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.
In a drastic move that would further exasperate the European Union’s east-west divide, the European Commission, the EU executive arm, has given a month’s notice to the Polish government to roll back its national judicial reform. Poland risks forfeiting its voting rights within the EU if it does not back down in the current dispute with Brussels.
The EU officials oppose the legal reform undertaken by Warsaw, arguing that it weakens the judiciary and gives more power to the country’s elected government. Polish government dismissed these allegations and insists that is acting within the purview of the national constitution.
The EU has already threatened Poland with legal action for opposing a pan-European migrant resettlement plan. Poland, along with Hungary and Slovakia, has refused to back the EU plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of migrants across Europe.
"Sister Margaret Ann holds a chainsaw near Miami, Florida, on September 12, 2017. Police said the nun was cutting trees to clear the roadways around Archbishop Coleman Carrol High School in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma."
Bless her, but those are not safe tree-cutting garments.
Most of America has had a rough time since the 2008 economic crisis. New York City isn’t most of America. The city is doing strikingly well, repeatedly breaking its own records for job creation, tourism, and tax revenues. But New York also keeps eclipsing another record: spending. When Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in January 2014, New York was halfway through a fiscal year in which it would spend $76.2 billion; during the current fiscal year, which started July 1, 2017, the city will spend about $87.3 billion—an $11.1 billion increase. Thus, Mayor de Blasio’s inaugural term has seen a 14.6 percent rise in annual spending. (All numbers are in today’s dollars.)
New York’s seemingly unshakable economy has given de Blasio the luxury of never having to make any real choices, across four annual budgets.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has opened up science to a whole new generation, and has expanded interest in communities which previously hadn't shown much. For that, we're eternally grateful. But there are limits to intelligence, and he, like many others, crosses that limit when he wades into climate science.
Having studied Economics, I compare climate science, as a science, to Economics. The level of predictability, due to the number of unknowns and variables, is very low. You can model all you want, and you can know how different parts of the economy impact to a very large degree, but still be far off. The same is true with climate. The various elements involved in developing climate models are fairly well known, but it's the stuff they don't know that's causing problems. I have yet to see a model that is remotely close to predicting anything. This doesn't make climate science less scientific. Science is about explaining, not predicting. Predicting is a nice benefit in constrained systems.
But Tyson's tweet is lauded as "destroying" a key claim of "deniers" (we aren't deniers, we are SKEPTICS, which is what most good scientists are whenever there is a lack of evidence or an inability to replicate results). Problem is, it destroys nothing. No skeptic ever complains about scientists agreeing. That, in itself, isn't even an issue. The question is why are they agreeing? In fact, Tyson's tweet opens more questions than it answers. If a standard scientific conference is indicative of the amount of disagreement that takes place, then clearly the wide level of agreement on this particular issue is an anomaly and you should wonder why this is taking place? Well, of course, the answer is politics. But Tyson, in crafting his guilt bomb, realizes if he doesn't support the massive Appeal to Authority which is the entire Manmade Climate Change argument, then he loses the game. So he pours it on hot and heavy, because he is the authority!
People get off on it. For a couple of weeks, it has replaced Trump porn on the teevee.
Funniest thing I saw was some valiant reporter in the wind and rain talking about how terrible it was, how hard it was to stand up in this danger, when a guy went walking his three-legged dog on the sidewalk behind him. Maybe it was Tampa, where the Mayor says that it's not so bad, we're fine. Not what the reporter wanted to hear, because it wasn't Weather Porn.
I am thankful that the people of Florida were not hit very hard. If you live there, you are used to this sort of thing with flooding and no power for a while. It's a predictable part of life.
It's the most beautiful day of the year here in NYC, abnormally so. Put that in the record books too. Being so lovely, it can only get worse. If every storm (and every storm and every Hot-cold-wet-dry day) is proof of global warmening, then what does every beautiful day prove?
Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin … In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low …
What Americans do. That's not government. It's not entirely selfless: it feels good to be useful, and when you are known to help others, others help you. American Citizenship 101.
Photo is from my pal on vacation in the Dominican Republic. I guess they mostly missed damage from the big breeze, because it looks intact this morning.
"Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another."
Realized I had two hurricane-related pals. This morning I emailed our good pals who recently moved to Florida (Miami), knowing they were not there now. Got an email back saying that the weather in Egypt was perfect and pleasantly hot, and that they had got their help to put up the hurricane shutters at their place in Miami, so they had no worries. I rarely get an email from Aswan.
Another buddy is on a two-week vacation in the Dominican Republic. Sampling cigars and drinking Pina Coladas in the sun seems to be the main activity. If you can call that activity. Says they are all excited about the big breeze and had no interest in leaving. Good attitude.
I am happy that the rich get money. Bill Gates, Derek Jeter, Roger Federer, Yo-Yo Ma, Bob Dylan, have enriched my life. I happily gave them all some of my money.
"... it would be easier to take if our elite showed a similar concern for hurting American citizens and there are many of those. Like the one in four of working age who don’t have jobs right now, or the 14 million on disability, the one in six on antidepressants, the more than 50,000 who died of drug ODs just in the last year. That’s almost as many as were killed during the entire decade of the Vietnam war. You hear about those people occasionally here in Washington. You hear about those poor DACA kids a lot more and that tells you everything.”
Why are viruses 
See Inside David Rockefeller's Westchester Country House - 
EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT ISLAM
Photo is from my pal on vacation in the Dominican Republic. I guess they mostly missed damage from the big breeze, because it looks intact this morning.
seems obvious,
Pic: Dressed for Opening Day. Somebody will need to volunteer to check her for ticks