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.
Detroit has some of the highest big city property taxes in the nation, and property assessments remain overly inflated, amounting to as much as ten times the market price of the property, according to recent research compiled by two Michigan professors.
This has led to another phenomenon. Property owners are allowing themselves to be foreclosed upon, and then re-buying the same property at a reduced price, legally eliminating their outstanding debt in the process. Six hundred properties were repurchased in this manner in 2012, triple the number that occurred in 2010. In short, Detroit is a city on the brink of ruination.
McGill University is one of the most elite schools in North America, and to walk through their campus is to be transported into a pastoral Chinatown. This is true of all Ivy League schools. Asian Americans have the highest education level of any racial demographic and they’re also the wealthiest.
and
Asians are overrepresented in science, medicine, law, finance, education, and virtually everything that generates wealth. They are drastically overrepresented in Nobel Prizes. These arrogant Orientals flaunt the racist moniker “model minority.”
Euroland is a joke. It's Hitler's dream, without the guns but with his Moslem friends. Or The Holy Roman Empire. The quicker the Brits get out of there, the better.
In Thomas Arnold’s day, the object was to punish bullies, and teach their victims to stand up to them. Now a defensive and enfeebled educational establishment lets the bullies get on with it, and Dalton McGuinty’s ministry has decided everyone else should be taught how to be victims — or, at any rate, members of approved victimological identity groups. Gays? Sure. Muslims? You betcha. Gay Muslims? We’ll cross that Rainbow Bridge when we get to it. For the moment, let’s stay focused: Bullying is merely the sharp end of “heterosexism,” as the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission calls it. Chief Commissar Hall defines heterosexism as “the assumption that heterosexuality is superior and preferable,” which will come as news to anyone who’s had sex with me.
White House Threatens Reporter Woodward: You’ll “Regret Doing This” - See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/02/white-house-threatens-reporter-woodward-youll-regret-doing-this/#sthash.PiKRQqyd.dpuf
White House Threatens Reporter Woodward: You’ll “Regret Doing This” - See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/02/white-house-threatens-reporter-woodward-youll-regret-doing-this/#sthash.PiKRQqyd.dpuf
Government unions own this lovely, tiny state, lock stock and barrel. They do not hesitate to use intimidation, either. A quote from the article:
Some 16 percent or more of the state’s working population is employed by a state or local government. Add in their retired former coworkers, as well as their immediate families and close friends. And around 20 percent of the overall population relies on government for direct handouts, with the attendant industry for processing those transactions.
Then we have the academics and wealthy liberals for whom government is more of a religion than a service provider, as a means both to supply meaning for existence and to perform charitable works. Conducting the Masses is the priestly class of political insiders, almost all Democrats.
A friend of mine just dumped his vacation seaside cottage there because of taxes. Will anybody be left to pay the taxes? The Mob (if they are still as big in Providence as they were a few years ago) doesn't pay taxes.
As with other big city school districts, the ham-fisted attempt to stifle competition should come as no surprise. The unions and their political lackeys in both the city government of LA and the state legislature are more than willing to protect the status quo for the simplest of reasons: as this devastating exposé of the California Teachers Association (CTA) reveals, that union’s approximately 325,000 members represent the most powerful special interest group in the state.
Yes, they do exist. It's the level above Platinum. A friend told me they saw somebody buy a necklace at Tiffany's with one before Valentine's Day. American Express calls it the Centurion Card. It seems to have no limit.
You can't apply for one. They offer it to you, and deliver it to you with a security guard. Sheesh.
Anthropology used to be a science just like any other. Today it is a stomping ground for dogmatic lesbians and socialists with no balls. How did it get all the way over there?
Winter with strong frosts and lots of snow like 20 years
ago will cease to exist at our latitudes,’ said scientist Mojib Latif of
the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.
Explanation in 2013:
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research sees
the hard winters as being the result of global warming: Icy Arctic winds
will be triggered by it and reach all the way to Europe unhindered due
to climate change in the Arctic.
You're thinking, "A half-court basketball shot? Hey, it might take me a few tries, but no big deal!"
I remind you, though, that form also counts.
But on a low note, as long as I was on YouTube I decided to investigate the darker side of basketball, so I did a search for "basketball cheerleader mayhem bloody death" and came up with the following horrific scene of a cheerleader being brutalized right there in public.
I didn't have the stomach to watch past the halfway point, though.
The 45-year-old former lawyer added: ‘We are going to take England — the
Muslims are coming. Brussels is 30 per cent, 40 per cent Muslim in
Amsterdam. Bradford is 17 per cent Muslim. These people are like a
tsunami going across Europe.”
"Pre-school" is a fancy word for group babysitting. If government provides it, though, it is union jobs. Suddenly, babysitters are converted into "educators." That means union dues, and votes.
Mrs. B. and I are also "experts in pre-school education." We spent enough years providing it, for free, to our clan. It worked out just fine. We have nothing against group baby-sitting, which is fine too.
Does anybody outside of DC care? Not likely. Taxing and spending is all they know how to do, and most of us are sick of that by now.
After all, these are not particularly intelligent or creative people but they have figured out how to keep their jobs. That's something - keeping a job.
So, after reviewing Fox News, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, The Washington Times and The Washington Post's web sites this morning, guess how many articles I saw rejoicing in the day's events as we honor our great presidents from the past?
Zero.
It appears Presidents Day has joined Flag Day and Arbor Day in the dustbin of history.
Still, there is hope.
Although it's filled with the usual liberal drool (global warming is going to kill us in 30 minutes, all guns are evil, et cetera ad nauseum) the movie The American President is a wonderful flick with a great cast, clever dialogue, good music and excellent direction.
Including the beginning.
I have a post on my personal fave, Theodore Roosevelt, here.
Is giving birth more painful than 
Photo: gym poster, NYC. She needs to gain a little weight. Too bony is not sexy, even in NYC. Cool shoes, though.
Mark Steyn: 
Image via Mitchell's 
Image via 
Good news: 
Dunkin' Donuts 
Pheasant populations