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.
“There’s no greater threat to our democracy than a government that weaponizes its criminal justice system to target its citizens and in this case the target today is the President of the United States.”
For a long time, I’ve made the point that the Republican Party is not really a political party, in the sense that it is a coalition held together by common interests. Instead, it is more like a dumping ground for politicians, who no longer fit in with the Democrats.
Why the hatred? Is it fashion, is it about personality style, or is it about policy?
Hatred is ugly. If it's about policy, I'd like to know what these people object to with their megaphones, not that their opinions deserve to be of any more interest than my own are.
As I recall, many of my pals hated Obama's policies, but never had a visceral hatred for the man himself. I'd gladly have a beer or two with Obama anytime because I think he is a clever bullshitter. Glib clever bullshitters amuse me.
... in the aftermath of the G-7 summit the Democrat-Left-Media complex and the Eurabians are all butthurt that PDT has insulted them and not knuckled under, like previous administrations have (for the most part) since the end of World War II. With all due respect to Europe and the Left, which is to say none at all, GFY. The President is right; we spent our blood and treasure liberating you from ideologies of your own making twice in a generation and after rebuilding your continent and economies, we've spent nearly 75 years afterwards funding your dissolute, insane, cheese-eating, wine-guzzling, adulterous lifestyles while protecting you from Russia, all to see you committing cultural suicide at our expense and then blaming us, evil Jooz, capitalism, Christianity and the 40 hour work week for the ills you brought upon yourselves, as the illusion of the European union collapses around you. Enough.
Bush 2 and Obama began the turn away from "Old Europe," and it continues. Europe needs to take care of itself, but shows little desire to do so. Spoiled and weakened for too long by America's sentimental largesse in trade and protection. Trump just says out loud what the State Dept. has been thinking for decades.
Trump is willing to militarize the Korean peninsula, in order to demilitarize it; and surround Persia with enough reasons to actually take its nose out of its neighbours’ affairs. To caricature the man as a warmonger or protectionist is to get him backwards. He is pushing “America First” and trying to communicate that if we, for instance, want to put Canada First, he’ll deal. But he isn’t going to deal with what he might characterize as a bunch of wankers.
Libertarians and “conservatives” will read this and reflexively start chirping about free markets and invisible hands, but there is a reason they are now a punchline. That’s because these are ideologies, if you want to be generous and elevate them to ideologies, that make all the same assumptions about humanity as the Marxists. That is, they see man as the ultimate consumer, a beast that devours his environment, in the same way a plague of locusts wipes out a field...
This young man does not feel oppressed. In fact, he feels privileged. He is. He is smarter than me and is attending an elite school. He appreciates that. I think this guy has a good future.
Our friend AVI noted the Gini coefficents in the US, by state. The Gini statistical method measures income "gaps" and is seen as a measure of economic inequality. And inequality is supposed to be bad, for no reason I can understand other than that it just sounds bad. "Gaps" sounds bad too.
It seems to me that if a state has lots of wealthy people, it's good for the state. But if a state has lots of rich people and lots of poor immigrants, it gets a bad grade. A solidly middle-class state like Utah (few very rich, few poor immigrants or "inner cities") gets a "good" grade because it is neither a magnet for immigrants nor a magnet for high-income industry.
In any event, all of the states in the US seem pretty close. The only one that bothers me is that Washington DC tops the "bad" list and it is obvious why that is. Government makes for a very wealthy industry in that factory town thanks to us taxpayers - and a large part of it is a ghetto.
Anyway, if government wants to "solve" these "gaps", the easiest way to do it is to drive the rich out of state. Problem solved, statistics fixed. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are trying hard to do that.
Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Wyoming are very welcoming of prosperous people and prosperous businesses.
We live in such strange times that the media ignored the most blatant examples of presidential campaign-cycle collusion in memory, while seeking to invent it where it never existed. Remember, Barack Obama on a hot mic not only got caught reiterating to a Russian leader the conditions of Putin-Obama election-cycle collusion, but he also spelled out the exact quid pro quo: promised Russian quietude abroad during Obama’s reelection campaign was in exchange for “flexibility” (i.e., cancellation) of U.S.-Eastern European missile-defense projects. Should Trump ever be caught making the same “deal” in 2020, he would probably be impeached.
Scientists seek a single description of reality. But modern physics allows for many different descriptions, many equivalent to one another, connected through a vast landscape of mathematical possibility.
Is it possible that the notion of physical "laws" is anthropomorphizing nature?
The Insanely Eventful Life of Grateful Dead Lyricist John Perry Barlow - 
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