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.
" ...I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age."
MIT Meteorology Prof Richard Lindzen, speaking to Parliament. Of course, we are still technically in an ice age, with the poles covered with ice. It has not always been so. We're in a sort-of interglacial period within a large cold spell. God knows what the next big ice incursion will do to civilization. It will not be pretty, but I will be dead while the pols try to urge us to drive subsidized Hummers on $1. per gallon petrol.
I really don’t get what our Republican candidates find so difficult to grasp. The message is simple. Pay for your own damn birth control…. What more do you want? Free shipping and handling?
Who is crazier: the ignorant, lunatic, hyper-reactive Muslems, or our pathetic Western governments? Gee whiz, I am so deeply sorry I hurt your sensitive feelings while sacrificing our lives while trying to rescue your freedom and lives.
"This is a world in which nobody asked the Islamic conference, the grouping of the 56 Islamic countries, to issue an apology when Christians are attacked and churches are burned in Egypt or in Pakistan. And have we heard a word from any Islamic leader anywhere about the radical Muslims in Nigeria who are not only burning the churches but are burning women and children who are Christian in the churches. When I hear that, I’ll expect my president to start issuing apologies.”
According to The Washington Post columnist, this response makes the United States look weak and despite looking weak, those on the other side rarely reciprocate.
“Nothing but burning the White House can relieve the wound of us, the Muslims, caused by the Burning of Quran in the US,” he underscored.
“Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders means an apology,” he reiterated.
Obama has sent a letter to his Afghan counterpart Karzai, apologizing for the burning of copies of the Holy Quran.
These people make Islam look both stupid and bad. If they don't want to understand me, why should I bother trying to understand them? "Hearts and minds"? Are you kidding?
Screw 'em. We gave them a chance, and that's all we can do. On this topic, I agree with Obama and the Russians and the Brits before: Afghanistan is a tar baby. If they aren't one kind of trouble, they're another: heroin, terrorism, tribal warfare, Taliban. Kipling knew this.
No doubt a smart guy and a good manager, but a lousy politician: he says what he thinks. Obama is a far better pol - no integrity and no conscience, and lies and distorts without hesitation. That's the job - plus to have some crowd appeal. Mitt lacks crowd appeal. Personally, I detest crowd appeal.
Congressman Bob Filner, together with PETA, wants to replace with simulators military Corpsmen’s “live tissue trauma training” on pigs. Filner’s proposal is a “pig in a poke”, experience and science not supporting his drastic change in military training. But, Filner is running for mayor of San Diego and this is the type of issue that appeals to his liberal base, regardless of the peril to Marines wounded on the battlefield. It may be that after much further research that some pigs may be saved, but until then Filner’s politics are “a pig too far.”
Several years ago, while building a structure with a diverse group of men, a pallet fell on to the leg of an elderly man. I ran over, lifted off the pallet, raised the man in my arms and kept him talking so he wouldn’t go into shock. His leg was bleeding profusely. Standing around us, the group included several medical doctors, doing nothing. I told one to cut away his trouser leg, put on a tourniquet and apply a compress, which he then did. Fortunately, once the bleeding was slowed by the tourniquet and compress, it did not turn out to be a severed artery. Fifteen or twenty minutes later an ambulance arrived, the medic commenting that it was good the correct immediate treatment was applied, and they took the conscious elderly man away to the hospital.
We all surely agree that lying is immoral and, most of the time, a terrible thing to do. We all surely agree that lying by omission is equally evil, most of the time. As we say here, a lie is the theft of somebody else's reality.
In life, we tend to identify liars and to distrust them, figuring reasonably that if they lie about one thing, they just tend to be liars. It's not always true, of course, but it's a safe rule of thumb.
Claiming military honors offends a lot of people in a way that claiming honors for other subjects doesn’t. Personally, I think that outlawing things merely because they offend people is a bad idea (and unnecessary–you’ll note that the offender in this case got his comeuppance even before the law was applied), but that’s another argument.
Making lying illegal seems crazy to me. For starters, every politician would be convicted.
How is it that these environmental “crises” and their multi-trillion-dollar solutions gain so much political traction? Money and politics, of course, are important factors. Government funding for “global warming” research and subsidies for “alternative energy” are attractive inducements to promulgate climate change alarmism. Al Gore has seen his net worth increase from $2 million to $100 million over the last decade as a result of his global-warming advocacy and investments in government-subsidized “green energy” businesses.
A more insidious factor, however, is that emotional myths routinely trump rational science in modern environmentalism. Much of the rhetoric that characterizes environmental arguments indulges two powerful myths in particular, the Noble Savage and the Golden Age. Since the dawn of civilization, these ancient stories have spoken to humanity’s anxieties about living in the complex human world of language, law, culture, cities, trade, and technology.
Long before I knew it was called the "Bennett Hypothesis" I knew that colleges and universities increase tuition to capture increases in federal and state financial aid. I attended numerous meetings of university administrators where the topic of setting next year's tuition was discussed.
The regnant phrase was "Don't leave money sitting on the table."
The Myth of Runaway Health Spending - The growth rate of national health expenditures has been declining for a decade, driven by better medical care and consumer choice.
"The left says we need to “pay our fair share” and we respond indignantly that “we already are! It’s you that aren’t!” The truth of our reply aside, our ability to get people to agree with us is not helped with this tactic. For one thing, we are accepting a premise from the outset: taxes are about “fairness.”"
Let me be perfectly clear: I think it is obvious that Peter Gleick fabricated this document–the only one he posted that makes the Heartland Institute look bad–because the real ones he stole from Heartland didn’t serve his partisan purpose. Or, if he didn’t make it up himself, he got it from an ally who fabricated it. No knowledgeable person could mistake Gleick’s hoax for a legitimate top-secret Heartland memo.
So, Peter Gleick: if I am wrong, sue me. If I am right, apologize for fabricating a document and attempting to perpetrate a hoax, and retire from public life.
Of contemporary mass movements, the green movement has been consistently the most alarmist, the least constructive, the most emotional, the least rational, the most intolerant and the most self righteous.
As someone who has done complex modeling and computer coding myself, I deny that, even if we had such an understanding, the people who have been doing the modeling have either the competence or the computer power, in terms of both memory and processing speed, necessary to accurately model it with any confidence at all, let alone sufficient confidence to make radical and costly policy changes that will devastate the wealth of our unborn descendants. Similarly, I deny that the people doing such shoddy modeling have even studied, let along understand, economics and the future course of technology sufficiently to justify their demands that we implement such changes (which conveniently just happen to coincide with things that the Left has been wanting to do for…ever). To paraphrase Carl Sagan, extraordinary policy prescriptions require extraordinary evidence.
Here's Gleik's own personal justification for perpetrating a fraud. (His excuse is that the alarmists are losing the debate, so he got upset. What debate?)
I find the ongoing saga of fraud after fraud, deception after deception, to be depressing. As we have said here many times, some good old global warming would be great for the earth and great for people. It certainly has been, in the past. However, I predict that we will not be so lucky.
I'm sure Isaac Asimov was not a fan of capitalism, let alone the Republican Party (or even Libertarians). The movie I, Robotwas based on his series, primarily his work on the Three Laws of Robotics and some outcomes that may occur with their implementation. In some ways, the movie was a criticism of corporate culture and government becoming too interlaced. US Robotics becomes an overly powerful organization with deep ties to government, ultimately making the robot takeover very difficult to slow or stop. On the other hand, it's a criticism of Progressive overreach. Perhaps unknowingly.
There is one scene which reminded me of our current government's goals. The idea that we have politicians or bureaucrats who 'know better', and can guide us to a better place. All we have to do is agree to let them, and while many will be harmed, it will be for a 'better good'.
Just a thought about the election: The O cannot run on his record or on his real beliefs about what America should be, so he is going to run mainly as a celeb candidate with a good smile and a good voice. A Hollywood candidate for personal popularity, an American Idol sort of thing?
Good news! The Advantages of the Middle-Aged Brain - Despite news reports about cognitive decline starting at 45, the middle-aged brain actually performs better in other ways
Mr. Weston spoke of how Tony Blair and his British Labor Party set out to destroy traditional Britain by encouraging mass immigration to ensure a majority that would vote for the Welfare State in perpetuity. Millions of people from around the world were invited to move to Britain. Pamphlets were distributed in Pakistan, for example, urging locals to move to England and go on welfare. And both of these actions were facilitated and were, fed, in part, by post-colonial British guilt. Today, although a native British citizen cannot marry more than one spouse, the United Kingdom pays welfare costs for immigrants with up to four wives and their children.
Many commentators have shuddered at the way in which Republican candidates are stupidly making this election about women’s sexual rights. What they miss is that the whole abortion/contraception issue is a tar baby* that Democrats placed squarely in the Republicans’ path, so that it was impossible for Republicans to avoid.
Belmont: For years the European Social Model — and Europe itself — was such an act of faith that to express skepticism would have been blasphemy. It still is.
A lot of Venezuelans worry that one way or another, the country is headed for an implosion. A Capriles win could be contested by pro-Chavez generals; if Chavez wins and dies, a vacuum will open. Either way the economy will likely crash, once the pre-election spending binge ends.
That’s why the very orderliness and moderation of Capriles and the opposition coalition are so striking. Theirs is not so much an ideological or partisan crusade as a desperate effort to restore a semblance of political and social order to a country that is unraveling — a grasp at the modernity they glimpse in Brazil and Chile. Are they too late? The next seven months will tell.
...slow-moving trends don’t account for the dramatic spike in political polarization over the last decade, with Bush and Obama. What else is happening?
and
For decades, Democrats have preferred greater social welfare to low taxes, so they are pleased with his policies. Republicans have preferred the opposite, so they are horrified. And the GOP nominee for 2012, whoever that may be, will undoubtedly promise to undo the Obama innovations, cutting back on the welfare state to keep taxes in line with their historical averages. Accordingly, he will have strong support from Republican voters, while Democrats will view him as the devil incarnate. Without economic growth, there is no middle ground for the two sides to occupy together, so polarization is probably the new normal.
How anyone can build a good family and a charming life without a partner's help and companionship is beyond me, but certainly many are better at life than I am.
I demand HHS do something, somewhere, somehow that makes it a law that I receive free Chic-fil-A classic chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.
Because so help me, if my wife makes me eat another goddamn “heart-healthy” Paprika cod fillet and endive salad dinner, I’ma shoot up a fucking Whole Foods, then use my Cold Steel San Mai to start cutting heads off of any dudes wearing sandals.
And yes, Mr Issa. I’d be willing to come before Congress and testify.
You have a bunch of trust-funded limousine liberals railing against the rich — the one-percenters, as they’re being called this year — until a coveted elective office opens up. Then a one-percenter steps up, and all the plebeians in the 99 percent are supposed to automatically step aside and genuflect.
Why Multiculturalism Is Racism - “The worm inside the doctrine of multiculturalism is the lie that all cultures are worthy of equal respect and equally embracing of individual freedom and democracy.” - Dr. Salim Mansur
The War on Wyden - For daring to work on Medicare reform with Republican Paul Ryan, the Democratic senator from Oregon is lambasted by keepers of the liberal flame.
In 1950, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America on a per capita income basis. Today, the Census Bureau reports that it is the nation's 2nd poorest major city, just "edging out" Cleveland.
Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee - Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover.
I graduated from Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954. Franklin's students were from the poorest North Philadelphia neighborhoods — such as the Richard Allen housing project, where I lived — but there were no policemen patrolling the hallways. There were occasional after-school fights — rumbles, we called them — but within the school, there was order. Students didn't use foul language to teachers, much less assault them.
How might one explain the greater civility of Philadelphia and other big-city, predominantly black schools during earlier periods compared with today?
By a clear majority, Americans support getting free stuff over not getting free stuff. And once established, getting free stuff becomes a basic right, and a part of the Democratic Party platform. We cannot win the free stuff war.
Seeking to avoid a politically toxic vote, Congress has failed to pass a federal budget for three years. This year's new twist? Congress might not even try.
Kevin Carey in The Wilson Quarterly makes the case for college - or at least some college - for all. Naturally, I think that is insane, and for more reasons than I have time to list.
A rigorous high school degree can still provide all that is needed to continue one's education on one's own, if wanted; all that is needed to be a good citizen, and all that is needed to perform 90% of the work out there.
We all know that a college degree can mean a great deal, or next to nothing - same as a high school degree.
A couple more education links:
Are Colleges Ripping Us Off? Half of all college students make no learning gains in their first two years, and 36 percent show no significant intellectual growth even after four years.
His first is to ask, what about, say, Muslim patients who refuse to see other-sex doctors (and but hey - what about the nurses and the gay docs?)
Second, he considers whether it is up to the government, via the Big Government payors Medicaid and Medicare or (slightly indirectly) Obamacare, to decide what they want to pay for.
As for the first question, no problem. They should get their care from whomever they choose in whatever form they choose (unless trying to die in the ER). It's called freedom. (Last I read, however, Muslims may be waivered from ObamaCare anyway because it's not Sharia or whatever reason.)
As for the second question, of course government payors can decide what to be willing pay for, given whatever Congress, the bureaucracy, and etc decides. However, that does not, or should not, require that it be provided. The requirement is the rub, and it constitutes a federal takeover, an overreach, an intrusion into choice.
Of course, the larger issue is the politicization and governmentalization of medical care, which promises to create endless explosions if ObamaCare proceeds. Dr. X is quite right that we are headed towards turning the corner where medical coverage is no longer insurance, but plain payment with the feds as the Grand Medical Commission in DC.
Rather than ObamaCare, I would have liked to have seen a wide-open, nation-wide market for private (including charitable) medical coverage of every size, shape, and sort with no federal involvement, and subsidies for the poor of any age - old or young. (Medicare was a giant error, since the elderly, statistically, are wealthier than the young who pay those bills with their taxes.) Muslim policies for Muslims if they want them, Muslim clinics and hospitals if they want them, Catholic policies if Catholics want to buy them, etc. etc. If unrestrained by government, the market would be providing for every individual or family want. Unfortunately, we never had a wide-open market for medical insurance due to the state insurance commissions' protectionism, or whatever it has been.
Brooks' naivete is usually depressing for me. He needs to spend a month on the streets of Waterville, Maine (no, not in the pot smoke-infused glades of the Colby campus) if he wants to get it. Academics cannot inform him. He needs to chat with the single 22 year-old chickie with a nose ring and tats, on disability for ADD and substance abuse, with three out-of-control kids, with an entrepreneur brother who has a meth lab, a Dad in jail, and an obese 42 year-old mother on "disability" with a "bad back." This is a choice of "life-style" that even Murray cannot comprehend. "Free To Be You and Me." People "find themselves" in different ways...and these folks have "social capital" - just not the sort Murray and Brooks have. They know how to survive, how to have fun, and how to work the system to their advantage.
Barack’s Smug Assault on Freedom of Religion Isn’t Just Anti-American—It’s Unforgivable
MacDonald: California’s Demographic Revolution - If the upward mobility of the impending Hispanic majority doesn’t improve, the state’s economic future is in peril.
Progressives, would assent, that is, to one side of the equation, the side that deployed all those nice-sounding words: Life! Liberty! Happiness! Even the Acquisition of Property (so long as it wasn’t too much). What’s not to like?
What guaranteed all those lovely things was the other side of the equation, limited government, i.e., government that did some few things but expressly did not do other things, not because they weren’t worth doing but because 1) they were outside the scope of a government that was limited by design to foster freedom and 2) to unchain government would be to undermine freedom. It was just this, Mr. Rahe points out, that “the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church forgot.
That's an argument for government control of churches? Christianity 101, Mrs. S: We are all sinners, and we all disappoint God (and ourselves) with our choices and our thoughts. Otherwise, no need for salvation. I think she is an idiot.
The Fed has kept interest rates at an historic low in an attempt to help 'heal' the economy. Fed Governors have no fear of dead weight in assets, in the form of declining values and poor potential returns. The assumption is that with economic expectations so low, inflation is not a risk, and that rates can be used to 'fix' things by keeping rates low indefinitely.
This artificial approach to soothing our economic woes is a dangerous game. The economy has, in many respects, become unlinked from the stock market. In pursuing the current path, the Fed has gambled on some concepts which have been tried before, though in different conditions and with varying results.
Does this sound familiar? Because if it doesn't, remember that the current situation was caused, in part, by the creation of bundled mortgages, an existing tool which was utilized to try something new, with the assumption of safety baked in. In theory, the level of risk was limited. The problem with them was related to the nature of the individual loans themselves. Each bundled group offered had varying degrees of risk involved. Despite the levels of risk, many high risk assets were given very good ratings. In the end some failed, which put all at risk.
...taking on a billion Catholics for no reason, as opposed to taking on a measly 16 million Jews, in order to favor a billion Muslims…lacks pragmatism as well as morality.
I wrote earlier that this fall's campaign would be a showdown between Marx and Mill. The administration seems to have pivoted from Marx to Rawls.
Memo to Mitt and Newt: Read Rawls, also Kloppenberg for clues to Obama's potential misuse of A Theory of Justice in the months ahead. For support, read Nozick.
Can humans
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See the dog show last night? Lots of wonderful sporting breeds, including the
Don’t Be Dissin’ the Bohr Model!
Writing about Attraction to Professors 
Constitutional Right to Moderately Corporally Punish One’s Child