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 weird way, Trump is doing to the ruling class what Progressives have done to traditional Americans for fifty years. He swings the wrecking ball and says, “Tell me why I shouldn’t do it.”
There is nothing gender biased about this, it is what it is. You will never see a female Quarterback in the NFL, there will never be a female center on any NHL team and you will never see a female batting in the number 4 spot for the New York Yankees. It is what it is.
Are you feeling terrorized by ISIS? I am not. In some ways, I empathize with Obama's practical and political dilemma. Let me explain.
Jihadists pose no threat to the US as a nation. To some unfortunate randomly-selected innocent people, yes. That is evil at work in this dangerous world. I have little doubt that their efforts are designed to produce hysterical overreactions to add fuel to their bluster and threats and to magnify their importance in the name of Allah. This is neither WW 2 or WW 3. Jihadists, whether Taliban. Al Quaida, ISIS - they are all basically the same thing and their only significant threat is to their fellow Middle Easterners, and perhaps secondarily to Europe to some extent. Israel, rightly, fears no one.
In their delusions, they are at war with everybody, but I do not see them as America's problem. Beating war drums and ginning up popular emotion is cheap politics, but perhaps effective politics.
I've left a lot out to keep it short. My final point is that the Middle East is a tar baby, and takes up far more American bandwidth than it deserves. There are no real nations there, just tribal and religious warfare. It is a pre-national, semi-civilized part of the world. There will be no end to that in our lifetimes. And it's not our job. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was a disaster.
and re Trump's idea re Muslims, I am in favor of a moratorium on all immigration to the US, legal or illegal, until the nation as a whole can debate and decide what makes sense in today's world.
Naturally, he blames the guns. I know that Bird Dog and his friends had good fun with firearms this weekend, and not one of their firearms went postal. Also, Gopnick neglected to mention that they had bombs too. Everything they did and had was illegal and had evil intent.
Noonan: The First Amendment Needs Your Prayers - Jumping on anyone who publicly expressed a religious feeling after the San Bernardino massacre. Where are we heading?
Indignation is always selective, it cannot be otherwise; but because it is so pleasant and self-satisfying an emotion there is always the temptation to simulate it. It can be a genuinely generous emotion where it is in response to the outright injustice, cruelty, or neglect of others, but it can also be used to justify one’s own bad behavior (throwing bottles in the Place de la République) and to exile the locus of one’s moral concern from one’s own conduct to that of matters far beyond one’s personal control. In other words, purity in the world, libertinism in one’s life.
Was San Bernadino Islamic Terrorism, Workplace Violence or just a run-of-the-mill shoot 'em up? For some, it doesn't matter, as long as guns were involved, the evil isn't in the who and why but the how (while the Daily News has every right to offend, their cover today was disgusting).
There's no law that can keep us safe. After all, there are laws against bombs. Still, the Bath School Massacre, Oklahoma City, Boston Marathon and a host of others, are all examples of how mass death can take place without guns. When deranged people have a goal, they will usually achieve that goal regardless of the laws in place.
Misguided folk, who believe laws can keep us safe, feel there are ways to keep guns out of the hands of 'deranged' people. Unfortunately, the definition of 'deranged' is likely to be open to political maneuvering. I know, because of my deep distrust and dislike of government, that I could easily land up on a politicized list of 'deranged' people. I don't want to invoke Godwin's Law, but it suits this discussion...the Nazis classified political opponents as 'mentally unstable'. Is it so hard to conceive of a future where people like climate skeptics (who are already hearing calls for their views to be criminalized) would be classified as 'mentally unstable' and have their guns taken?
Even more misguided is the belief that banning guns will make us safe. Because strict gun laws always make us perfectly safe. Like in Chicago. Or California. Or France.
To make a case compelling, you have to make it seem like science, so you'll call up data and misuse it. Which is what WaPo did on this blog. Alternatively, you can pick and choose your data to suit your meme. It doesn't have to be scientific. It just has to look scientific.
There is something wrong with the general state of education in the US today, and part of it seems to be some lack of grown-ups with integrity and maturity. What do adults do when kids stage tantrums?
If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.
If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.
A few stereotype observations from our recent trip:
- They all smoke too much, and everywhere. Strange to see everybody smoking in bars and restaurants. Sort of fun, too.
- They drink too much
- Except for Germans, they tend to be thin. Germans seem to think they look good as overweight people. They do not, and they should not wear thongs or take their clothes off at the beach. Stop that, you Germans.
- Europeans do not work out. Only Americans use gyms. Europeans think going to the spa, stretching, taking a steam bath or a sauna is a work-out.
- Italians do not travel much. But why would they?
- Brits and Germans like to go to sunny climates, get drunk and fall asleep in the sun and burn their pasty skin.
Columbia University has called in the emergency diversity squad after a sorority hosted an Olympics-themed costume party featuring students dressed as members of various nations. You can guess what happened next.
Closed Minds on Campus - Today’s student protesters start with valuable observations, writes John H. McWhorter,
but then they drift into a mistaken idea of what a university—and even a
society—should be
Students
Referred to Counseling Services to Deal With Trauma After Seeing
Confederate Flag - See more at:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=65769#sthash.my6lkdz2.dpuf
Mead: Getting to the Next American Dream- Forward-thinking politicians need
to develop a reform agenda that can help our society move toward a new
version of the American Dream.
Thanksgiving is about the weird ancient America...
What we built here wasn’t only good — it was better, better than anything the world had seen, and we shouldn’t give a second’s hearing to those who say otherwise. Yes, even with slavery, the mistreatment of the Indians, and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”: better. A world better.
There are many badasses throughout history, depending on your definition of the term and/or willingness to believe their stories. Certainly Hemingway falls into that category. For others, John Wayne fits the bill (though he was an actor and his tough guy image was mostly on film). Any single Marine could probably fall into that category, and quite a few soldiers, such as Audie Murphy or Sgt. York. Horatius Cocles stood at the bridge and held off the Etruscans. I'd toss Molly Pitcher in there, for good measure, because certainly women can be badasses.
It takes a special breed to be a rough and tumble sort. I recently stumbled on the story of Carl Akeley, who brought taxidermy into the modern age. His adventures seem like dime novels. He crossed a crocodile infested river on a carcass, and beat a leopard to death with his hands. I doubt that could be repeated today, but maybe these stories are fairly common for men who wind up dead. What made Carl unusual was his survival. His stories live on, much like his taxidermy and dioramas. In that survival, I believe, comes the official stamp of 'badass'.
His career path didn't start out as one which put him on the path as a most interesting guy. He had been fired from his taxidermy jobs for napping. It wasn't until he met P.T. Barnum and stuffed the elephant "Jumbo" that his life changed and he began taking an intense interest in making his creations more life-like. It's doubtful you could get away with living a life like his today, given the current political environment surrounding animals and hunting, in general. In fact, Akeley himself shifted his views later in life and began to promote conservation and nature preserves. I guess anyone's life can change at any point and take a turn for the exciting and adventurous.
When I studied French in high school, the teacher told us that Louis XlV had two baths in his life - the first when he was born, and the second one killed him. Like spices for food, perfume had a practical purpose.
Princeton Students Fight Back- A group
of sensible Princeton students is standing up to the mob, and demanding
that Princeton’s president Eisgruber do the same.
This conviction that “bourgeois democracy” is a mere façade for the ruling capitalist class to exploit the masses has its origins, of course, in the theories of Karl Marx. German philosopher Herbert Marcuse later devised the term “repressive tolerance” to characterize Western democracy as a massive confidence trick: Its vaunted “tolerance” for classical liberal rights like freedom of speech, voting, and the rule of law is actually “repressive” as it “impedes possible improvement of the human condition” by blinding people to the inherently unfair and oppressive system under which they live. What Marcuse proposed, by contrast, was “liberating tolerance”, a deviously oxymoronic concept meaning “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.”
The Gray Lady, to her credit, realizes that something terrible has happened, and she is doing what she does best: sounding the alarm. But she is still doing her utmost to pretend that there is no real cause for this terrible, multi-trillion dollar hole in the pension system. She sees no systemic flaw in the way that the modern progressive city and state are both designed, no structural defect that produces these terrible consequences in cities as different as Houston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and in states ranging from tiny Rhode Island to giant California, New York, and Illinois.
Language is pressed into service to create victims where there are few, but where many are sorely needed, psychologically -- and on the chance such a prized status might lead to a profitable trajectory otherwise impossible by passé notions of work and achievement.
A 
Heart disease 
Researchers: 
Kitchen of Shakespeare’s last home found
The 
A Thanksgiving treat and blessing for me this morning - a flock of about 35 Cedar Waxwings in my maple tree. (Photo is that species.)
Mastering