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 think daily pot-smoking is a poor choice of lifestyle especially if you want a clear head. However, poor choice of lifestyle is not a crime. I enjoy a taste of weed once in a while, usually on a boat on a calm, clear day with a couple of Pacificos. Sometimes on a hiking climb in the glorious White Mountains of New Hampshire, or on a trout stream anywhere. It's difficult to relax anywhere, but one must put in that extra effort to relax sometimes if only to get along with others cheerfully.
Water balloons are bombs, and water hoses are flame-throwers. Dangerous out there if you have a psychotic imagination. Life is more fun without psychosis.
The point is that the left doesn’t kowtow to Islam because they actually love Islam, but rather because they hate our own culture. They have been steeped in a narrative about how American and Western culture is racist and “imperialist,” and they’ve been trained to see anyone with a dark complexion and a non-Western origin as the victim of our crimes. When they see criticism of Islam, or deliberate attempts to defy Islam, they filter it through that narrative. They see it as: there go those bigoted right-wing Christians, demeaning dark-skinned foreigners again. So they reflexively oppose it.
It's an exaggeration. They do well in state and local elections. For national elections, I feel they need to inject a larger dose of good old American Libertarian ideas and rhetoric.
Sometimes I imagine that they are afraid to win the WH, Senate, and Congress at once. That never bothered their opposition with their messianic aspirations. I do not aspire to utopia, just personal freedom from government, as much as is reasonable. Trans-fats? Are you kidding me?
Obama
— You’re a bad person to do the best for your kids. Me? You’re kidding,
right? - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=56832#sthash.4YhFG9Qo.dpuf
Procession
Honoring Virgin Mary Considered “Provocation,” Attacked by Moslems in
Italy - See more at:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=58511#sthash.9uxYlOp1.dpuf
I like mass transit, and I love railroads. Most mass transit seems to require government subsidies. I don't know why, but it's the case. NYC subways are subsidized by taxes, so New Jersey Transit, Boston transit, DC transit, and so is Amtrak. Most rail and buses. Even the Staten Island Ferry system. So are airports to varying degrees, and of course roads, bridges, and tunnels are all government costs.
These things keep people and goods moving, and keep the economy going. (Freight railroads make money.)
I like Amtrak. You can ride from Boston to New Orleans, from NYC to Chicago and to California, or from NY to Montreal. Good stuff. And their high-speed Acela is very busy on the Boston-NYC-Philly-Baltimore-Wilmington-DC route. Very pleasant too, and easier than air. Their labor contracts are, of course, insane.
An occasional accident is not statistically meaningful, in contrast to automobile fatalities and injuries. Ten thousand car accidents are not big news. A train wreck or a plane crash is news because they are so rare.
A few years earlier, he recalled, an M.C. in an elegant Chicago club had introduced him thus: 'O.K., folks, time to pull out your chitlins and your collard greens, your pigs’ feet and your watermelons, because here is B. B. King.'... When he saw 'long-haired white people' lining up outside the Fillmore, he said, he told his road manager, 'I think they booked us in the wrong place.'
Howard
Dean: Jesus Probably to Left of Democratic Party - See more at:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2015/05/14/howard-dean-jesus-probably-left-democratic-party#sthash.9ypOX5kS.dpuf
The “Bias Incident Reporting” effort aims to “address the impact of demeaning and hurtful statements as well as acts of intolerance directed towards protected classes,” CU Boulder’s website states.
... most of the elite media—overwhelmingly left liberal—have largely neglected to cover the left's crusade against free speech. Operating out of newsrooms, as Powers observes, in which "there is nobody to push back on their biases," reporters seem unable to detect anything amiss on campuses, in the media, and in the political arena where, after all, the draconian regulation of speech is intended to serve avowedly left-wing causes.
...
From feminism to the media to the professoriate to the West Wing, the illiberal left has been empowered to curtail freedom of speech by the transformation of liberal education—whose classic purpose was to emancipate the mind and promote toleration—into a means for reproducing progressive dogma and inculcating intolerance of alternative points of view. Because Kirsten Powers is right—our colleges and universities have become ground zero in the fight for freedom of speech—the restoration of free speech depends on the restoration of liberal education.
He made two errors: I like to hear what my wife has to say about things because she is darn smart (if emotional) - and he omitted one mokita: Lesbian domestic violence reaches crisis levels. Other than that, he goes easy on the Jihadists but he hits most of the non-PC points.
Record 93,194,000 Americans Not In Labor Force... Record 56,167,000 Women Not Working... APRIL UNEMPLOYMENT: 5.4%... +223,000... Most gains go to immigrants... 100% of job gains among women...
Read it, and Chomsky’s technique becomes obvious, a three-step bit of linguistic legerdemain that begins by emptying words of their meaning, continues by assigning them some random and temporarily advantageous value, and ends with accusing anyone who questions the new meaning as a depraved monster oblivious to the misfortunes of others.
In half a century, astonishingly, we’ve come full circle and achieved the exact inverse of what the Free Speech Movement claimed it intended. What began as lawless civil disobedience now exploits campus regulations to rescind from others the same rights these erstwhile campus radicals once demanded for themselves. In other words: the oppressed have become the oppressors. Talk about Freudian reaction formation!
Boy Scouts of America bans water gun fights;
Woodcock Chicks
In a spa town in the Swiss Alps, you'll find snow-capped mountains, chocolate, goats... 
The Wedding Sting - How a police department
Chevy - not Ford - has finally made the truck I have wanted for over 10 years but now hardly need anymore. I'll consider it anyway.
Headline at