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.
Qualifications to run for President of the US? Just age and birth citizenship, I believe. In my view, Hillary! is disqualified on moral, ethical, and responsibility grounds. Trump is more qualified than Obama had been, by being an executive, entrepreneur, and by having lots of real life experience.
As I have said many times here, few people care anymore about Hillary's flaws. They are assumed, and she and Bill are somewhat admired for their handling of their countless errors of morality, ethics, and judgement. Having the wind of the media at your back never hurts.
The Yankee State (CT) was once one of the most prosperous places on the planet, and until 1991 it had no income tax. Its other key attribute was its proximity to high-tax, anti-business New York. But over the last 25 years, Connecticut has been in a free-fall as it has raised its income tax four times, leading to towering deficits.
The joke now in Connecticut is: Will the last person in the state please turn out the lights? As Connecticut depopulates, there may come a time when one super-rich person is left living in a Greenwich mansion who is highly educated and with three patents to his name, and the Times can say: Look how prosperous and highly educated Connecticut is.
By the way, a 2014 poll found that 49% of Connecticut residents say they want to leave the state — second only to Illinois at 50%. The exodus is on: 156,057 people have left Connecticut since 1992, taking $9.5 billion in income with them. As people in Fort Lauderdale and Naples, Fla., will tell you, it seems like every third person here is from Connecticut.
Our view is that the best measure of where the future is happening is to look at where people and businesses are moving to and where they are leaving — voting with their feet. In the day, East Germans fled to West Germany, not the other way around. This rapid migration, more than any distorted statistic that the USSR could cook up, was evidence that free-market capitalism was superior to communism.
Rutenberg recycles one of the progressive media’s most cherished self-justifying myths, that there really is an “objective” journalism they supposedly practice. Such a notion has seldom existed in American history, and has especially been scarce since the 1960s, when activist journalism came out of the closet with its ideological coverage of Vietnam and then Watergate, all perfumed with the spurious claim to journalistic integrity and public service.
The truth is, journalism has been a form of political activism long before Jim Rutenberg noticed. Orville Schell, dean of the prestigious UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism from 1996-2006, was not shy about embracing this role for journalism: “In a democracy,” Schell wrote over a decade ago, “indeed in any intelligent society, the media and politicians have to lead. The media should be introducing us to new things, interesting things, things we don’t already know about; helping us change our minds or make up our minds, not just pandering to lowest-denominator wisdom.”
We eat supper out a fair bit. One marital date nite per week, one or two social nights out, and a fair amount of take-out because it is easy, tasty, healthy, and cheap. A couple of times each month I'll do a guy's nite out or a guy's breakfast out with a friend or two. Mrs. BD only wants to cook for guests or holidays after cooking for the family for many years, and I only cook when inspired and for guests.
I just thought these pics that Drudge had were strange.
Hillary leaving a fancy fund-raiser last week, looking like a patient leaving a hospital in her pajamas. She has put on a lot of weight.
Hillary and Huma. I think they have a relationship. Wouldn't a normal Mom be walking with her daughter at her side, instead of behind her and Huma in their twinsie outfits?
This pattern goes back to the selling of the Lincoln bedroom. Friends, this is abnormal. I think it is racketeering at the least. Unsurprisingly, the MSM has played no role in exposing Clinton corruption.
This is not an argument for Donald Trump. As I have said before, I think Clintonian morals are already baked in the cake. It would be newsworthy if they did something honest and unselfish.
There was a time when teacher unions were on the cutting edge of reform, and it would be a mistake now not to recognize those accomplishments, and not to understand the good reasons many people still have to support them. But the future of our schools isn’t more of the same: more big box, one-size-fits-all cookie cutter educational institutions in which everybody moves at the same pace through the machine. As the American economy changes, our schools must change too. Big box schools prepare people for big box jobs: in government bureaucracies, in bureaucratic stable corporations, on jobs for life assembly lines.
We are going to need schools that are focused on preparing kids both intellectually and socially for very different lives than their grandparents led. Among other things, this means that we don’t want the next generation to spend most of its formative years under the guidance of people who have been socialized into the jobs for life in behemoth institutions.
A salute to Labor
Government Workers Now 
How people died 100+ years ago, 
Did this teen pregnancy prevention program
Pic: Me and my brother-in-law last week, taking a dip in Herring Pond, Wellfleet. Not easy to find that pond.