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Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
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Sunday, December 9. 2012Random info for life
Uniworld (we like them very much) has good deals for multigenerational family trips BTU and other useful facts re home heating with wood Retriever Training: Getting your dog to focus Pet friendly hotels and B&Bs across the US Beautiful. St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Church in the Catskills Do it yourself designer saunas Dressing for Life’s Big Events: How a Man Should Dress for Weddings, First Dates, Religious Ceremonies and More Forget about that doctorate in the humanities. No jobs now, none expected in the future. Worse, it takes 9 years to get it. PATCH seems to be gradually taking over local news "I didn't realize there was a cartridge in the chamber." College admissions, via Sailer:
Language trivia: Greeks use two words for wine. "Oinos" of course, and "krasi." Hence "crazy," or so I am told.
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Saturday, December 8. 2012Winter in New England #5: Layers
Dressing for spending hours out in cold weather is a tricky business, because it depends so much on what you are doing and how active you are. If you dress too warmly for a day of aggressive skiing in 10 degree (F) weather, you can easily get soaked with uncomfortable and chilling sweat. On the other hand, underdressing for a 6-hour stint sitting in a Maine duck blind can ruin the entire experience. When it's cold out, you want to be cool enough to enjoy the weather - and maybe just a little bit cold. It's all about layers. I have spent many hours cold, wet, and happy in Yankee winters, but I have become more of a pussy as I get a bit older. It's impossible to get it right, because if you are hiking uphill at 15 degrees, you get too hot, and when you are sitting, you get too cold. But that's why you aren't being a sloth, sitting by the fire. From our friends at Sierra Trading Post, here's Head to Toe Winter Dressing. And here's their Layering Guide. For camo hunting, Cabela's makes excellent Gore-tex shells with good linings (as in photo). Lots of people seem to like Under Armour, but I hate it. It makes me feel cold, and it feels too tight. I like fleece, silk, or poly for unders. Friday, December 7. 2012Over the transom: Einstein, Newton, and Pascal are hanging out one afternoon. Einstein is bored, so he suggests, "Let's play hide-and-seek. I'll be it!" The others agree, so Einstein begins counting. "One... Two... Three..." Pascal runs off right away to find a place to hide. But Newton merely takes out a piece of chalk and draws a mid-sized square. He finishes and steps into the square just as Einstein shouts, "Ready or not -- here I come!" Einstein looks up and immediately spots Newton standing right in front of him. He says, "I found you, Newton!" Newton replies, "No, you found one Newton per square meter -- You found Pascal!"
Posted by Bird Dog
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What's going on with marriage these days?
Is this a general cultural phenomenon, or class-related? I understand that Julia feels married to the government, but don't most people feel the need for a loyal human partner and helpmeet anyway? Marriage may be fraught with challenges, but I cannot even imagine trying to run my complex life single-handedly. Even four hands often do not seem like enough. Speaking just practically, romance and friendship aside. Thursday, December 6. 2012Real good stuff, real cheap
They have all sorts of good stuff. For example, it's the only place the men in this family buy shoes and boots including white-collar work shoes, sneakers, and hiking boots and shoes. For a sampling (their stuff changes constantly as they sell out) here's their hunting boots and their work boots. At their prices, can you have too many pairs? Best to let shoes and boots dry out before using two days in a row, and, if you do, good ones last a lifetime. They will be sitting, waiting in your closet when you are dead and will end up in the dumpster but still willing to walk a mile for a Camel.
Posted by Bird Dog
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16:08
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Sunrise, Cabo San LucasPleasant place. You can do Cabo rustic or grand luxe. I sorta prefer the latter. Some folks prefer Puerto Vallarta, but some feel PV has gotten too commercial, too popular. Either, I think, are preferable to the Yucatan tackiness and drunk students. Cabo has the good fishing. Took a carload of Mexican fellows to Dunkin Donuts today, mid-day. They were felling some ornery post-storm trees for me which were more than I could handle alone, and turning it all into firewood for me for next fall. White Pine and Maple. Wonderful fellows. All from around Mexico City, but they all love PV as a place to visit. They love DD too. Carlos has lived here 25 years. They are all legal, and work like fiends. Ambitious. He owns his own tree bucket-truck, but he also does masonry and driveways. The American Way. His wife does house-cleaning and their kids are in college.
Posted by Bird Dog
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Wednesday, December 5. 2012Hours worked in AmericaAmericans like to work hard, long hours. We are not like the lazy Europeans. In America, people who do not work hard feel a little ashamed of themselves. We proudly retain ye olde work ethic and energy here. Most of us, anyway, hate to feel unproductive. The subject comes up because of this morning's link about government jobs: Biggs and Richwine: The Underworked Public Employee -The cliché is true: Government workers do tend to take it easier than their private counterparts. We should forget about the lower-level government employees. They are mostly union workers working real, useful jobs on fairly short hours plus overtime which most ordinary people do not receive. They are just working for their generous pensions and benefits, far beyond what private employees earn. Don't worry about them too much because they are just people seeking safety and money in a challenging and highly competitive world in which opportunity still abounds for those who want to find it. I still bill about 60 hours/week. But I am essentially self-employed despite being a member of a With a little luck, we all work as long or as hard as we choose to do. Our Editor here reports to me that he happily works around 60 hrs/week including Saturday mornings, weekend duties, and paperwork. He is an eager beaver, and happy to do his job whenever he can. That choice is American. If you want to tax us too much for our efforts, we'll cut back on vacations, cut back on work, and go fishin' and huntin'. I will not work a single day for a net of 50% of my billings regardless of how interesting or challenging the job may be. I hate idleness, but I require compensation for my talents.
Posted by The Barrister
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19:27
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Travel planning around Allah and Obama and a flooded basement
I vowed to finally get the Maggie's HQ basement renovated after our busted water pipe mess 2 years ago before taking another cool trip. A serious mess. We'll see. Plus we need to build a new tractor bridge at the Farm (new concrete footings, I-beams, etc). Plus it's time for a serious generator. But how's the economy doing out there in America? Oh, not so good, eh? Hmmm. And what's this about these new Obamacare taxes? Damn. I don't even want Obamacare. It is economically retarded. And kid's tuition went up again this year? Why? Income tax increases for all? Why, when I need that money to fix the farm bridge and my basement and to buy a generator from an American generator factory? Not to mention my freakin' dentist. I have so many needs by which to redistribute my money usefully, but the gummint doesn't want me to redistribute my way. My way is for utility and value, and their way is for vote-buying. They have better ideas for my money, like Obamaphones and Solyndra and Government Motors - so much better ideas than my rebuilding my farm bridge by paying guys to do it so the machines and creatures can get to the upper field. On the top of my to-go wish list right now is more time in Sicily (I'd maybe like to do some of it with bikes or horses); a grouse shoot at a castle in Scotland with Mr. and Mrs. Gwynnie; a villa or tenudo in Umbria for 10 days with pool and a cook and room for entire family and friends - and rental cars for all as if I were a big shot (not really very expensive to do); more time in Turkey along the Asia Minor coast, maybe by sailboat. Also, Israel but only for the ordinary Christian pilgrimage to the tourist traps. That can wait because I do not believe in sacred, holy places anyway and God is only in the heart. I do need to get back to Montana again soon, a place with horses and Grizzly Bears and maybe a sacred, holy trout stream. Also, those riverboat barge trips down the Rhone with the great French chefs and the wines. Would love to take the kids. I will hold off on Egypt for the moment - missed my chance for the Israel-Egypt combo last year. Dang Moslim lunatics interfere with travel plans, which does them no good at all but supposedly Allah likes it. Well, tourist Egypt had just become a tourist trap anyway so best to keep Allah happy and to stay away from Egypt now. Such a big world, and so little time. A reader thought this joint sounded good (photo): Riad Knisa in Marrakesh. A fun trip might be to combine Barcelona, Mallorca, Morocco. Maybe Ibiza and do the hippy thing. Tunisia is interesting too, been there. Could do it all these wonderful places via high-speed ferry with a little sensible planning and a straw hat. For me, a vacation means Go-Go-Hi-Ho, not sit - except in restaurants. I cannot sit on a beach for more than ten minutes. My theory is that you can relax, and catch up on TV, in the grave. I wonder whether our readers are making interesting plans for next year (other than routine travel like Florida or Cabo or Cape Cod, visiting colleges, romantic weekend getaways, hunting trips, family visits, summer houses, or ski trips and other boring things like that). Carpe diem. My parents and in-laws always say that you have to do it now, before your hips and knees begin to ache. What's on the top of your wish list for cool new adventures? Even if you cannot quite do it right now because of our horrible economy? Tuesday, December 4. 2012The end of the world, in legaleseEspecially at the expense of their clients, New York lawyers work through the nights protecting against all probable, possible and improbable contingencies. They are also covering their little fannies. However, our lawyer (the one with a sense of humor) was reviewing a corporate note and security agreement from the 1990s and found the following ultimate (in more ways than one) example. It cannot have been an amicable negotiation!
Posted by Kondratiev
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Boats in nasty weatherGotta hate it when the bow digs down into green water. The ocean is not your friend, always wants to kill you, but you want to accomplish something, or have some fun, and survive. That's the game. From Illusions, Storms, and Very Big Trees:
Monday, December 3. 2012Winter tips: Fireplace issuesWinter is on its way up here in Yankeeland. Officially, Dec. 21 but, like Sipp, we have already had snow. Got a smokey fireplace? Explanation here. Other fire FAQs here. Found the stuff below at Amazon. Might be worth keeping some around, just in case. Don't use it if Santa is in your flue. It supposedly suffocates chimney fires so it would do the same to him. For us wood-burners, woodpiles feel like money in the bank. Here's a couple of Sipp's woodpiles: My woodpile, yesterday. I do not have a little drummer boy anymore to stack it for me. I reckon close to 2 cords, maybe 1 1/2. I will get to it after I get to a few other things. The stacked pile of unsplit on the left is bigger than it looks. It's a 1/3 cord of green wood, from Sandy: Maple, Piss-Elm, and Black Locust.
Posted by Bird Dog
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Sunday, December 2. 2012Suburbs, to wrap up Bridgeport Week at Maggie's FarmWhere did Bridgeport's working class and middle class move to during and after WW2? And where did Bridgeport's more prosperous people move to when they, or their kids, moved out of the center? Of course, they moved to wherever their company moved to - or the suburbs, to the new developments or old houses on farmland in surrounding towns like Hamden, Monroe, Fairfield, Easton, Newtown, Stratford. Also, quite a few moved to the northern, suburban part of Bridgeport. In time, these surrounding towns and areas developed their own economies independent of the city, with office parks, retail, light industry, corporate headquarters, multiplex theaters, churches, and even their own universities (eg Quinnipiac University and Fairfield University). With this de-urbanization and the simultaneous deindustrialization of the northeast, the city core lost its tax base, its jobs, and its vitality. Crime and drugs became endemic with no-go zones for police. Cars, and government-built highways, made the flight that much easier. In response, the city did what all Blue Cities try to do: they raised taxes, applied for federal Great Society urban funds and programs, and sunk into corruption. Death spiral. Very few old Connecticut cities escaped that. Stamford, CT for one, barely did escape, but Stamford (pop. 122,000) is really a NYC suburb now. It is alive because of huge tax breaks it offers to giant corporations, mainly banks poached from NY. No breaks for small businesses. A few pics of houses in a pleasant part of leafy, suburban Fairfield, CT; once a semi-rural suburb of Bridgeport but now it's more economically-attached to NYC despite the 1 1/2 hour commuter train ride. With wifi and plugs, a train ride doesn't need to be a waste of time. A few more pics below the fold - Continue reading "Suburbs, to wrap up Bridgeport Week at Maggie's Farm"
Posted by Bird Dog
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16:39
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White people problems
Posted by The News Junkie
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12:09
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Dang foreigners all over the place, with a Bridgeport twist: Only in AmericaBridgeport last weekend, Manhattan this weekend. Yeah, we get around to all the hot spots. We stopped in to see a (rarely-produced, and I think for good reason) off-B'way Chekhov play Ivanov. Impressive cast, as they always have there because even famous but serious film actors always long to do classic stage. Ethan Hawke writes novels, too, in his spare time and plays lead guitar in a rock band. Mrs. BD observed that, had Prozac been available in Russia in 1885, the play would not have been written. (Chekhov, the son of a serf, worked as a physician his whole adult life, wrote his plays and stories as a sideline, and died young.) My point is that I was seated next to two extremely cute and jovial 20-something gals, so naturally I had to chat with them a little. They were from Bulgaria, were working in New York. Student visas, now Green Cards. Where did they go to school? University of Bridgeport! Math majors, cute as buttons with shapely legs in black stockings which I refused to notice. They had a Russian gal friend with them who worked at the same famous investment fund. The Russki gal went to Univ. of Moscow, same as Chekhov, and had a PhD in Physics from MIT. All spoke the (accented) King's English, loved going to theater but were "sick of Broadway musicals" so were going around to all the off-Broadway they could. One every weekend. Wonderful - from Bulgaria to Bridgeport to Wall St. to off-Broadway theater. Only in America. They found it amusing that I had been taking pics of Sandy's damage to Seaside Park just last weekend, right next to the sad Bridgeport campus. Before the play, we had a little spare time to grab a bite so we found a counter space at The Oyster Bar, my favorite seafood place in NY. This venerable place in the bowels of Grand Central Station posts a daily list of the 25-30 varieties of oysters they have that day. (They always have Wellfleets.) Mrs. had their famous oyster stew but I had New England clam chowder of course. Pure fresh clam, no extraneous ingredients. The aspiring actor and actress wait staff work their butts off, as do the mostly-hispanic helpers. Busy place, always under-staffed I think. I heard a beautiful Scots accent from the three gals seated at the counter on my right so I had to say something friendly (because, as everyone knows, NY is a cold, tough city and it is my mission to dispel that idea). They were a Mom and her two adult daughters touring the US for ten days with three teen daughters (who were not lunching with them as they had taken the shuttle to the West Side, then the Broadway line up to the Museum of Natural History - Scots are adventurous people). They all lived outside Edinburgh. I asked them how they found the Oyster Bar. Friends at home had enjoyed it, they told me. They were having Olympia oysters on the half shell, and mixed seafood salads. I've never met a dour Scot, but they do drink a bit so you can't tell. They were having champagne with lunch. Heading north last night back up to Yankeeland on the train, the conductor was a Chinese gal with a slight accent. She was too busy for me to ask her where she was from. A gal Chinese conductor? The world has changed. I love it all. As long as it is legal, and they study our Constitution seriously. The whole world wants to come here, especially at Christmastime. Not for freebies or the fun, but for the opportunities too. Our energetic legal immigrants are not interested in entitlements, but many of our home-grown voters seem to be.
Posted by Bird Dog
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08:24
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Saturday, December 1. 2012Experiments in government housing for the poor in BridgeportPic above is a remnant of Bridgeport's grand experiments in public housing. I-95 in the background. Bridgeport was the first city in New England to construct municipal housing for the poor. Father Panik Village was built in 1939 under the administration of long-time (1933-1957) Socialist Mayor Jasper McLevy. (Go figger that surname.) "Slums" were bulldozed and replaced with modern buildings. In retrospect, how naive but well-intentioned it was to believe that Bridgeport's poor would be lifted up by government housing?
It's easy for us to understand, now, that orderly, pleasing people and environments are not made from the outside appearances, but from the inside. As Insty frequently points out, orderly and pleasant environments are produced by orderly and pleasant people: good environments are not causes, but results. Signs, not causes. NYC's Hell's Kitchen is now expensive and fashionable Chelsea because the slums were never cleared. One of my in-laws grew up with an urban outhouse and it did him no harm at all - or to any of his many siblings. He remembers helping his baby sister get to it during snowstorms. At first, many happily settled into this heavily-subsidized housing with the modern luxuries of hot water and indoor toilets. Industrial jobs disappeared, but people stayed. Over time, like so many later government housing projects, Father Panik became a no-go zone for police, dominated by drug gangs - so much so that the project became famously emblematic of Bridgeport's decline.
Vila's poignant sentence "I won't know how to live out there" captures one of the problems: insulation from the realities of the world can create something akin to the crippling effects of "institutionalization." Designed as a park-like area for the working poor - at first, it was highly diverse in population - but the 1935 introduction of AFDC, it is argued, gradually converted the project into a ghetto of the dependency subculture dominated by a new era of single mothers and their ungoverned kids. The Village has now been demolished (I wonder where the residents went). This YouTube contains some photos and memories of the place:
Posted by Bird Dog
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Friday, November 30. 2012Zig Ziglar"Building a better you is the first step to building a better America." On Wednesday, Zig Ziglar died at 86. Zig Ziglar's many books carried the motivational message of hard work and faith will out, and doing so to fill others' needs is the path to success. I remember my father reading Zig Ziglar when he started a business from scratch in the early 1960's, and so was I when I started out in the '70s. Ziglar was correct, I think, because he wedded hope with effort with common sense that didn't make or tolerate excuses. Ziglar kept writing books until last year. Here's an obit. Here's another obit. Here's more Zig Ziglar quotes.
Posted by Bruce Kesler
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22:49
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More Bridgeport ruins: Pleasure BeachPleasure Beach is a 3-mile barrier beach that runs from the outside of Bridgeport Harbor east to Stratford. Once known as Steeplechase Island when it was made into a beachside amusement park by the developer of Brooklyn's Coney Island. That's all gone now. Parts of Pleasure Beach are owned by both towns. Arsonists burned the bridge in the 1990s, and it has not been rebuilt. There are abandoned summer shanties on it now - and Piping Plovers. It probably did not do too well during Sandy. I'd propose leaving it as a nature preserve with a small summer boat landing for picnics.
Posted by Bird Dog
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05:36
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Thursday, November 29. 2012Famous Bridgeport manufacturing businesses in the heydayThis is part of our week-long series on Bridgeport, CT. Pic is the long-departed University Club of Bridgeport (1905) on Golden St., once filled with mostly Yalies at lunchtime. Why was Bridgeport, CT so prosperous from 1830-1950? It was a major manufacturing city with a large seaport and a railroad. Its prominence as a center for shipping, medicine, law, news and radio, and banking followed from those. From a population of 20,000 in 1820, it peaked in the 1940s - near or below where it is now. Rise and fall.
Remington Arms and Ammunition Co. and hundreds more. There were abundant jobs for everyone, from unskilled to the most highly-skilled. Main Street, c. 1910?
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:20
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From Bridgeport's glory daysFor a working-class and middle class city, by the turn of the century central Bridgeport boasted large neighborhoods consisting of the McMansions of the time. Real in-town mansions on once-Elm-lined boulevards. Also, large neighborhoods of less grand but entirely spacious and respectable upper-middle class homes with 5-6 bedrooms, usually a sleeping porch upstairs, servants quarters on the third floor, and rooms off or above the barn-garage for a driver, whether of carriage or of automobile. The economy was booming, new Irish and Italian immigrants were eager for factory work or domestic work - and there was no income tax. (Here's a bird's-eye view of one such neighborhood only blocks from downtown.) Instead of government spreading the wealth around, people spread their wealth around in their own ways. Even the then-ubiquitous trolley lines were privately-owned. Here are a couple of Bridgeport mansions. These survivors are in the South End. There is essentially no market for either category of the old big homes which, if situated elsewhere in Fairfield County, would fetch millions.
Posted by Bird Dog
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05:00
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Wednesday, November 28. 2012Bridgeport Fun: George Washington's Nurse
One good reason to have kids is to keep you young with ideas. A pupette recently read PT Barnum's autobiography. She was fascinated by his hutzpah, and wonders how much of his autobiography is a con job. One of Barnum's great hoaxes was The Life of Joice Heth, the Nurse of Gen. George Washington, (the Father of Our Country,) Now Living at the Astonishing Age of 161 Years, and Weighs Only 46 Pounds More details on the story here. He actually sold tickets to her autopsy. Here's the Barnum Museum, closed at the moment until repairs can be made from a tornado that hit town two years ago. We had wanted to check it out:
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:18
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Bridgeport: Seaside Park
The city has two fine, large public parks: Seaside and Beardsley (with its municipal zoo), both donated to the city back in the good old days.
Storm damage from Sandy on the walkway, last weekend: Barnum's last Bridgeport home, Waldemere (now burned down), overlooked the park. He built it because doctors told him his ailing wife would do better with sea breezes. Who wouldn't?
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05:56
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Tuesday, November 27. 2012More on college grads on food stampsFrom an entertaining post by The Last Psychiatrist (h/t Gerard):
and
Posted by Bird Dog
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16:57
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Woman problems
Believe it or not, modern women want to get married. Trouble is, men don’t. Omerica: Marriage Rate Continues Decline Photo of a human female via Theo
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14:22
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Bridgeport glitz, c. 1920This downtown theater and hotel complex was built in the early 1920s right on Main St. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Plenty of famous entertainers appeared in these theaters as they bridged the space between vaudeville and modern movies. From Poli Palace, Majestic Theater & Savoy Hotel, Bridgeport:
Both theaters had about 2000 seats. For the price of a ticket, you got a taste of elegance and music from a grand old Hall pipe organ. "Meet me at the Poli." Here are some pics of the Poli Palace (later Loew's Palace). And here's a stroll through the now-creepy Majestic:
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:24
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Monday, November 26. 2012Normalizing and universalizing welfare: You pitiful masses still have unmet needs
The State is God? Addiction to government "help" is sold and marketed in the same way that drugs are. It is, in fact, a drug in the sense that dependency sneaks into the brain and distorts who you are, strips you of your dignity, corrupts your soul by tempting you to focus on what you can get for free, and enslaves you if you let it. In the end, it leaves you just hungry for more. Welfare includes crony capitalism, tax breaks for businesses, mortgage deductions, bailouts, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right down to disability and the now ubiquitous EBT cards. Naturally, we Conservatives think it best to eliminate all forms of welfare and charity from government control except for the most desperate or hopeless of individual cases. Remove welfare from the middle classes and provide a safety net for the desperate: Restoring a True Safety Net The Left, on the other hand, aspires to normalize and universalize welfare programs. Hayek's serfdom under a benevolent, altruistic, and all-powerful state. With Obomacare on track to fail resulting in a total government take-over, Liberals are beginning to comtemplate their next project: The Great Society's Next Frontier - Now that Obamacare—the largest expansion of the social-safety net in the last 60 years—is safe, what's next for the liberal economic project?
Apparently Americans have many "unmet needs" which can only be provided by government - or by our neighbors at gunpoint. It's a sorry sort of mess and will not end well. Americans can do better than this if the government would get the heck out of the way of effort and creativity. Cas in point: Tigerhawk's new blog posts about how the new Obamacare tax will damage American medical innovations.
Posted by The Barrister
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16:41
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