Monday, December 9. 2013
Saying Grace goes for $46 million at Sotheby's
Sunday, December 8. 2013
 Mead discusses the new service economy, and well-trained nannies:
...what’s likely to happen in the information age is that services once reserved for a privileged few will increasingly be available for larger numbers of people. There will be more and less expensive personal chefs, for example, but more people than ever will be able to eat high class meals. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, especially when you consider the appalling dullness and deadening conformity of those industrial jobs and social conditions that people are apparently so nostalgic for.
Steyn discusses income inequality: Inequality far worse than economic:
... the signature achievement of Obama’s “hope and change” combines 1940s British public health theories with 1970s Soviet supermarket delivery systems. But don’t worry: Maybe one day soon, your needle-exchange clinic will be able to deliver by drone. Look out below.
It reminds me of Kudlow discussing moral, spiritual, and cultural inequality.
Income inequality mainly driven by single-adult households: The Income Inequality Problem is Overblown:
Most studies do not take into account changes in the composition of households over the past 25 years. We have more two-earner households at the top, and more one-person households at the bottom.
Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) on following your passion:
I’m personally tired of stories about people who follow their dream, ignore the naysayers, struggle mightily, eschew every other viable opportunity, suffer for decades, go into debt, and finally achieve some monumental breakthrough that leads people to marvel at their fortitude and perseverance. Tales of inspiration are important, but do they all have to revolve around the same narrative of never giving up on your “true calling.” I think we need more stories about people who do whatever it takes to thrive, and somehow manage to find happiness and passion in whatever they choose to do. Isn’t that more empowering than identifying one specific “passion,” and making every happiness contingent upon attaining it?
I highly recommend it. Review here.
Saturday, December 7. 2013
Friday, December 6. 2013
Heard the President on the radio this afternoon, and I didn't really listen to what he was talking about but I did notice his speech pattern and intonations. Here's my question: How does a guy raised by late-middle-aged, middle-class white people in Hawaii acquire southern American black speech patterns and intonations?
It has to be an affectation, doesn't it? Just curious, because we all expect phoniness and schtick from politicians.
A reader wonders whether he is doing Richard Pryor.
Thursday, December 5. 2013
Wednesday, December 4. 2013
 Oregon's Legislature is kicking around concepts that would make college free
I want free piano lessons and free painting lessons. Can I get that?
Related: The college-for-all model isn't working - After years of disfavor, vocational
education is being transformed for young people seeking jobs that
require more than high school but less than college.
The Maggie's Farm staff tends to believe in apprenticeships for almost everything that is work-related.
 Image from How Much Trouble Are the Democrats In?
The Left Falls for a Revealing Poverty Hoax
Young Women Are Driving Record Firearm Sales
Obama: “We’re Not Going Back” …(To When 87% Were Happy With Their Health Care)
Arctic ice cap grows 29% in one year
I blame climate change
Nurse Practitioners Can Make Health Care Cheaper - And Doctors Want to Stop Them.
Doesn't matter: It's hospital costs that are the problem
Venezuela Goes Into the Car Business
Somali Muslim Who Raped Dead Swedish Woman Won’t Be Deported
Gotta give those Swedes credit for multicultural tolerance and sensitivity
Expert: Healthcare.gov Security Risks Even Worse After ‘Fix’
Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist musicians pay tribute to Bob Dylan in new
album “From Another World.”
How Western left-wing NGOs exacerbate the Israel-Palestine conflict
Tuesday, December 3. 2013
I am highly intolerant of BS, jerks, lazy people, ignorant people, liars, and manipulators. Sometimes these days one might get the idea that "intolerance" is a deadly sin, but I think we're all free, given our manners and sense of propriety, to be intolerant of anything or of anybody we want.
The Intolerance Pimps have realized that nobody really cares much about what other people do as long as they leave them alone. That's real tolerance. However, like global warmist alarmism, lots of people have a stake in perpetuating victimhood alarmism. Most turn out to be fakes going back to even before Al Sharpton.
Remember all those church burnings during Clinton's election? It was made into a big deal to promote black turnout. Turned out to be nothing. Small churches burn down regularly, as was shown after the election.
Sultan: Manufacturing Intolerance
Today's example: All Republicans are racist. The hate crime? Meliorism: implying that racism was dying in America. I guess you can't say that. It's racist to be a racism meliorist.
 Flash sales at GILT
Bob Dylan Investigated in France for 'Racist' Comments
What is the social benefit of old people?
What's the "social benefit" of anybody?
Y2Kyoto: I'll Miss The Polar Ice Caps
Liberal snobbery
“Happy Holidays Is What Liberals Say” Shirt Removed From Website
Pope Francis and the media: Missing the forest for a couple of trees
Nobel Prize-winning economist warns of US stock market bubble
Argumentation: A Tactic That Works Against Liberals
Agree and amplify. Eg, government should run car insurance and homeowner's insurance too, etc.
In Response To Obamacare Disaster – 11 Conservative Doctors Are Running For Congress
Core Incompetency:
The New York Times writes that the effort to rehabilitate HealthCare.gov is in truth part of a broader project, “a frantic effort aimed at rescuing not only the insurance portal and Mr. Obama’s credibility, but also the Democratic philosophy that an activist government can solve big, complex social problems.” We’ve been having that debate for a long time, and, while it may not yet be settled to everyone’s satisfaction, we have answered the narrower question of whether this administration can solve big, complex social problems: It can’t even solve its own website.
Monday, December 2. 2013
Via Dino:
Misogyny and sexism, racism, income inequality, patriarchy, and homophobia and heteronormative ideals course through the culture like a pathogen in the blood, infecting the whole of the being beneath the surface.
Is there a diagnosis for people who worry about these things?
Related: Colleges Substitute Western Greats With Gender Studies
Spending Mom and Dad's hard-earned and hard-saved money to study sexual fantasies? That is sick. In fact, it is parent-abuse.
Saturday, November 30. 2013
 A book: Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner
Welcome to the USA
The end of the Bar Car?
3 Unpublished Salinger Stories Appear Online
Doris Lessing's Impatience With Political Correctness - As we bid Lessing farewell, the blight she
spoke of—“political correctness” and, in particular, its toxic feminist
strain—is on the move again
Hillary Clinton Supporters Slowly Realizing She Didn’t Do Anything as Secretary of State
Hate Crime Hoax Exposed at Vassar College
San Francisco 'Values' Pricing Poor Out of the City - Rent control is killing the city's stock of apartments.
Campus sex:
...they discovered that young women are more likely to regret having indulged in too many or the wrong kind of sexual experiences while young men are more likely to regret having missed out on sexual opportunities, for not having been sufficiently assertive.
Friday, November 29. 2013
And the Winner of the Most Idiotic Leftist Rant Against Thanksgiving Is…
Can Red Wine Really Heal Cancer And Prolong Your Life?
Probably not, but it's worth a try
The Dirty Secret of Black Friday 'Discounts' - How Retailers Concoct 'Bargains' for the Holidays and Beyond
A sucker born every minute. But that's not really the point. I think the faux deals just provide an excuse, or rationalization, for the immediate-gratification fun of going out and getting shiny new stuff.
Church Lady says it’s Satan: Hystories
I think it's satanic
Insty found a very fun toy for Christmas
Fun for all ages
Faith and Pascal's Wager
Media still feasting on Bush ‘fake’ turkey claim; erroneous story still repeated 10 years on
From Now They Tell Us:
"Take the New York Times. In a fit of candor, it now agrees with what we've said all along — "redistribution of wealth lies at the heart of" the Affordable Care Act.
The paper reported that "economic justice" was Obama's real goal in taking over a sixth of the economy. But to make his plan "palatable" to "middle-class voters," he had to mislead them into thinking nothing would be taken from them."
Let's talk about "Thin Privilege"
Let's not. Instead, let's talk about fat privilege: they eat up all the food.
Ezra Klein: The Senate Killed the Filibuster to Save Itself
Rep. Charlie Rangel demands Americans “Drop the charade of democracy”
Small business Obamacare online enrollment delayed a year
Pope Francis Is Wrong: Free Market Is Not A Tyrant
Governments have tyranny in their DNA. People making free market choices can't be tyrants.
Is Obamacare Challenging Enough for Obama?
Too easy
The Magic Money Theory of Leftism/Statism
Che Guevara in 10 Great Quotes
China's rumor crackdown has 'cleaned' Internet, official says
Wednesday, November 27. 2013
Tuesday, November 26. 2013
Yes, Obamacare's insurance standards cover quackery: Obamacare and the New Age quacks
1. How to sell Obamacare to your family at Thanksgiving:
2. And see how seriously the MSM takes this crazy story of hate:
Family Says They Did Tip Gay Server, Didn't Leave Note
3. And we received a comment from a site called Mondoweiss asking that we never link their stories again. We linked the report on Chucky Shumer. I checked their website, where they say "To publish a diversity of voices to promote dialogue on these important issues." Hmmm.
 Who says Poodles don't hunt? Photo above and on right via Lakeland Hunting Poodles
A book: Arthur Herman's The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
Obviously racist: Katy Perry Flagged as Racist After AMAs Performance
The FDA Wants to Ban Berger Cookies, the World's Most Delicious Dessert
Derbyshire on Stupid Wars
Fewer people want gun control
After 85 years,
antibiotics are growing impotent. So what will medicine, agriculture and
everyday life look like if we lose these drugs entirely?
Why The Fed Can't See A Bubble In Equity Valuations
From The New Republic's Obamacare's Threat to Liberalism:
Liberalism has spent the better part of the past century attempting to prove that it could competently and responsibly extend the state into new reaches of American life. With the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the administration has badly injured that cause, confirming the worst slurs against the federal government. It has stifled bad news and fudged promises; it has failed to translate complex mechanisms of policy into plain English; it can’t even launch a damn website. What’s more, nobody responsible for the debacle has lost a job or suffered a demotion. Over time, the Affordable Care Act’s technical difficulties can be repaired. Reversing the initial impressions of government ineptitude won’t be so easy.
Senator Chuck Schumer promises more Iran sanctions, vows to ‘defeat’ Arab world and Palestinians
The 10 Corporations That Control Almost Everything You Buy
Daniel Henninger: Worse Than ObamaCare - Obama's biggest failure is that he hobbled the U.S. economy.
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Monday, November 25. 2013
It is true. Student loans simply enable higher ed to raise costs. Economist Says Higher Ed Bubble Starting To Burst
Does higher ed produce a better product than it did 50 years ago? I very much doubt it.
Is it abuse of the system, or is it the Obama economy? As Disability Spending Surges, So Does Gov't Dependence
There was a time when anybody would be ashamed to take charity, and would knock themselves out to avoid it or to get out from it. The way some people talk nowadays, you're a chump if you don't take what you can. There is never gratitude towards the taxpaying neighbor. No Thank You notes for the charity.
People should never give up on engagement with life. Can you find dignity?
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50 Years After Vaccine Creation, 
Male 
Buying Guns on Black Friday
Blatantly-racist Thanksgiving artwork via Pirate