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.
ObamaCare’s Chickens Come Home to Roost - Democrats, anticipating rage over huge premium increases scheduled for 2017, are already trying to blame Republicans
There was no official recognition that the calls to have us fired could be seen as illiberal or censorious. By affirming only the narrow right to air my views, rather than helping the community to grapple with its intense response, an unfortunate message was made plain: Certain ideas are too dangerous to be heard at Yale.
The Hillary/Bill fortune — generated by pay-for-play influence peddling on the proposition that Bill would return to the White House under Hillary’s aegis and reward friends while punishing enemies — hit a reported $150 million some time ago, a fortune built not on farming, mining, insurance, finance, high-tech, or manufacturing, but on skimming off money. The Clintons are simply grifters whose insider access to government gave them the power to make rich people richer.
A big thank you to Roger and Bruce for keeping the daily linkies flowing here at Maggie's. Y'all deserve some Reeses's cups tonight. Steal them from the brats when they fall asleep.
Sad about Norcia, one of our favorite villages in Italy. We got an email last night from our friends, the monks of Norcia (Benedictines), that they are all ok and have moved into their mountain quarters.
The meteor that just slammed into the Clinton campaign thanks to the FBI
is one of those events that is both wildly entertaining, but also a bit
baffling.
So, movies are important. We talked a little about one movie yesterday, and it elicited a discussion of many. What do movies mean?
Movies are stories. Some people think movies and other forms of visual entertainment like TV shows are inferior to reading books. I think that's sort of true. If your mind is forced to picture something that has been transmitted to you by the written word, the gray-matter horsepower it takes to make the picture in your head improves its effect somehow. Even a story spoken to you is like that a little. Having all the visual work done for you dulls the effect. It attenuates other effects, though. It's a form of mind control. You'll see my story the way I want it seen, or you won't see it at all.
It's the same for writing. Writing a word with a pencil on paper makes you understand it better than selecting it on a tablet computer. That's one of 6,176,158 reasons why is our children not learning.
Movies aren't more sophisticated than text. I think movies are actually closer to the normal way our pit-scratching, mammoth-pestering ancestors communicated ideas and feelings. The parts that work are a throwback. A pantomime by the firelight. Show, not tell. Or at least, tell, not labor over commas. People are affected by movies and television. Or more to the point, people are influenced by movies and TV.
There's a reason why everyone wears their hair like Laura Petrie one day and talks like Dirty Harry the next. There's a reason why the same people we used to treat like lowlifes -- because they are -- get made into griots and petty Caesars, raised on a pedestal of their residuals. There's a reason why colleges had toga parties in the early sixties, and then again in the eighties when Animal House reminded everyone of reminding everyone about sword and sandal epics like Ben-Hur. Our behavior, mores, speech, and appearance are affected by what we see on the screen. Unfortunately, right now, what we see is pandaemonium.
Wow, there are actual male humans on that list. I thought it would be Audrey Hepburn 10 times. It's a little light on Clint Eastwood, though, isn't it? You had to wear Dirty Harry glasses in the '70s. It was like a law.
Go figure. Kevin Costner's name in the same sentence as "fraud." Must be a day that ends in Y. Of course, he's on the receiving end for a change, instead of the audience. He always sounds like he's reading a phone book with a bite from a peanut butter and Seconal sandwich in his mouth to my ear.
Actually, he was. Two-and-a-half hours of suspense, with Bernard Hermann banging away like a tinknocker, and then the bad guy trips on the stairs and dies like an actor in a kindergarten pageant.
Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Vivian Maier: artists who received the recognition they deserved only after their deaths. With the uproar that echoed across the internet with news of its death, it appears Vine will be joining their ranks.
Oh, brother. That little piece of purple prose is appended to a ranking of the best 6-second video clips on a defunct service cancelled by a soon to be forgotten caterwauling service. That's Remembrance of Things Past to a Millennial.
I've never really understood movie lists. They're always curated under titles like, "The 40 Greatest Zombie Love Stories," or, "Four Dozen Julia Roberts Legal Thrillers You May Have Missed." The ones I really don't get begin with, "The 100 Greatest...
I don't know about you, but I don't think there are 100 movies, total, worth watching twice. A list of 100 Greatest Movies wouldn't need any additional qualifiers. There are maybe a hundred great movies, period. Even a good movie is pretty rare. Office Spaceis a good movie.
It's good because it played small ball. It used offbeat actors and looked at mundane things in a fresh way. Your job sucks and you're lonesome and your boss is just going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Saturday. Galaxy Quest came out the same year, and had the same fresh feeling despite the subject matter being pretty well picked over already.
If I had to explain to an alien what the American cultural and business landscape looked like when the clock was about to strike the millennium, I'd show them Office Space. Since they were aliens, I'd have it dubbed in Spanish. The movie is a Swiss army knife of quotes, too. There's one for every occasion. Let's look at the business news today, and see if the little world Mike Judge invented between the lo-pile carpeting and the drop ceiling of Initech still holds up:
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
I'm thinking I might take that new chick from Logistics. If things go well I might be showing her my O-face. "Oh... Oh... Oh!" You know what I'm talkin' about. "Oh!"
Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?
I get this weird vibe when I read the newspapers. I'm looking for things to amuse or delight this audience. Nothing seems amusing and delightful to me. Lots of things are funny, but Will Ferrell funny, not Mark Twain funny. Lots of things are delightful. They still publish the obituaries, after all, and there's always people you don't like in there. You have to take your amusements where you find them.
The vibe I'm referring to doesn't really have a coherent theme I can point out. Just the opposite. I'm pointing out the lack of a theme. It reminds me of the interlude just after a trip to Chipotle. You know what's going to happen. You just don't know if that trip to Costco for toilet paper was enough to handle it.
So if you're looking for a theme in today's links, you're bound to be disappointed. It's a burlecue out there, people:
The average person in the United States in unemployable. They are unable to concentrate on anything but a cellphone. You're only hired because they can't get anyone better, and they can't wait to get rid of you. You must become freelancers because there's no other way to force you to pay attention to your work, or starve.
When the nanofibers are embedded within flooring, they’re able to produce electricity that can be harnessed to power lights or charge batteries. And because wood pulp is a cheap, abundant and renewable waste product of several industries, flooring that incorporates the new technology could be as affordable as conventional materials.
Look high. Look low. Go around back. Dig a hole and look at the underpinnings. A number of any kind never appears in that story. I wonder why that is. Wait a minute. No I don't
Google made its money completely by accident. They had a rock in their pocket that kept away tigers in Palo Alto, and they think it will work in the Punjab.
Remember the crack "epidemic" of the 90s? Politicians said prison or midnight basketball would fix it, take your pick. Neither did, but they both took credit. The problem disappeared only after it had utterly destroyed everyone it touched. Cellphones are just like that.
The tech industry is incredibly sanctimonious about imaginary slights to any aggrieved minority. Except anyone older than 35, the hell with them. I have no sympathy. Ten years ago, the aggrieved parties here were snickering in conference rooms about an adult who applied for a job at their startup. Welcome to the wonderful world of freelancing! Now put down the phone, or starve.
Estimated at more than 600,000 people, France has Europe's largest Chinese community. But they have not been in the country as long as more prominent migrant groups, including those from Africa.
There are 600,000 Chinese people in France? Who knew? Say, I was wondering. Are there any French people left in France? I hope they keep at least one around to insult Americans on vacation. It lends a certain charm to the place.
Say, isn't that about the same age as the two people currently applying for George's old job? George retired eight years ago. Ten, if you count when Pelosi took over the country. Is president listed on Old Geek Jobs?
A 28-year-old man leaving the Dancer's Royale strip club on East Colonial Drive fell out of his truck while it was moving, and it ran over his leg, the Florida Highway Patrol said. The incident was reported to FHP at about 2:41 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities said he left his driver’s license behind, and he is known at the strip club.
That's such a wonderful formulation: He is known at the strip club. Are you known at the strip club? Out of the way, peasant! I'm known at the strip club. How do you get known at the strip club? Do you bring quarters instead of dollar bills?
Well, it's Wednesday, people. You might as well swim to the far shore. You're already halfway there.
So, someone knocked on my door yesterday. That's rare. It was a quiet knock, I barely heard it. I spotted a car I didn't recognize in the drive. Also rare. I answered the door. There was a young, soon to be importunate young woman at the door. She was wary and pushy at the same time.
She pushed a garish pamphlet in my hand. She called me by name, which I found very mildly unpleasant. "Have you made up your mind to vote for so-and-so?" I looked at the circular while I wondered about the parsing of the sentence I just heard. It sounded like someone who had rehearsed the wrong line for a play, and delivered a joke during a death scene.
"No," I said. That's all I said.
"Great, I'll put you down as undecided." She produced a small clipboard from behind her back and made a mark. I thought it was fairly rude to record an answer to a question that wasn't put to me as a survey question.
She then asked for my wife by name. I said she was busy. She sort of demanded to see her. I said no. She said, "I'll put her down as undecided, then, too," made another mark on her clipboard, turned abruptly, and hustled off.
I had answered the question put to me truthfully. I had not yet made up my mind to vote for so and so. If he was on fire, I wouldn't piss on him, and if he died, my wife would attend his funeral in a red dress, but no, we had not yet made up our minds to vote for him.
Like most things in the news, I quickly came to the conclusion that everyone in the story and everyone involved in the production of the story was an idiot.
I have a habit now. When I want to find out something about any news story in the United States or elsewhere, I go to the Daily Mail. It's an awful newspaper, but it publishes all the info it can get its hands on. Great pictures. An amazing find.
If you've been under a rock, you might have missed out on the news that the internet sorta crapped out on Friday. You couldn't twit, or twat, or twunt, or twisp, or whatever you call that internet grunting you guys do. You couldn't go to Reddit to visit subreddits that consist of one founder, one reader, and one moderator, adding up to one person. You couldn't binge-watch Game of Cards on Netflix. Or was it Harry of the Rings you like? I forget. Anyway, you couldn't do it.
I didn't notice. You know, if you ask me, the internet is now old enough to be judged on its merits. It kinda sucks. When it doesn't work because your baby monitor and a Cuisinart in the next country don't want it to work, it demonstrates that it was set up and is being run by fools.
Tech oligarchs buy real businesses with borrowed money from fake businesses. You're going to see a lot of people without swim trunks when this tide goes out. I'm not sure this guy is smart enough to buy a real business, so he really better keep a weather eye on the tide chart. At least Bezos has a paper route to fall back on.
The purpose of rigging polls is not discouraging opponents and attracting money from people who want to back the winner. That's gravy. The real purpose is cover for stuffing ballot boxes. James Michael Curley could have told you that.
Do they hand out Nikes and purple blankets? Oh well. No children to pull the plug on you in the hospital when the nurse isn't looking. The nurse will do it when she notices no children come to visit you.
What's it feel like to perform brain surgery? I'd be more interested to know what it feels like to get your brain surgery from someone who can't spell "vise."
Well, it's Monday, and last time I checked, the internet still worked. You're going to have to think of another excuse for not getting anything done this week. Tell them your Samsung Galaxy phone caught on fire, ignited your car's air conditioner, and you got oversampled at Sunday's wine tasting. It's worth a shot.
Almost Saturday Night is a Dave Edmunds song. I know you're going to tell me in the comments that John Fogerty wrote it. I also know that you're going to tell me in the comments that John Fogerty wrote it, but you're going to spell it Fogarty. I know you pretty good, don't I? I know you pretty well, too.
It's a Dave Edmunds song to me because he did it best, or at least made it first to my ear at the appropriate time. He was the first with the most, as they say. That's how the world keeps score. Once you make a recording, it's an artifact. Artifacts don't change. They can be replayed, and judged. The music industry got really big when it began to produce artifacts that could be made on a relative shoestring and then sold on a mass scale. There's a limited amount of performances you can make money from. Records made lots of people rich for the same reason Bill Gates got rich. Once you've made your one thing, you can sell it as many times as you like.
The Beatles are the first musicians I can recall who produced artifacts that were substantially more than captured noises from a performance. That turned the music business into an artifact horserace. In this race, I say Edmunds won. You're going to disagree with me in the comments, I know it. And I also know you're going to spell Edmunds, Edmonds, and Fogerty, Fogarty.
All music is entirely artificial now. Nothing of it has much to do with the performer. They're just nailed to the prow of the artifact ship. There's a navy of men and robots manning the ProTools oars. People won't have it any other way at this point. They prefer the artificial over the real, because that's all they know.
There's a word for people who know real from ersatz, and deliberately choose ersatz. I don't have time to call people names, though. It's almost Saturday night.
People don't buy newspapers to make money. They buy newspapers to wield power. The destruction of the revenue at the New York Times bothers the Pinchy family not one whit. The employees suffer. The people who own the paper get to decide who will get the blame for all the layoffs. Hint: it's not them.
The entirety of the world economy is built on one thing. That is the rock solid belief that the US government will never miss a debt payment and never devalue the dollar to arrest its debt. The entire global economy is built on the asset value of US Treasuries. If there ever comes a time when people begin to doubt the security of that debt, the panic will plunge the world into a new dark age or possible something worse.
I like reading the Z Man, and Zero Hedge, too. Great fun. They're like prophets standing on the corner averring that the world will end yesterday.
Nothing economically productive has happened in the last ten years. Those who ended up in charge can't produce anything of value, and they can't even keep the lights on.
In case you're thinking about chortling at tubby guys with neckbeards and trilbys over a Linux exploit, think again. Linux is the OS on lots and lots of servers. Lots.
Well, Saturdays are slow around the internet, and busy around the farm, so that's all the links you get. Don't despair; it's almost Saturday Night.
Hillary Clinton is a sinister character but an utterly pathetic candidate. To anyone paying attention, her manifest flaws, weaknesses and wrongdoing made themselves apparent one way or another last night. The evidence continues to mount every day. A modestly capable candidate could make hash of her.
Trump is not the man. He can barely frame a coherent thought or articulate a comprehensible argument against her.
He can hardly form a coherent thought, period. Can not make an argument. I am sure he is a good deal-maker. He has my vote, holding nose, because he has hinted at supporting things that seem important to me. Many Clinton voters will be doing the same thing - a nose-holding election.
That is the House Mouse who, along with the Fruit Fly and E. Coli, may be the most important scientific lab animals that exist.
These cute, prolific little buggers have been carried around the world from their native origin in north India. They thrive in and around human habitat and, as the temperatures cool in the Fall, they are more likely to try to settle indoors.
Cats and mousetraps are made for them. It's October, and we have them now.
Election is over. Hillary did not win, Trump lost a winnable contest. He lost it not because he is of below average intelligence but because he is not educable, not trainable. He is as disciplined as a 3 year-old, and that, rightly, worries people. He can't take anything seriously, and it's all about him. No serious campaign, just carney: Orange-faced Man! His opponent at least is consistent and predictable - if only consistently and predictably corrupt, venal, and dishonest. And consistently exercising poor judgement for further back than most people can remember.
For what it's worth (nothing), I will vote for Trump anyway. I think he would hire good people.
If I am wrong about the election, I will happily eat a few crows. But I am passing on "debate", aka The Donald Trump Show. If he were not in it, would anybody watch?
If that's what people want...however, I think people just wonder which is the more unpleasant individual. Only wonks worry about policy. Politics is high school.
There is pretty much always a MSM effort to save us from one evil Nazi fascist stupid Republican or another, but this year has been over the top. They are blatantly and uinashamedly partisan, and will likely remain so. Hillary will be as insulated from criticism as Obama has been.
To make this election even more bizarre is the way the press has ignored the biggest story in political history since Watergate. The Wikileaks stuff is explosive. It is what political reporters used to pray for, back when we had political reporters. The stuff in those e-mails is the sort of stuff that used to end careers and bring down governments. Despite the caterwauling from the stray moonbat, the media has ignored the story, preferring to spend all their time talking about the Trump bimbo hoax.
I go every 3 yrs when my doc gets pissed at me for not coming in. I hate it. I do like him, though and I understand that he needs some money to keep me on his roster.
Today’s Orange County: Not Right Wing—and Kinda Hip - Immigrants
have dramatically altered the California county that was a birthplace
of conservatism. But two things haven’t changed: perfect weather, and
the beach.
An October surprise timed to maximally hurt the Republican candidate is no surprise at all. It is so predictable that the term “October surprise” has become commonplace.
It is no news, either, that the MSM tries to elect the Democrat. No news at all.
The Clintons are attracted to corruption the way that flies are drawn to offal. The media can spot no flies on Hillary. Its fact checkers excuse every scandal. They even invent a positive spin for a fly landing on her. The ordinary fly visiting Hillary may hold no special meaning. But flies are notoriously attracted to rotting things. And no political figures in this country are as rotten to the core as the Clintons.
Women used to be praised as a civilizing influence on men, bringing the responsibilities of love and loyalty to marriage and children. Hillary has spent her adult life enabling the most irresponsible men on the block, thereby setting an example for a whole generation of Millennials, who have now created a pickup scene that is surprisingly depressing. Millennials seem to get that they could stay home to watch fantasy porn on the web instead of being with real human beings. Fantasies are more hygienic, and they never disappoint. "Can I pick you up?" is inevitably followed by "Where will I drop you off?"
Stockman:
Why Do Millennials Hate Groceries? Because they prefer chips from CVS and going out to restaurants. 
Male birth control study 
That is the 
Harambe Costumes 
Roll On Bob
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