Pacific, hoping to become the first person to cross the ocean without a flotation device.Lecomte's team includes six crew members on the Rolano, publicists and managers on land, and scientists at several American institutions, including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who will collect data, including plankton species and radiation levels.
WWJAD? Mention she needed fewer people to save France.
A man swinging a samurai sword fought an imaginary duel Friday on the glass spiral staircase of the bustling Apple Store on Fifth Avenue as frightened tourists and computer geeks looked on. Video posted to Instagram shows the swordsman walking up the staircase, and then sitting on it while performing pretend lunges and parries for his startled audience at around 3:55 p.m.
WWJAD? Trick question. She's not an Apple person. That was William Tell. Joan wore armor, so I imagine she was more of a Chrome user.
When you spot a glimmering object in your back garden, it rarely ends up being anything more valuable than aluminum-foil. But one farmer in Switzerland has hit the jackpot after discovering a treasure trove of Roman coins thought to be more than 1,700 years old. Further excavation -- with the help of the regional archaeological service -- revealed 4,166 coins buried in Ueken, in the northern canton of Aargau, Switzerland.
WWJAD? She'd probably remind you to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Then she'd point out that Caesar has been dead for two thousand years, and split the dough with you.
Well, I hope you all have a nice Sunday, and if you think it might be fun or enlightening, you can wonder WWJAD about everything in your life today. I know for a dead cert she wouldn't take the points and bet on the Cleveland Rams. Obvious Saints fan.
It's common for humans to personalize things that don't have anything to do with us in particular. For instance, many people looked at today's news and espied a massacre at the Radisson Hotel in Mali. It was perpetrated by Al Qaeda, or Alcoa, or Al Kaline, or Boko Loko, or Procul Harem, or whatever those pesky Mohammedans are printing on their bowling shirts these days. Some observers immediately wondered what it meant to them.
Be honest. It's possible your first reaction to seeing the mayhem in Mali was, "I've been in worse Radissons than that! That one in Naperville didn't even have USA Todays in the lobby, and I couldn't tell the difference between the continental breakfast and the wet nap." That's hardly commendable, but it's understandable. It's no less sensible than rending your garments over it before changing the channel to The True Game of Downton Boardwalk Thrones. Bad things happen all day, every day. You're not the king of the world, as far as I know.
Tragedy is when I stub my toe; comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die. It's not as heartless as it sounds. Our reactions to the things we encounter in the news must be tempered by proportionality. We are all charged to look after our selves, our family, our friends, our community, our country, and then mankind -- in that order. Making gigantic, pointless, histrionic demonstrations of how much you care about people so far away they might as well be an abstraction isn't of any use to anyone. I've also noticed that people that make a big deal out of loving humanity in general usually leave a 5 percent tip after a four-hour meal, then go home and beat their wives. Or start the Soviet Union. Talk is cheap.
The level of moral preening abroad in the land grows daily. College students are demanding that Woodrow Wilson get airbrushed out of their textbooks to signal they're ready for three minutes hate. That way they can accuse anyone who stops after two minutes of being a kulak reactionary Goldstein fan.
It puts me in mind of King Charles II. After he was restored to the British throne, he dug up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell, the man who had beheaded his father, and had Cromwell's festering corpse drawn, hung, and beheaded. His father must have looked down from heaven, or more likely up from the other place, and thought to himself, "That's swell and all, but it would have been handier nine years ago."
Pope Francis said Thursday in a sermon that Christmas this year will be a “charade” because the “world continues to wage war” and “we do not understand peace." “Today, Jesus weeps as well because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes — all decked out — while the world continues to wage war,” he said during Mass at the chapel of the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican.
Christ, bring back the Borgias. What an invertebrate sits on that chair now.
Slower coal and iron ore demand from China – the world’s biggest industrial importer – have battered the dry bulk sector, already in the midst of its worst ever downturns that is expected to extend well into next year.This week the Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index , which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities and seen by investors as a forward-looking indicator of global industrial activity, plunged to an all-time low.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. The Baltic is no big deal. Put all your hotels on Mediterranean.
By the late 1500s, fleets of Manila galleons had helped Spain lock down lucrative trade routes between its Pacific colonies. Latin American silver mines—some of the richest and most productive in the world—provided Spain with wealth, and its Philippine colony of Manila gave ready access to valuable Asian markets. The fleet traded silver and gold for silk, spices, jewelry, and porcelain. By making just one or two trips a year, Spain tightly controlled supply, ensuring that the highly sought-after luxury goods turned a handy profit.
By ignoring everything but precious metals, Spain ended up with runaway inflation. Digging metal out of the ground to increase the money supply is no different than printing greenbacks.
A few days ago, a pastor asked Syrian-born restaurant owner Marie Jarrah to donate food to a welcoming event for recently arrived Syrian refugees. Jarrah, who said she regularly helps people in need, declined. Like many of Allentown's establishment Syrians, she doesn't think it's a good idea to bring refugees to the city. She clung to that view even before last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. "Problems are going to happen," said Jarrah, co-owner of Damascus Restaurant in a heavily Syrian enclave.
Unlike all the little SJW twerps going to Ivy League, I have known lots of real, live Syrians. They're Christian. They came here years ago to get away from the murderous psychos you're inviting over now. But keep on caring deeply about Syrians to earn a sanctimony merit badge on your diploma, kids.
Dr. Ranga-Ram Chary believes he may have found evidence that parallel universes have been bumping up against ours, like bubbles floating in a foam, and that these bumps have caused "bruises" that can be observed, reports New Scientist. Chary looked for signs of these cosmic bumps in the Planck map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a map of the radiation leftover from the first few moments of our forming universe. It's a map that would look the same no matter where you're viewing it from in the universe; a blueprint, if you will, of the structure of the cosmos.
I used to live in a parallel universe where scientists could produce results twice in a row before they'd claim they'd outdone Newton.
An estimated 4,500 Westerners have ditched home for the Islamic State or other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq. Researchers at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., collected data on 474 of these cases. They found in news reports an unprecedented number of radicalized women sneaking across borders.“They often appear to be typical teenagers,” said Brigitte Lebans Nacos, a political science professor at Columbia University who studies terrorism. “They ask about hair dryers. They’re looking for romance. They’re fans of ISIS, like others are fans of pop stars.”
I'm often surprised by what surprises people. Chicks dug Rudolph Valentino, too -- until he opened his mouth.
Today, LivingSocial is more unicorpse than unicorn. The company never filed for an initial public offering and consumer fervor for daily deals has cooled. T. Rowe Price has written down its stake in LivingSocial to nearly zero, data from Morningstar shows. The company’s work force has shrunk to around 800 employees from 4,500 at its peak in 2011. (Groupon, which did go public, is trading at more than 85 percent below its I.P.O. price.)
The iPhone economy is 99 percent Ponzi. A half dozen companies make money, everybody else borrows over and over again to cover their losses. LivingSocial lost $1.4 billion in 4 years. They simply convinced investors that the electronic equivalent of a flyer that falls out of the newspaper was General Motors.
Isaza Tuzman spent more than four years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., working in emerging markets arbitrage. In 1998, while still at the bank, he co-founded govWorks.com, a website that promised to link people to local municipalities. In the 2001 documentary “Startup.com,” he could be seen pitching venture capitalists and chatting with Bill Clinton at a summit about the Internet.
It's like the sun rising in the east, isn't it? If a Clinton offers to go halfsies on a gold mine, they'll get the gold, you'll get the shaft.
When Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship was brought to a violent end in the revolution of 1989, demand surged for restitution of the lands that had been collectivised during the years of communism. More than 1.5m Romanian farmers started court cases against their neighbours for land claims in the 1990s. Those who had been using the land during communism thought they had as good a claim to it as the descendants of those who had owned it before. Many of the descendants had moved away and were now in the cities. How did they have more of a right to land than those who had been working it for decades? Corruption and complexity swamped the process. Village land commissions, run by the mayors and deputy mayors, became the means of rewarding friends and punishing rivals.
Phuc Dat Bich, 23, told Facebook followers he finds it “highly irritating” that “nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it”. The photo of his old passport clearly displays the name – whose correct pronunciation is approximately “Phoo Da Bic” – and has been shared tens of thousands of times. “I’ve been accused of using a false and misleading name, which I find very offensive,” wrote the Bank of Australia worker.
My aunt, Carlotta Tendant, feels your pain, dude.
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Sultan: 
Heart disease 
Researchers: 
Kitchen of Shakespeare’s last home found
The 
A Thanksgiving treat and blessing for me this morning - a flock of about 35 Cedar Waxwings in my maple tree. (Photo is that species.)
Mastering 
Dear Readers, 
