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.
Great. Other cancer patients get sent cute, upbeat jokes from their friends in order to lift their spirits during these depressing times. That's what friends are for, to be there during times of need with their calm, understanding ways, right?
So what kind of jokes do I get from my dear friends?
That is, I think it was a joke. Some jokes sound so real it's hard to tell.
In case you missed the announcement a few weeks ago, I need an operation to get rid of a tumor in my lower intestine. Thankfully, they caught it at an early stage, so I've got some time to dig up the cash for the operation. Horrific details are here.
I'm having it done down in ol'Mehico, because it's a quarter of the price as up here. Funny old world, huh? The Canadians come down here for medical treatment and we go down to Mexico.
With a little over a month to go, I'm edging nearer to my goal. After some wonderful donations from family (the advantage of having 13 cousins), the gang at my mom's rest home (thank you, Alice!), some terrific support from the Maggie's Valued Readers™ (and you know who you are) and selling off $5K in stocks, I'm about $6K short. I talked my neighbors into springing for a newspaper ad and we had a collective yard sale here last weekend where I sold pretty much everything that wasn't nailed down and garnered another $550. The one thing I refuse to put on the chopping block in the Guild 12-string guitar I bought in 1968. It's sitting here three feet from me. I'll go before it does.
The link to the Save-Our-Doc campaign is here. As I noted in the last update, if there's anything online I can do for you in exchange, like promote a web or blog site or set one up for you, just tell me in the comments to email you. Every little bit helps.
Oh, back to that 'friends' thing for a sec. Another one of my friends sent me the following pic with a note that said "Hey, maybe you can use this in your art collection!"
But we didn't build that ourselves. Other people did that - our readers did that, but I know they read us for our recipes.
Are we a Conservative website? I think of us as more Small Government-Libertarian in our political ethos. "That government is best which governs least - that government is best which governs not at all." (That's a Thoreau quote, variously also attributed to Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson.) We're freedom-from-government-power-and-control people. Like this:
The actions of James Holmes are not a reflection on us or on that imaginary village that raises all of us. It is a reflection on him. To forget that by assigning responsibility to the gun or the movie is to abdicate individual responsibility and throw up our hands to the liberal gods of government and the police state to come and save us from ourselves. And they will eagerly answer the call.
Is John trying to snag Gelernter as a contributor to his site? Who would not? We have been Gelernter fans since his first book. A quote:
...more surprising than his political super-buoyancy is the resurrection of big-government, 1930s-style economic thinking in the Democratic party long after it was taken out with the trash along with Jimmy Carter, and once more (for good measure) after Gingrich smashed Clinton in the ’94 midterms. The failure of central planning and state-managed economies is one of the big themes of the 20th century. But Obama’s handlers have yet to tell him.
His biggest asset is being black. People feel virtuous when they vote for him, or support him, or at least don’t trash him. We all like to feel virtuous...
He has a winning smile, too. And
While conservatives worry about debt and taxes and huge problems abroad, the left is busy pulling the whole country out from under them. While conservatives fiddle around on the roof, robbers are rifling the house and stealing the children. Conservatives might consider climbing down and having a look. Obama is only the first of a new breed.
The main method Obama and many politicians seek to stimulate the economy is through deficit spending.
What is lost on those who engage this method is that for deficit spending to actually work, it has to be funneled into truly useful production, projects which will yield massive value. Without getting into the problems inherent in all deficit spending, some might make a case that government related spending may yield benefits. It's a stretch to say that the TVA or the Hoover Dam was best provisioned by the government. Fact is, private industry would have managed these projects much more efficiently.
But these are examples of the sort of project which could make the government look better than it does right now by spending massive amounts of money with little to show for it. I'm not saying I support these projects, just that better options exist than Obama's current path. He made a moderately good show by using some funds to try and build a train tunnel under the Hudson which would have saved me 15 minutes on my commute each day. That tunnel, however, was going to be built with limited oversight, meaning costs would've spiraled and New Jersey would have overspent on it, thus losing all the value it would provide.
More importantly, these types of projects are difficult to begin today. Why? Regulation. It would be virtually impossible to build the Tappan Zee Bridge today, and even the current upgrade of the facility has faced massive problems which have increased the cost dramatically. A study of the region around the Hoover Dam, with today's regulatory environment, would end up killing this sort of project altogether due to environmental concerns. My perspective is simply that the Left has hung themselves on their own petard. They want the government to spark job growth, but they want to regulate all sorts of things, not realizing they hamper job growth.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has issued its annual report on the regulatory environment, outlining the economic costs of current Federal regulations. Today, these economic costs are greater than all corporate profits. In other words, one of the fastest and best ways for Obama to earn tax income to drive down the deficit would not to be raising taxes - but by reducing regulation. Of course, this would mean admitting his previous approach was incorrect and flawed.
On rare occasions I agree with the teachers' unions, to whom this was an election year favor. I don't think the feds have any proper role in education. I don't even think the states have a proper role in education. Important things like education and medical care need to be kept far away from politicians.
Related, from Harsanyi: Are Obama's Ideas Un-American? - If not un-American, the ideas that propel Obama's re-election campaign are certainly unprecedented.
"Does your cauliflower have a large carbon footprint?"
If your thang today is to just log on and hang out, I have a couple of suggestions for your entertainment, education, and/or enlightenment.
Pic: From the 'Framing The Shot' collection in my art gallery
For starters, I've recently rearranged my video section and have collected my better 'video articles'; that is, articles centered around a video, into a new section called, appropriately enough, Video Articles.
As for my double-hip Special Vids section, I've recently added an interesting documentary on crossword puzzles. Before that were two documentaries on the Fukushima tsunami/meltdown, and the brilliant — if half a century old — flick, '12 Angry Men'.
I also opened up a Fave Vids section where I've collected the web vids that have really touched me over the years, usually because of the music. If you remember Gwynnie's 'seat belt' commercial from about a year ago, that's in there.
And, of course, there's the infamous Bag O' Clips, also known as "the last refuge of societal misfits everywhere", where movie lovers can slip away for hours. If you think my movie clips on Maggie's are sharp, the WMV clips in that area are the next step up, because I'm not reducing the quality by rendering them to FLV so the Mac bunch can see them.
And, just in case you're a music lover and have been away for the past month or so, allow me toss out the link to my Introducing Jackie Evancho post one last time. What a fun post that was.
Congress’ pathetic inability to manage the Postal Service won’t sink the republic, but the ineptitude and selfishness on display in the process just might. If Congress approaches the “fiscal cliff” it has set up for the end of this year with no more statesmanship and wisdom than it has exhibited in the USPS matter, the United States will be headed for the biggest man-made financial disaster in its history.
What divides liberals and conservatives is not roads and bridges but Julia’s world, an Obama campaign creation that may be the most self-revealing parody of liberalism ever conceived. It’s a series of cartoon illustrations in which a fictional Julia is swaddled and subsidized throughout her life by an all- giving government of bottomless pockets and “Queen for a Day” magnanimity. At every stage, the state is there to provide — preschool classes and cut-rate college loans, birth control and maternity care, business loans and retirement. The only time she’s on her own is at her grave site.
Bill Whittle explains why Progressive policies exist regardless of whether they achieve their purported purposes. In case you haven't seen this excellent summary elsewhere:
Laura at Ace points out that most ventures fail, but the Warren-Obama theme has nothing to say about that. For example, photo below stolen from Gateway. It's the real Obama HQ for Maine:
Rep. Jesse Jackson's absence lately has been the source of much speculation and rumor. Yesterday, his mother spoke about his disappearance.
I don't know what's wrong with him, and if he is sick, I hope he gets the treatment he needs and is better soon. But his mother's words ring hollow. Is she saying that her son can't get up in the morning because he didn't get what he wanted?
There are plenty of things I wanted. I thought I'd be a senator, too. I thought I'd be a fireman, an astronaut and a pro soccer player. But I still get up in the morning and do my job, despite many disappointments in life.
People need privacy, particularly when ill. But this is an elected official who is suffering through several scandals. Something seems amiss. One has to wonder how Democrats would handle this if it was a Republican representative who was "disappointed"?
I'm not trying to diminish a physical ailment or a (rumored) addiction. These are difficult and can require much assistance. But the idea that he's not "bouncing back" from disappointment sounds a bit like a mother excusing and rationalizing her entitled son's behaviors.
The more the growing irrelevance of race in society at large, the more the desperation of those careers that cannot continue without it. Rev. Wright, Obama pastor emeritus, last week was, in Alfred Rosenberg-fashion, bemoaning evil “white DNA.” I’ll pass on the NAACP convention other than to note that the media sought to accuse Romney of racism because he had the fortitude to give his plain message to an audience without pandering.
... if everything you do is designed to make you more appealing to women, you're an eager vibrator. When your muscle is just for show, when everything you do is to make yourself more desirable, you're playing the female role. When your worth as a man depends on how many women you can lure to your loins, you're just a gigolo.
As one who also teaches at a community college in New Jersey, I agree with Chuck that you feel the heat at that level for a variety of reasons, including the increasing pressure from administrators and state legislators who want to see evidence of “success.” Students, after all, are “customers” who’ve paid for their courses, and “customers” deserve satisfaction. Whether or not they've learned anything seems secondary to the need to stick diplomas into their hands.
We have mentioned here many times that the EU was designed to evolve into a modern Holy Roman Empire, or maybe just a modern Roman Empire, or a thousand-year reich, or something. I thought imperialism was supposed to be a bad thing nowadays.
The process is moving always towards imperial government, making very clear that the opposite of nationhood is not Enlightenment but Empire. And only one thing stands opposed to this result, and that is the national sentiments of the European people.
I think I represent the Maggie's view when I advocate for decentralization of power. Nationalism doesn't "cause" wars any more than guns kill people. People cause wars. Furthermore, I think that the US over the past 160 years has "evolved" into a sort of empire of states, albeit a representative one (as is the hapless EU). Compare state and local power in 1850 compared to today. Centralized institutions aggregate power the way the sun aggregated planets. They always want more money, control, and power, and there's always a rationalization for it. We're supposed to think they mean well, but they are watching out for their careers, their pensions, and their egos.
The people I respect most are those who want no power or control over anyone or anything other than their own destiny. Exceptions: one's kids and one's livelihood.
Everybody's got free advice for the Republican candidate. Here's what I want to hear him say:
"Mr. Obama, I will ask you to quit with the smears and lies about me. The negativity is not dignified and it is not presidential. You promised a new kind of politics, but you have given us nothing but ugly and divisive Chicago-style politics. You have been President for three 1/2 years. Man up and try to defend your record instead of trying to smear a fellow citizen."
Update: I see that, as of today, they are branding Obama as a liar. Even so, I'd like to hear it as a sound bite.
– In the 1960s, there were 18 workers per Medicaid recipient. Today that number is 2.5. – The number of Americans on disability has risen 19% faster than jobs created during this recovery. – There are just 1.2 private sector workers per 1 person on welfare or working for government. – There are now just 1.65 employed persons in private sector per 1 person on welfare assistance
Look around you. You would have people graduating from high school and from college who know no American history, who have no concept of what this nation is for and what it achieved, who have no concept of what the nation stands for, why it should inspire them, why they should take care of it, why it’s any different from Denmark or Norway or Portugal. You’d have students graduating with no grasp of literature, having barely glanced at any of the great and deep artistic and spiritual traditions of the West. You’d have students graduating in this country that emerged from the Bible, this biblical republic, who’ve never opened the Bible in their lives and who’ve been taught that it is toxic. You’d have students emerging from colleges like Yale with ideas that families as traditionally constituted are the problem and that the sooner we can do away with them the better, and that heterosexuality is one random choice on a very long and growing list. Look around you and you can see exactly what would happen. It has happened and it’s a tragedy.
The megawealthy urge tiny cubes for the proles. If NYC got rid of rent control, and let builders build, nobody would need 300 square foot apartments. Free markets would make NYC affordable for the tons of people who want to live there but cannot afford to.
“Self-esteem comes from doing esteemable things. Sitting at home and getting a check from the government is not going to help your self-esteem. What it will do is make you an economic slave to people living in a far, far, distant place,” West said on Sunday.
“He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning and having that title of ‘American,’” the congressman said of the president. “He’d rather you be his slave and be economically dependent upon him.”
This year, meanwhile, the great resolution we are working toward isn’t so much Democrat or Republican, Obama or Romney; this year, it’s America – liberty, self-government, responsibility – and us.
Great. Other cancer patients get sent cute, upbeat jokes from their friends in order to lift their spirits during these depressing times. That's what friends are for, to be there during times of need with their calm, understanding ways, right?
200 Screaming SEIU Goons 
If your thang today is to just log on and hang out, I have a couple of suggestions for your entertainment, education, and/or enlightenment.
Man With World's Largest Penis 
Image via 
Everyone a Harlot
School bullying: 