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.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that "of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." Rulers who just want to exploit us may relax once their greed's sated.
But "those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience," Lewis said.
While she was flying down the road 20 miles over the limit, a woman passed by an overpass only to find a cop with a radar gun on the other side lying in wait.
The cop pulled her over, walked up to the car, and with that classic patronizing smirk we all know and love, asked, "What's your hurry?" To which she replied, "I'm late for work." "Oh yeah," said the cop, "what do you do?" "I'm a rectum stretcher," she responded. The cop stammered, "A what? A rectum stretcher? And just what does a rectum stretcher do?" "Well," she said, "I start by inserting one finger, then work my way up to two fingers, then three, then four, then with my whole hand in. I work from side to side until I can get both hands in, and then I slowly but surely stretch, until it's about 6 feet wide." "And just what the hell do you do with a 6 foot asshole?" he asked. "You give him a radar gun and park him behind a bridge..."
Traffic Ticket $95.00 Court Costs. $45.00 The Look on Cop's Face. PRICELESS
One more: Things not to say to a police officer...
When he pulls you over and says,"I think I smell alcohol. Have you been drinking?" Do not say "I think I see powdered sugar on your face. Have you been eating jelly donuts?"
All health care will be delivered by this method soon. Requests for chest X-rays will entail sending you an application to work at a Japanese power plant with a film shirt. Deafness will be treated by ordinances requiring that everyone yell at you -- not just the clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Instead of glasses, those suffering from vision loss will be supplied with an even uglier spouse, because what difference will it make, anyway? At this point, with all our light fixtures filled with CFL bulbs, you can barely tell if you're living with a mammal, never mind a hottie. Good-looking spouses will be re-assigned to those with good eyesight, but who want Viagra, which doesn't grow on trees, you know.
Would you like to know more? Put in another quarter, and press pound. Your pound key generates all the electricity for your house, too, so press it a lot, really fast.
The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel....This president once again has proved an apt negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians and a thorn in Israel’s side.
Conveniently, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has now released a statement, transforming Obama’s border guidelines into preconditions for renewed talks. Until recently the Palestinians had no problem negotiating without those preconditions. It was widely recognized that the Palestinians were trying to get to Obama’s position—a final status agreement structured around the 1949 lines plus land swaps—but that they would have to negotiate to it and make concessions along the way. Now Erekat is insisting that “there is no point talking about a peace process” unless Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accepts the final Palestinian position as everyone’s starting position. Since that’s not going to happen under any circumstances—nor should it—we are again in a situation where President Obama’s de-facto advocacy for the Palestinian cause has made peace more difficult to achieve.
Me:
Obama to Israel, "Let's agree to disagree, and you'll pay for it later, out of sight of this audience."
Netanyahu replies: "My audience will hear from me tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, despite your sellouts."
Without major changes, “we fear that very few providers will enroll … and that (Medicare) and the provider community will miss the best opportunity to inject value and accountability into the delivery system.”
By "accountability," I think they mean cheap. One of the reasons I agreed to post my thoughts at Maggie's Farm was because of our editor's "Ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more" ethos. The Medicare and insurance company's regs drove me nuts, so I quit them all. See me, pay me. If you're rich, I'll charge you a lot. If you're poor, a little. Rightly or wrongly, I do it my way.
There are two simple things that can be done to reduce medical costs in the US: 1. Tort reform, so that everybody with a tension headache doesn't get a $700 cya CAT scan and OBs don't have to spend $200,000/yr for malpractice insurance, and 2. A wide market for interstate major medical insurance.
NYT: "Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality," an unsmiling Netanyahu told Obama in the Oval Office.
Reactions: "Respect goes two ways and Obama, a leader who has a history of cavalierly dismissing the sensibilities of American allies, cannot pretend that he is the injured party here."
Because of current U.S. policy, U.S. companies are prohibited from developing oil fields that lie in Cuban waters and come within 50 miles of Florida. However, Cuba is exploring and developing these oil fields, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to possess more oil than the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and Cuba is partnering with China and other countries, such as Spain, France, and Canada.
The Castro Regime will begin drilling off the coast of Florida this year and will go deeper than the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April.
France's culture, the article says, writes off a lot of behavior that would be considered in the Anglo-American world to be borderline menacing and assaulting -- not rape, but the knocking on that door -- as some kind of boys-will-be-boys seduction.
Obama came to Boston in March to rub elbows with wealthy businessmen -- whose businesses have benefitted from his policies. For the pleasure of face time with the President, these businessmen contributed to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, anywhere from a few hundred dollars to more than $30,000.
Many Jews and decent liberals are having a “consciousness-raising” experience. The three incidents at CUNY this past academic year honoring extremist foes of Israel, and throwing up chaff about academic freedom to distract, have struck to the quick in New York City and spread throughout the country. The contamination in our core institutions of the blatant Israel-hate that has melded the far left and Palestinian apologists and advocates has activated a ground-swell of reaction. Can this be the start of a roll-back? Yes, as more and more Americans speak up in defense of Western values and strike back at those who undermine them.
The Obama-CYA, George Soros funded, Palestinians apologists of J-Street, leftist Jews, defended Tony Kushner receiving an honorary degree from CUNY as “a victory for all of those in the Jewish community and beyond who cherish freedom of speech and are unwilling to punish people for the content of their political views.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York has written to the Chair of the Board of Trustees at CUNY, Benno Schmidt, and to CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. This Council represents approximately fifty Jewish organizations (including the ADL, AJC, Hadassah, Hillel, Jewish National Fund, Young Israel, New York Board of Rabbis, UJA, Union of Reform Judaism, the Orthodox Union, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, ZOA, the American Sephardi Association, etc.) and is headed by some Major Jewish Players.
We are troubled though that it appears that the explicit right and duty of a CUNY Trustee under Policy 1.19 – to express his/her views and vote his/her conscience – are now being challenged….We believe that academic freedom cannot be exclusively limited to faculty and/or students. Indeed, that right applies to all sectors of the academy, including Trustees. We are shocked that people – including zealous advocates of academic freedom and free speech – have called for a Trustee’s removal because they disagree with his ideas and/or his desire to articulate them. Mr. Wiesenfeld’s freedom to state his views and opinions – whether one agrees with him or not – is equal to the freedom granted to faculty, students or even honorary degree nominees.
There are of course other contexts in which academic freedom is at stake, but the awarding of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner or anyone else isn’t one of them.
The 55,000 member Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, on 3500 worldwide campuses, wrote to the CUNY Board of Trustees to reverse the decision to grant an honorary degree to Tony Kushner:
By rejecting your earlier decision to table the nomination and put it up for discussion, you have, sadly, abrogated your responsibility….
The roll-back needs your active involvement in your house of worship, in your alma mater, in your newspaper. This is a "tea party" requiring all to attend.
UPDATE: Tony Kushner, on Facebook, says, " it seems like with each successive fight around the Israel-Palestine issue (first Moustafa Bayoumi, then Kristofer, now this), our side gets stronger and stronger." Kushner calls for "You want Wiesenfeld off the Board? Organize for it..."Now let's make a bigger, f-ing deal. Go to it, folks!" Bring it on, Tony, as you cement your and your allies reps lower than already. Kushner titles his post, "We Won." Kushner, you've won a whoppin'.
Nowadays, all it takes is one jackass to mess things up for everybody else. Why does one whining person have more power than hundreds of non-whining people? "I'm offended. Rearrange the world for me."
Given the statistical likelihood that there is at least one stupid, selfish or self-righteous jackass fault-finder in any group, it's guaranteed that somebody will bitch about something every time anything happens.
No sooner had the tin-foil hat world just begun to gin up conspiracy theories about Bin Laden than we get the new story about the "great man" (I had never heard of him before) Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now we have to have a new slew of conspiracies about him, as if life were not interesting and confusing enough without them.
It is difficult to keep up with all of the conspiracy theories these days.
First, what exactly is race today in America in which intermarriage and immigration have increasingly made it — and its ugly twin racial purity — often irrelevant? We are no longer a country largely 85-90% “white” and 10-12% “black,” but something almost hard to categorize in racial terms. Do university admission officers adopt the 1/16, one-drop racial rule of the old Confederacy? Does being one fourth African-American qualify one for consideration; three-fourths Japanese; half Mexican-American? Does a simple surname add — and often by intent — authenticity and credulity? The son of Linda Hernandez and Jason Smith — a Bobby Smith — is not considered, without genealogical investigation, Hispanic, but the son of Linda Smith and Jason Hernandez — a Roberto Hernandez of equal 50/50 ancestry — is almost instantly? If so, is race a state of mind and personal choice more than circumstances of birth? What exactly is white and what a minority — a dark-skinned Armenian-American is the former, a light-skinned Colombian American is the latter? A dark Sicilian-American is white, Barack Obama is black?
If all the stories and rumors are true, he doesn't have a personal psychological problem (except his new personal political and legal problems). My guess would be that the issue is that people like him have no problem.
In other words, he just does whatever he feels like and doesn't give a damn because he gets away with it and his associates and his wife don't seem to care all that much. To diagnose that (eg Impulse Disorder, or Sex Addiction) is simply to excuse, or dignify, the sort of bad behavior that most people decide, often with great struggle, to limit to their fantasy lives. Everybody has illicit ideas and desires, whether consciously or unconsciously. That's why we are given the gift of the Ten Commandments.
Now that he has supposedly (as the gossip says) had his fun raping and/or seducing God knows how many attractive women and girls, and finally got caught, watch him now act the victim and seek help for a psychological problem. They always do, after they get caught. Clinton too.
The charges are roiling France, where Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the favorite to be the Socialist nominee for President next year and was even leading in the polls against Nicolas Sarkozy. The French are legendary for nonchalance toward the sexual appetites of their politicians, and they sniffed at Americans who disapproved of Bill Clinton when he lied under oath about sex. But we doubt even the French will be blasé about assaulting a hotel chamber maid.
"Politicians ... enjoy a particular tolerance on this subject," he wrote. "Part of the shock comes also from the unusual scene, until now unthinkable here: police arresting a top-level politician on a matter of morals."
The EU was a giant mistake, an attempt to create a bureaucratic empire like the European empires of old.There will be rebellion, destructive immigration, dissolution, etc.No wars. though.
"Today," the president continued in his speech, " there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants here in the United States. Some crossed the border illegally. Others avoid immigration laws by overstaying their visas. Regardless of how they came, the overwhelming majority of these folks are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families."
Yo, Barack, my man, I'm just trying to make a living and provide for my family. So are millions of other Americans, those who were actually born here and others who immigrated here legally.
Since you seem so willing to cut illegal immigrants some slack when they break the law, how about cutting those of us who aren't illegal immigrants some slack when we break the law too?
Rail is great in the right place, for the right purpose. Such places are rare in the US but, in the Boston - DC corridor, rail is good. Still subsidized, but heavily used - and all those cars could not fit onto the NYC roads.
Photo: The Striped Bass on the steeple of the Cuttyhunk Church. I am due another visit to good old Cuttyhunk.I am due another visit to Monhegan Island, too.Such a big, wonderful earth, and so little time to see and do everything...which reminds me of a story. A year or two ago, my energetic and ambitious Wall St. daughter got into some jolly verbal jousting with her boss.He challenged her to sky-dive. She did, and has the vid to prove it.She is doing well at work, and having great fun with it.
It's tough on these folks, but they know they live on a flood plain, and know it will happen once in a while despite the levees which attempt to tame the untameable and mighty Father of Waters.That Mississippi silt from flooding is the reason they have such great farmland.
My dear American friends, you cannot imagine how we envy your First Amendment. The day when America
follows the example of Europe and Canada and introduces so-called “hate
speech crimes” which is only used to punish people who are critical of
islam, that day America will have lost its freedom.
“When you look closely at the climate change issue it is remarkable that
the only actual evidence ever cited for a relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming is climate models.”
But he made that decision to go without telling Pakistan and that took
some real courage, as much courage as our Navy SEALs did in pulling off a
near flawless operation.
Why Pastors Should Get Their Heads Examined - Young
pastors dive into ministry with a plan to fix the church and save the
world -- only to discover that they too need fixing and saving.
...there is no greater example of the power of duplicitous negotiation
than Hitler’s brilliant manipulation of Chamberlain in their three
meetings. More than seventy years later it is still painful to read
Chamberlain’s naïve reports of his "influence" over Hitler, who in fact
considered the Prime Minister a "little worm."
We are faced here with a profusion of double standards. These days, honorary
degrees are unfortunately mainly exercises in appealing to the vanity of
celebrities. Denying one to a celebrity who already has more than a dozen may
wound his vanity—but it is surely just a scratch, no matter how much Mr. Kushner
wails. On the other hand, colleges and universities award honorary degrees when
they are not just looking for crowd-pleasers, to people whose lives and actions
are exemplary and who warrant emulation. In that sense, boards of trustees
would do well to follow Mr. Wiesenfeld’s lead. They should be asking more
questions about the people routinely sent up for their approval. They would
find that Mr. Kushner is far from the only one picked more as a totem of
political correctness than for his actual accomplishments.
...in the present depression, the out of work and poor are as numerous, but both unhappier and yet far better off than prior generations. This is not the rant of some right-wing laudator temporis acti, or the death throes of an aging old white guy, but rather empirically based and shared by most of my friends in the ascendant Mexican-American middle and upper-middle classes, many of whom are becoming quite conservative.
The cars of our poorer brethren in our major discount stores are late model and often expensive. People get into them with full carts of food and clothing. Housing here is cheap and good. How to square this circle between official poverty and misery and the veneer of a well-off general public?
and
I did an experiment the other day. I priced “wicker” furniture at Kmart and Wal-Mart and then drove up to an upscale North Fresno design outdoor living boutique. In short, the local version from China was about $300 for an ensemble, the high-end version was priced at $1700. To the naked eye, they were again almost identical and explain what I mean by the “veneer” of affluence. Ditto everything from jogging clothes to watches, and one can be outfitted in Selma for 10% of the cost of the brands of those popular in Palo Alto.
One wonders: if killing bin Laden was a courageous, gutsy decision by Barack Obama, where were the liberals when President Bush approved the killing of Zarqawi? Do you remember any of them praising that decision as courageous and "game changing?" No, neither do I.
Did you hear that ripping sound? Two liberal icons known by their silly stage names — Mahatma Gandhi and Malcolm X — have just been torn down from their sanctified perches thanks to a pair of massively researched but finally damning new biographies.
Both men, it turns out, were at pains to take on phony identities. Each hid his homosexuality, each was racist, each took pains to manufacture favorable coverage, each was driven by petty hatreds instead of shining ideals — each of these supposedly principled figures was an out-and-out phony.
Update on Prof 
No sooner had the tin-foil hat world just begun to gin up conspiracy theories about Bin Laden than we get the new story about the "great man" (I had never heard of him before) Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now we have to have a new slew of conspiracies about him, as if life were not interesting and confusing enough without them.
"Dr. Lastname" is, for me, the Dear Abby of the internet. Here's why you do not tell the truth, at work: 
Death to high school English - 
All the kids in England 
Insty:
Moore's Law