Monday, December 29. 2014
I've started, revised, and rewritten this post several times. I began it just about the time of the Ferguson riots. Then something happened and I had to add to it, while altering other parts. Something else occurred, and so on. Certain issues continue a narrative over time, and that is the nature of news.
The post I was writing was specific to the riots in Ferguson. Then Eric Garner's Grand Jury results came in and it morphed. Then my ultra-liberal sister posted an article about how white people simply can't understand the black narrative and we need to be sensitive to why they feel the way they do about cops. This was followed by a discussion over a post by my friend which supported the #crimingwhilewhite tweeters. Then I picked up my son from college and heard about how 'white privilege' is now a hot topic among his classmates. Finally, two cops were shot and buried in the last week. I spent time trying to decide whether this was a post about race, cops, or something else altogether. In the end, I realized it's probably a number of things, because there wasn't just one narrative here. Brown and Garner were not about race, no matter how much people wanted them to be. Nor were they only about how bad cops are, or can be. Nor was any of this about how poorly the media handles these topics, or how those who consider themselves the intellectual elite manage the discussion. It's really about all of these items, but none of them, either. Ultimately, in the end, it's about each of us and how we individually think about unconnected events which we try to connect through some kind of hive mentality. It's about whether we really care about these events, and how we care about them.
At first, I planned to discuss how far we'd come in race relations. We have come very far. It's impossible to look at how we deal with race today and say we are in the same place we were in any year from 1880-2000. My friend said that improvement is relative, that we have further to go. Perhaps we do. But I'm not benchmarking myself against an unclear ideal which no group of people fully agree on. What will represent the final 'best' format of race in our nation? Nobody knows. All we can do is be aware of ourselves, individually, and try to be better about how we treat people when it comes to race, gender, nationality and religion. I include all of these together because as a society we have issues in every single one of these categories. We need to stop letting one word, used out of place or out of context, produce rage. We need to ignore things like "trigger words", which are nothing more than words which certain people have designated for censorship because they lack the courage to accept that language is malleable and can sometimes offend even slightly. As a nation, we need a real dialogue. Not about race, in particular. We need a dialogue about values and what is truly important. Race may be part of that value structure, but it's only a small part. Individual responsibility is really the larger value structure we need to focus on. Responsibility for our own health, our own minds, our own speech and our own education. We can't let small parts of the 'society' value chain derail us from the goal of crafting a nation which is unified entirely by how different each person is.
Continue reading "I Do Care about race relations"
Getting away from all news and internet for 5 or 6 days is always interesting. To make it even more liberating, I leave my cell phone at home.
Sometimes I feel strongly that politics is important, and at other times I believe that they are all big government scoundrels and that America would be best off with a philosopher-king with perfect integrity, as long as it were me. I'd hate the job.
This is interesting: 2014: The Year the Democratic Party Death Watch Resumed
Saturday, December 27. 2014
 Good photos in National Geographic
Antique American recipes, restored
John Cleese: 'I'll never grow up' - The Fawlty Towers actor on grasping ex-wives, self-centered mothers and
why he's happy with his Peter Pan complex
Lobsters thrive on lobster bait
“Scrooge Was A Liberal, Studies Show”
Once Upon A Time, Free Speech And Association Were Sacred To Liberals
Meanwhile, back in grad school
Have We Become a Nation of ‘Wussies’?
Do Diversity Initiatives Indirectly Discriminate Against Asian Americans?
The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal - The real story behind the murder of two NYPD officers:
The New York Times ratcheted up its already stratospheric level of anti-cop polemics. In an editorial justifying the Ferguson riots, the Times claimed that “the killing of young black men by police is a common feature of African-American life and a source of dread for black parents from coast to coast.”
Cuba Derangement Syndrome strikes again
With Two Years Left, the Inflection Point of the Obama Presidency
The World Is Not Falling Apart - Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times.
Ben-Dror Yemini - "The Industry of Lies", an interview
Image below via Sultan's Every Christmas Now Comes With Muslim Terrorism
Friday, December 26. 2014
In the UK, docs must now report weight-gainers to the government.
Is that the first step towards making being fat a crime? That's a country in which it is now a crime to put your garbage in the wrong bin. That is not from a Monty Python skit.
We always figure that if you get fat and die young, you save money for the government. So why not encourage obesity? America does, by asking people to eat carbs as a diet despite sedentary lives.
 Wood stove chimney design
Passenger tossed after flipping out over staff’s ‘Merry Christmas’
A little touchy? Well, holiday season can do that to people.
Anti-Feminists Baffle Feminists - Woman Against Feminism vs. feminists: Who's actually confused?
Who owns Chicken Tikka Masala?
I feel triggered by the odor of cultural appropriation
My atheist Christmas: How I overcame my personal struggle with the holiday - The holiday and its religious trappings used to offend me deeply. Here's how I overcame my feelings of oppression
Good grief. He thinks Christmas is all about him
A cool museum: inside Manhattan's Tenement Museum shed light on Lower East Side's notorious turn-of-the-century slum
What is a "slum"? It's a starting place where people would rather live in than the hopeless crappy place they came from
Thank SCOTUS for Credential Inflation
If Single Payer Can't Work in Vermont...
Tribal Raid In Peru May Be Related To Hotcoldwetdry
Teenager Shot In Missouri: So What?
"Stories of choice"
Imagine No Religion - The French press refuses to see a clear case of Islamic terrorism.
Al-Qaida Calls for Lone Wolf Attacks Against US Airliners
Wednesday, December 24. 2014
I am heading up to western MA to be with family and for our Christmas Mass, thence to Stowe with friends to ski, drink beer, chase girls, and get away from the intertunnels and all of the insane news about the protesting retards.
A special Christmas thanks to all American law enforcement. Cheers to you guys and gals. I'd be scared witless to do your jobs.
But first, two items of interest.
5 Reasons Why Fewer Americans Are Working
and this from Zero:
 President Bush In The News
A well-bred, gracious gent
Documentary confirms Michael Rockefeller was eaten by cannibals
Happy Holidays: FDA Moves to Ban Cake, Donut ‘Sprinkles’:
... it bears repeating that a large reason trans fats used to be so prevalent in our diets was due to the activism of the food nannies at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The left-wing food scolds, most famous for its reports on “calorie bomb” food entrees, pushed restaurants and food companies to switch to trans fats in the 1980s and 1990s.
Women Discuss the “Normal Barbie”
4 Things That Are Hurting Your Wife and Killing Your Marriage
Crazy music: Please, For The Love Of God, Stop Hitting It, Joe
A wonder
#IllLieToYou
I double dog dare ya to read this
and to understand it. I think the point is that the U of Michigan is a hotbed of institutional racism.
Never have liberal ideas been so firmly entrenched within America’s core elite institutions. Never have those institutions been so weak and uninfluential.
Minus rape, feminism is rather too obviously a list of trivial complaints by comfortable yet hysterical semi-affluent white women.
De Blasio Blames Media for Making Anti-Cop Protesters Look Bad
As Congress Lawyers Up Harvard’s Cass Sunstein Defends the Technocrats
How much economic potential does Cuba have?
Is Obama getting the last laugh on Cuba?
USA Offering $5 Million Reward for Terrorist Released From Club Gitmo
Steven Pinker on the Boycott Israel Dispute at Harvard
How much economic potential does Cuba have?
Tuesday, December 23. 2014
Monday, December 22. 2014
 but you will not be happy with it. Say Goodbye to the Family Doctor - Young doctors are increasingly becoming employees rather than independent practitioners.
Not only will they not know you (other than your chart data), but they will have no connection with you. We are approaching the tail end of a long era of personal and personalized medical care.
A physician can not be commoditized, but they can try. A physician is more than a technician.
Who do you tip for the holidays?
I tip my garbage men, the mailman who is kind enuf to deliver stuff to my front porch, and a much bigger tip than normal to the early morning Dunkin gals. I'm not sure who else I have to Christmas tip these days.
Medieval Scribal Marginalia
"Legendary Mad Magazine Illustrator Jack Davis Calls It Quits at 90″
Legendary
Mad Magazine Illustrator Jack Davis Calls It Quits at 90″ - See more
at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=55758#sthash.NvPcECDG.dpuf
Autism Moms Have Stress Similar To Combat Soldiers
2015 GMC Canyon and Chevrolet Colorado Test Drive
The United States of Anxiety - Sony brass might be cotton candy, but they are iron men compared with the American college student.
If 2014 had a grand theme, it was testicular absence.
The key to understanding Environmental Economics is understanding unintended consequences
A Model Senator retires
Civil Rights Group Outraged at Bowdoin’s ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Outrage
UVA Enters Damage Control Mode Over Rolling Stone Rape Story
NY to Ban Fracking: Turn out the Upstate Lights
To Save Australia From Hotcoldwetdry, We Need To Kill All The Rabbits
Eric Holder Dictates That Cross-Dressing on the Job Is a Civil Right
On Halloween, or all the time?
Time Magazine: Right-Wing Militias Are The Real Threat To Cops
Sultan: Saving Comrade Castro
Who needs Cuba?
President Obama’s ‘betrayal’ of Cuban democrats
Funding the Castros’ tyranny
Mead via Insty:
Shell-shocked liberals are beginning to grasp some inconvenient truths. No gun massacre is horrible enough to change Americans’ ideas about gun control. No UN Climate Report will get a climate treaty through the U.S. Senate. No combination of anecdotal and statistical evidence will persuade Americans to end their longtime practice of giving police officers extremely wide discretion in the use of force. No “name and shame” report, however graphic, from the Senate Intelligence Committee staff will change the minds of the consistent majority of Americans who tell pollsters that they believe that torture is justifiable under at least some circumstances. No feminist campaign will convince enough voters that the presumption of innocence should not apply to those accused of rape.
Saturday, December 20. 2014
The Washington Post editorial, "President Obama's 'betrayal" of Cuban democrats", obliterates the ignorant comparisons of establishing relations with Vietnam compared to doing so with Cuba.
The negative response from the people whom Mr. Obama portrays as the beneficiaries of his initiative is one reason to question his contention that Cuba should be treated like China and Vietnam, two Communist nations with which the United States normalized diplomatic and economic relations decades ago. The United States was not able to join with opposition movements in those countries in demanding democratic reforms as part of a normalization process because, at the time, such movements barely existed in either place. In Cuba’s case, the opportunity was there.
Engagement with China and Vietnam also offered huge economic and geopolitical benefits that don’t exist in the case of Cuba, an impoverished island whose main interest to the United States is the freedom and prosperity of its 11 million people....
The Washington Post describes the human rights results in China and Vietnam, after their rulers and lackeys profit from US trade:
But in the past decade, political freedom in China has declined — there is less freedom of speech, of the press, of cultural expression. More political prisoners have been locked up and tortured. Tens of thousands of censors keep tight control over the Internet. The same is true in Vietnam: more foreign investment, less political and religious freedom, more bloggers in prison. And these are not anomalies: In the years that Mr. Obama has been in office, freedom has receded across the globe — without much protest or response from his administration.
Instead, the Washington Post supports the human rights demands from those brave enough to speak out within Cuba:
In Cuba’s case, that means listening to the brave freedom fighters Mr. Obama spurned. Mr. Obama’s prescription was not the only alternative to what he saw as the failed policy of the past half-century. Opposition leaders from throughout the island have agreed on four immediate demands to put before the government: the release of political prisoners; the end of repression against human rights and pro-democracy groups; the ratification of international covenants on human rights; and the recognition of Cuban civil society groups.
Friday, December 19. 2014
I do not hate lefties, liberals, progressives at all. In fact, I am always interested in their views and their reasons for them. I often find that they have a hatred of those with differing views which is difficult for me to understand. So much hate and anger that you can hardly have a civil chat or a civil debate.
No problem with hate, because many things and people deserve it but I sure don't.
Why Liberals Really, Really Hate
Thursday, December 18. 2014
 I heard a pair of Great Horned Owls hooting to each other around 4:30 this morning. A mating pair for sure. They lay their eggs in January.
Roman concrete used 'secret' ingredient to stand the test of time - and now engineers want to copy it
Why people are NOT leaving your church
Smotherers of Invention - Patent trolls, universities, and big companies are exploiting a broken system.
Ancient rock adds evidence of King David’s existence
Sex with your professor is great if you initiate it … or want revenge
Sen. Sanders blamed speculators for the
$7.50/barrel increase in oil prices from Jan-June; Do they now get
credit for the $43/barrel drop in oil prices since July?
The Egalitarian Madness Gripping Madison
Campus hate crime hoaxes: A best-of list
Economic freedom by state
When Journalists Are The Story - Saying a sad goodbye to some NYT stalwarts, and The New Republic.
Warmist Naomi Klein Links #BlackLivesMatter To “Climate Change”
Rape is Plummeting in Frequency, But Campus Rape Hysteria Won’t Go Away
No Truer Words: Gross Calls Himself ‘A Trusting Fool’ Do-gooder comes a cropper
The Last Communist City - A visit to the dystopian Havana that tourists never see
Limiting Free Interchange with Authoritarian Regimes Only Benefits Their Leaders
Shep Smith wonders: Is America about to “ruin” Cuba?
Obama hands Cuba's Castros a major victory, but Congress can still stop it
Castro, Cuba, Obama—and Iran
Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for ‘The Interview’ on Christmas
Mich Feminists Harass Muslim Who Wrote Political Correctness Satire
While Country Crumbles, Democrats Address the Needs of Transgender Illegal Alien Children
Anyone But Jeb Bush? Pretty Much
Hillary Clinton Sells (Very Few) Magazines
Rush Limbaugh: THE PERFECT 2016 Ticket – Clinton-Bush
If you only read American media, you would never know that most of Europe is boiling with anti-immigration sentiment.
A Few Confirmation Questions for Obama's SecDef Nominee
The Chavez Revolution Is Over
Canada: Convening of Fourth Geneva Convention meeting unfairly singles out Israel
Hamas Senior Officials At Movement's 27th Anniversary Celebrations: We Will Not Recognize Zionist Entity Or Be Satisfied With A Palestinian State Within 1967 Borders; We Thank Iran For Supplying Us With Weapons, Missiles
Wednesday, December 17. 2014
A fellow in my office likes to surprise us with Chick-fil-A breakfast biscuits every now and then. It's a pleasant way to start the day and he'll show up with 100 or so, first-come first-served. I usually pass on it, but make my way to his office for the socializing.
Today I had to discuss business with him at a designated time and arrived as the last biscuit was handed out.
A group of people entered just after me, and were told the last one had be served. One fellow responded "Well, good, because I was conflicted."
"Conflicted about what?" I asked.
"I hate that company and everything it stands for. So I wasn't sure I wanted a biscuit. I'm glad they are gone so I don't have any moral qualms."
I started laughing and said "They make a damn good chicken sandwich, and that's all I care about. I can't stand many Hollywood actors and their politics, but I'll still see their movies because I want to be entertained."
He replied, "Well, that's not an issue for me. I like most Hollywood actors."
I could hear my point whistling past his ears.
There aren't many purchases I make while considering the politics of those things. If I did, I probably wouldn't spend much money. I'd have a hard time buying clothes, food, and putting gas in my tank. I'm a fan of Pink Floyd, went to see Roger Waters perform in concert, with all his political nonsense, and simply told my boys "Enjoy the show and the music, pay no attention to the political diatribes and imagery. We didn't ask for that, he's just decided to force it on his fans, many of whom don't think for themselves, anyway. We are here for the art and the entertainment."
I loves me my Chick-fil-A. I don't agree with their stance on homosexuality. But I'm not convinced my not enjoying chicken will alter their stance. To be honest, I'm not sure what one has to do with the other.
 A Dylan performance for an audience of one
The Rising Cost of Felony Creep - Over-criminalization takes its toll.
1 in 5 Millennials Live in Poverty, Census Bureau Says
World-first ‘Bionic Bra’ inches closer to reality
London in Shakespeare's time
What Is a Suburb, Anyway?
Nothing Succeeds Like Liberal Secession: Blue America Without Red America Would Be A Basket Case
Sarah Palin hunts feral hogs. World ends.
Tim Scott: Why Marriage Matters for Fighting Poverty
NIH Has Spent $100.2 Million on Mindfulness Meditation
Mindless
Harvard Law Review Editor on exam delay request: Our Weakness is Our Strength
Dear Harvard College students...
Good grief
Oberlin College Students Demand Black Students Be Exempt From Failing Because of Ferguson And Garner Protests – Update: School Denies Request, Moonbats Outraged…
When Reporters Value ‘Justice’ Over Accuracy, Journalism Loses
NY Post: 2014, The Year Of The Liberal Lie
How Much Does the NYT Hate America?
Government Job Security
A Winning Alternative to Obamacare
Feds force patients onto Medicaid
Bye, Bye “Bailout”: CROmnibus Takes a Small but Important Bite out of Obamacare
A Winning Alternative to Obamacare
Why Do Climate Change Claims Consistently Get a Fact-Checker Pass?
"The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels"
Study: Your all-electric car may not be so green
Gluttony and Global Warming: We’re Eating Ourselves to a Warmer Planet
Scott Walker to EPA: Take Your Clean Power Plan and Keep Walking
Sony Exec Reaches Out to Al Sharpton – Will Hook Up This Week for Race Conference in NYC
Taxpayer-Funded Immigrant Advocacy Group Blasts Republicans - Helps those seeking deportation relief, tells them to vote against GOP
Sydney: For Whatshisname, the Dustbin of History
Sydney: One ‘Irritation’ Too Many
Sen. Rand Paul on ISIS, the Middle East, and when America should go to war
Tehreek-e-Taliban Takes Credit for School Attack That Left 131 Children Dead: “We Want Them to Feel Pain”
Sept. 11 detainees in Guantanamo get copies of CIA torture report
The True Victims of Torture - The Democrats, suddenly shocked by the CIA’s tactics, dishonor the people who died on 9/11.
Prediction: Russia Is Gonna Do Some Crazy Shit Soon
Sorry, Putin. Russia’s economy is doomed
Newly Released NSA Documents Show That China Captured American Soldiers During The Vietnam War
Tuesday, December 16. 2014
Disgusting greedy capitalist pigs: Highest earning musicians of 2014
Office work is dangerous
Highest earning musicians of 2014
Why the Abortion Rate Is the Lowest It’s Been Since 1973
How Much White Privilege Do You Have?
Black newspaper takes on black-on-black violence
The mob is alive and well in the unions
Which Costly Family Most Deserves to Enter the Moocher Hall of Fame?
NYC: Majority of city’s trainee teachers flunked literacy tests
How ignorant jerks are going to treat good cops now; ‘I’m scared for my life . . .he’s trying to Mike Brown me
Social conservatism, marriage, and class:
We may have a culture in which the working class is encouraged to imitate what are sold as key upper-class values — sexual permissiveness and self-fashioning, spirituality and emotivism — when really the upper class is also held together by a kind of secret traditionalism, without whose binding power family life ends up coming apart even faster.
Media swoon: Elizabeth Warren, unlike Ted Cruz, hailed as a principled crusader
The Democrats Double Down - Will Republicans seize the opportunity?
VDH: Epitaph for Hope and Change - Obama has fundamentally transformed America, all right — but not as he intended.
The Rise and Fall of German-American Bund
“If you make jokes about people who are going to kill you, there is a sort of tendency to hold back a little.”
‘He Must Have Loved Ones, Too’ - Pathological altruism in Sydney.
German Leader Denounces Anti-Immigrant Surge
Last week the news arrived that the most popular name given to boys in the UK in 2014 was "Mohammed." The reactions and non-reactions to this story betrayed the deep unease and denial that are now part of the debate around Islam in modern Britain.
How Iraq Became a Proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
At its 27th birthday parade, Hamas vows to destroy Israel
Monday, December 15. 2014
From How the Common Core Went Wrong:
Critics have tagged the Common Core with the pejorative "ObamaCore." The gibe is more instructive than many realize. The Affordable Care Act and the Common Core both involve ambitious efforts to change whole swaths of American life, though the practical impact of each was intentionally shrouded in uncertainty. Both would have benefited from more scrutiny early on but are now increasingly entrenched. In health care, critics have found it a losing strategy to talk about simply repealing the ACA without talking about what should replace it. They need to offer plausible alternatives to have a shot at policy or political success. Meanwhile, the ACA has started to change American medicine. The same is true of the Common Core. Five years on, it has started to change instruction, textbooks, and curriculum.
 What Is Fatigue?
It's complicated
The Cheapest Generation - Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy
Study proves high heels do have power over men
Pope Francis Confirms Cats Still Going To Hell
Declare CO2 a nutrient
“Rape Culture,” Debunked
Police: Armored Military Vehicles Needed for ‘Constitutionalists’ with Firearms
Greenfield: Life in Post-Truth America
Al Sharpton Leads March in DC as NYC Protesters Chant: 'What Do We Want? Dead Cops!'
Back in Saigon: The Senate Intelligence Committee Report
Gaza Is Almost Totally Cut Off From The World, And It's Getting Ugly
Sunday, December 14. 2014
Saturday, December 13. 2014
 Lots of good Yale photos. Scroll down
Rat problem worsens at One World Trade Center offices of Conde Nast
Hahaha.
78-year-old Iowa legislator is prosecuted for having sex with his wife, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s
I doubt she was suffering. It's real clear reality that causes suffering.
The Joy of Old Age
Dogs in Heaven? Pope Francis Leaves Pearly Gates Open
Whew, that's a relief. But what about rats, mosquitoes, and snakes?
Colleges are run by morons
Laughing gas found helpful as treatment for severe depression
Hahahahahahaha.
Glenn, my friend, you are nuts
Will reviews plague 'Exodus'?
‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’: Differences Between the Movie & the Bible
SHOULD CHILDREN MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS ABOUT RELIGION?
Courtship today: Atheist Coffee and Feminist Envy
How Much White Privilege Do You Have?
I worry about this constantly
What Jonathan Gruber Got Right
Democrats Prep Media for 2016 Anti-GOP Onslaught
What if Obama had been honest?
A.B. Stoddard: Dems sick of ObamaCare
iAl Sharpton at the White House - It sometimes seems as if he spends more time there than anywhere else. Why?
"Sometimes I wish I could just passively accept what my government monarchs and their mainstream media mouthpieces feed me on a daily basis. Why do I have to question everything I’m told? "
Life would be much simpler and I could concentrate on more important things like the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass, why the Honey Boo Boo show was canceled, the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, whether I’ll get a better deal on Chinese slave labor produced crap on Black Thanksgiving, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, fantasy football league standings, the latest NFL player to knockout their woman and get reinstated, Obama’s latest racial healing plan, which Clinton or Bush will be our next figurehead president, or the latest fake rape story from Rolling Stone. The willfully ignorant masses, dumbed down by government education, lured into obesity by corporate toxic packaged sludge disguised as food products, manipulated, controlled and molded by an unseen governing class of rich men, and kept docile through never ending corporate media propaganda, are nothing but pawns to the arrogant sociopathic pricks pulling the wires in this corporate fascist empire of debt.
The whole thing is a splendiferous rant
The ‘Cycle of Violence’ Fantasy in the Middle East
Sultan: Leftist lynch mobs
Sweden: "We feel that we have lost our country forever to Islamists."
Yup. Asked for it. Enjoy!
The torture report as the ultimate harvest of media bias
"The report is nothing more than a death rattle from the “blame America” crowd within the liberal Democratic majority."
I would torture anybody to save a family member. Who wouldn't?
Fury as Mention of Israel is Banned from Forthcoming Holocaust Memorial Day in Ireland
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Pic: A pal is building a cabin in the Vermont woods, on weekends, with his wife's help. Kitchen is finished