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.
The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel....This president once again has proved an apt negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians and a thorn in Israel’s side.
Conveniently, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has now released a statement, transforming Obama’s border guidelines into preconditions for renewed talks. Until recently the Palestinians had no problem negotiating without those preconditions. It was widely recognized that the Palestinians were trying to get to Obama’s position—a final status agreement structured around the 1949 lines plus land swaps—but that they would have to negotiate to it and make concessions along the way. Now Erekat is insisting that “there is no point talking about a peace process” unless Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accepts the final Palestinian position as everyone’s starting position. Since that’s not going to happen under any circumstances—nor should it—we are again in a situation where President Obama’s de-facto advocacy for the Palestinian cause has made peace more difficult to achieve.
Me:
Obama to Israel, "Let's agree to disagree, and you'll pay for it later, out of sight of this audience."
Netanyahu replies: "My audience will hear from me tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, despite your sellouts."
It's like a perfect distillation of every unpleasant mental, verbal and physical tic extant in the land, gleaned from all points on the cultural, racial, and class compass.
Children raised solely by the popular culture and the public schools are essentially feral, but somehow less noble than an actual feral person would be. That's a difficult thing to achieve. Must be why it costs so much property tax money and cable bill cash to accomplish.
I doubt it's a deliberate scam. I suspect she is not insane, but probably half-crazy. It's easy to prove: just do some blind testing of her.
It reminds me of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (a fascinating article). People in the US can retire on this non-existent syndrome. The shame is that quacks are around to reinforce this sort of nonsense:
"Multiple chemical sensitivity" is not a legitimate diagnosis. Instead of testing their claims with well-designed research, its advocates are promoting them through publications, talk shows, support groups, lawsuits, and political maneuvering (such as getting state governors to designate a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Awareness Week). Many are also part of a network of questionable legal actions alleging injuries by environmental chemicals.
Many people diagnosed with "MCS" suffer greatly and are very difficult to treat. Well-designed investigations suggest that most of them have a psychosomatic disorder in which they develop multiple symptoms in response to stress. If this is true—and I believe it is—clinical ecology patients run the risks of misdiagnosis, mistreatment, financial exploitation, and/or delay of proper medical and psychiatric care. In addition, insurance companies, employers, other taxpayers, and ultimately all citizens are being burdened by dubious claims for disability and damages. To protect the public, state licensing boards should scrutinize the activities of clinical ecologists and decide whether the overall quality of their care is sufficient for them to remain in medical practice.
Lyme Disease (which is a real and readily-treatable infection) presents another interesting situation in which crocks and quackery abounds.
Without major changes, “we fear that very few providers will enroll … and that (Medicare) and the provider community will miss the best opportunity to inject value and accountability into the delivery system.”
By "accountability," I think they mean cheap. One of the reasons I agreed to post my thoughts at Maggie's Farm was because of our editor's "Ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more" ethos. The Medicare and insurance company's regs drove me nuts, so I quit them all. See me, pay me. If you're rich, I'll charge you a lot. If you're poor, a little. Rightly or wrongly, I do it my way.
There are two simple things that can be done to reduce medical costs in the US: 1. Tort reform, so that everybody with a tension headache doesn't get a $700 cya CAT scan and OBs don't have to spend $200,000/yr for malpractice insurance, and 2. A wide market for interstate major medical insurance.
NYT: "Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality," an unsmiling Netanyahu told Obama in the Oval Office.
Reactions: "Respect goes two ways and Obama, a leader who has a history of cavalierly dismissing the sensibilities of American allies, cannot pretend that he is the injured party here."
Many people today are obsessed with food, what to eat and how much. Government wants to get in on the game and to tell you what to eat, but the experts have no answers. So governments just make it up.
...several top medical scientists have concluded that the government’s carb-heavy guidelines may actually have harmed public health. In 2008, three researchers from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine—including the associate dean of clinical research, Paul Marantz, and a former president of the International Hypertension Society, Michael Alderman—observed in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine that since 1977, Americans have largely followed the government’s advice, doubtless as conveyed by the doctors they consulted. Men, for instance, cut their fat intake from 37 percent of their daily calories to 32 percent and increased their carbohydrate intake from 42 percent to 49 percent. Yet over the same three decades, the fraction of American men who were overweight or obese increased from 53 percent of the population to about 69 percent. The doctors wondered whether this correlation was an unintended consequence of telling the entire population to change its eating patterns. “In general,” the doctors wrote, “weak evidentiary support has been accepted as adequate justification for [the U.S. dietary] guidelines.
Read the whole thing. My sense is that you can eat whatever you want unless you have some special illness like diabetes, and it won't make a darn bit of difference. Food is not medicine. All we really know is that no food is bad, plenty of food - but not too much - is good.
In my view, we all have different wiring, and we all have some loose wires and short circuits and sparking, but some loose wires cause more problems than others. Some will just make you more interesting, but some will burn your house down.
As someone who lives adjacent to a river (a small one, but larger than a stream - around 30-40' wide in dry season), I know all about flooding. The prosperous farmer who built the core of my house in 1803 had the brains to build his house and barns above the level of flooding, even just barely above the level of 100-year floods.
Our new (c. 1890) barn was built on the old barn foundations. We have had water right up to the footings from the river 200 yards away.
Our land is flooded regularly, and it does wonders for the meadows but it fills my pool with silt, branches, dead fish, leaves, etc. Knocks down our fencing, too. Most of our land is on a flood plain, and only about 1/4 of it is above the plain.
If you live on a flood plain, whether salt or fresh, flooding must be part of your life plan. I think it makes good sense to have farmland, open space, natural preserves, etc on flood plains, but it drives me crazy that the Feds subsidize construction on flood plains via flood insurance. That is just plain stupid. If you live in a flood plain, you should live in a trailer that can be moved to higher ground with a pickup truck. I did live for a spell in one like that (but I did not really like it).
Levees and other Army Corps of Engineers devices only worsen the flooding that rivers regularly perform for the benefit of the richness of the flood plains. They attempt to turn rivers into drainage ditches instead of the ever-changing, meandering, shape-changing wild things that they are.
Many Jews and decent liberals are having a “consciousness-raising” experience. The three incidents at CUNY this past academic year honoring extremist foes of Israel, and throwing up chaff about academic freedom to distract, have struck to the quick in New York City and spread throughout the country. The contamination in our core institutions of the blatant Israel-hate that has melded the far left and Palestinian apologists and advocates has activated a ground-swell of reaction. Can this be the start of a roll-back? Yes, as more and more Americans speak up in defense of Western values and strike back at those who undermine them.
The Obama-CYA, George Soros funded, Palestinians apologists of J-Street, leftist Jews, defended Tony Kushner receiving an honorary degree from CUNY as “a victory for all of those in the Jewish community and beyond who cherish freedom of speech and are unwilling to punish people for the content of their political views.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York has written to the Chair of the Board of Trustees at CUNY, Benno Schmidt, and to CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. This Council represents approximately fifty Jewish organizations (including the ADL, AJC, Hadassah, Hillel, Jewish National Fund, Young Israel, New York Board of Rabbis, UJA, Union of Reform Judaism, the Orthodox Union, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, ZOA, the American Sephardi Association, etc.) and is headed by some Major Jewish Players.
We are troubled though that it appears that the explicit right and duty of a CUNY Trustee under Policy 1.19 – to express his/her views and vote his/her conscience – are now being challenged….We believe that academic freedom cannot be exclusively limited to faculty and/or students. Indeed, that right applies to all sectors of the academy, including Trustees. We are shocked that people – including zealous advocates of academic freedom and free speech – have called for a Trustee’s removal because they disagree with his ideas and/or his desire to articulate them. Mr. Wiesenfeld’s freedom to state his views and opinions – whether one agrees with him or not – is equal to the freedom granted to faculty, students or even honorary degree nominees.
There are of course other contexts in which academic freedom is at stake, but the awarding of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner or anyone else isn’t one of them.
The 55,000 member Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, on 3500 worldwide campuses, wrote to the CUNY Board of Trustees to reverse the decision to grant an honorary degree to Tony Kushner:
By rejecting your earlier decision to table the nomination and put it up for discussion, you have, sadly, abrogated your responsibility….
The roll-back needs your active involvement in your house of worship, in your alma mater, in your newspaper. This is a "tea party" requiring all to attend.
UPDATE: Tony Kushner, on Facebook, says, " it seems like with each successive fight around the Israel-Palestine issue (first Moustafa Bayoumi, then Kristofer, now this), our side gets stronger and stronger." Kushner calls for "You want Wiesenfeld off the Board? Organize for it..."Now let's make a bigger, f-ing deal. Go to it, folks!" Bring it on, Tony, as you cement your and your allies reps lower than already. Kushner titles his post, "We Won." Kushner, you've won a whoppin'.
Nowadays, all it takes is one jackass to mess things up for everybody else. Why does one whining person have more power than hundreds of non-whining people? "I'm offended. Rearrange the world for me."
Given the statistical likelihood that there is at least one stupid, selfish or self-righteous jackass fault-finder in any group, it's guaranteed that somebody will bitch about something every time anything happens.
Between Arnold and The French Great Seducer, I am reading plenty of baloney about sex. Things about power as an aphrodisiac, things about "primitive men," that old feminist meme that it's about power and not sex, all sorts of nonsense.
Truth is, most people - men and women - have some or much desire for new sexual and/or romantic experiences. Novelty is exciting, flirting is fun, and seduction is exciting as hell. The French understand that side of the story.
The other side of the story has to do with consequences: The effects on family life, existing relationships, kids, spiritual life, conscience, financial condition and even legal issues. In other words, the grown-up side of the story.
Politicians and the rich and famous have no monopoly on adultery or promiscuity. They are common as dirt among both men and women of all social stations and, unless one tends to form "open" and "Don't ask, don't tell" relationships (which a surprising number of people do these days), they otherwise usually leave a trail of misery, shame, guilt, anger, distrust, and destruction.
Everybody knows that, but some people don't worry about consequences very much. They are too much devoted to "What I want to do" and too quickly forget that "Feelings aren't facts," "Character counts," and life is not meant to be free of struggle, conflict, disappointment, and frustration.
I advise patients that, if they are determined to have affairs or want to "go out," that they file for divorce first. And oh, I know - things do happen though. Having a trusting relationship with decent communication, commitment, and decent or creative sex is the best prevention but sometimes a few drinks at the hotel bar at a convention far away can undo even the best marriages.
One of the saddest things I see in my work are couples, after affairs or "indiscretions." Often, they begin to talk, to open up with each other, to become closer, more honest, and even to become better friends. However, it's too late to salvage the specialness that the relationship might have had. Something innocent dies whether they decide to stay together or not.
My tailor grandfather taught me the difference between being a Jew and being honored.
When I was a little boy, holding my grandfather’s hand as we exited the synagogue, all the well-dressed people were walking around a disheveled, crying man at the bottom of the steps.My grandfather immediately went up to him and asked what was the matter. Years later, my grandfather told me that the man replied with sobs that he’d lost his job because of drinking, his wife had left him after he had an affair, and he was too ashamed of what had happened to his life to come into synagogue. My grandfather took him by the hand and in they went, me trailing behind.
Afterwards I asked my grandfather why he hadn’t also invited the man home with us for supper.My grandfather answered that as long as the man behaved, he should be welcome in synagogue, but due to how he had behaved toward his responsibilities he wasn’t welcome in his house. Any Jew who wants to join communal prayers can do so. Any Jew who dishonors his people doesn’t deserve to be honored.
Our universities used to be called temples of learning but most universities have relaxed their former standards, as have many Jews.
No sooner had the tin-foil hat world just begun to gin up conspiracy theories about Bin Laden than we get the new story about the "great man" (I had never heard of him before) Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now we have to have a new slew of conspiracies about him, as if life were not interesting and confusing enough without them.
It is difficult to keep up with all of the conspiracy theories these days.
If all the stories and rumors are true, he doesn't have a personal psychological problem (except his new personal political and legal problems). My guess would be that the issue is that people like him have no problem.
In other words, he just does whatever he feels like and doesn't give a damn because he gets away with it and his associates and his wife don't seem to care all that much. To diagnose that (eg Impulse Disorder, or Sex Addiction) is simply to excuse, or dignify, the sort of bad behavior that most people decide, often with great struggle, to limit to their fantasy lives. Everybody has illicit ideas and desires, whether consciously or unconsciously. That's why we are given the gift of the Ten Commandments.
Now that he has supposedly (as the gossip says) had his fun raping and/or seducing God knows how many attractive women and girls, and finally got caught, watch him now act the victim and seek help for a psychological problem. They always do, after they get caught. Clinton too.
The charges are roiling France, where Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the favorite to be the Socialist nominee for President next year and was even leading in the polls against Nicolas Sarkozy. The French are legendary for nonchalance toward the sexual appetites of their politicians, and they sniffed at Americans who disapproved of Bill Clinton when he lied under oath about sex. But we doubt even the French will be blasé about assaulting a hotel chamber maid.
"Politicians ... enjoy a particular tolerance on this subject," he wrote. "Part of the shock comes also from the unusual scene, until now unthinkable here: police arresting a top-level politician on a matter of morals."
Wherever beauty lies in wait for us, there arises a desire to preempt
its appeal, to smother it with scenes of destruction. Hence the many
works of contemporary art that rely on shocks administered to our
failing faith in human nature—such as the crucifix pickled in urine by
Andres Serrano. Hence the scenes of cannibalism, dismemberment, and
meaningless pain with which contemporary cinema abounds, with directors
like Quentin Tarantino having little else in their emotional
repertories. Hence the invasion of pop music by rap, whose words and
rhythms speak of unremitting violence, and which rejects melody,
harmony, and every other device that might make a bridge to the old
world of song. And hence the music video, which has become an art form
in itself and is often devoted to concentrating into the time span of a
pop song some startling new account of moral chaos. Those phenomena record a habit of desecration in which life is not
celebrated by art but targeted by it. Artists can now make their
reputations by constructing an original frame in which to display the
human face and throw dung at it.
When I was an adolescent, we thought that "beauty" was old-fashioned, for the old fogies, and that rough and ugly was hip. Little did I know then about how beauty can be so elusive, temporary, and precious.
Bottom Line: “We lost the war in Vietnam.” That is irrefutable. The continuing arguments are about: who “we” are, why, who is responsible, and what could have been.
As someone who has been deeply involved in these debates since the 60s (including serving in Vietnam, USMC intel at 1st MarDiv HQs), I have to recommend an enlightening book and an essay.
The book is better than the Pentagon Papers which presented a hodge podge of US decision makers comments during the earlier phases of the war. This book is the candid after-action, after fall of South Vietnam, considered writings by leading South Vietnamese generals. The Vietnam War: An Assessment By South Vietnam’s Generalsis edited by highly regarded historian Lewis Sorley.
The monographs cover every conceivable aspect of the war, from combat operations to budgets, from relations with advisors to logistical support, from uniforms to pay to desertions to refugees to bombing to pipelines to prisoners of war to combat rations to family support and even South Vietnamese society. A considerable amount of this material, based on the firsthand observations of these highly placed Vietnamese authors, is to be found nowhere else.
By no means can supporters of the US in Vietnam take comfort in the book. The authors provide enough quotes to fill any anti-war essay. Lewis Sorley comments: “I think, for one, that they are in many instances far too hard on themselves and on the Vietnamese in general, both politically and militarily. They make few excuses, and instead are forthright in assigning, and assuming, blame.” That is, also, a strength of the book. It is an honest assessment, which if actually read by critics of the war and today’s students, cuts through the perplexities about our ally and battleground in the Cold War. Sorley: “Now, we know, however, that when well armed and equipped, and well led, they performed gallantly and with spirit.”
At almost 1000 pages, the book is comprehensive, well-written, and possibly the most valuable on the war.For length and price ($60), and for failing to meet one-sided prejudices, few will read it. But, anyone at all serious about understanding the perplexing questions and arguing with any integrity must read it. I’ve taken weeks to read it, at almost every page learning something new, and at many pages having my prior views enlightened. Similarly, noted and knowledgeable critic of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tom Ricks, in preparing his own forthcoming book on the Vietnam War calls this book “terrific (and massive).”
Fortunately, historian Mark Moyar presents an enlightening essay that will help students of the Vietnam War understand the conflicting historical accounts, Vietnam: Historians at War. It is an invaluable survey of the “orthodox” historians of defeat (“…most academic and journalistic accounts of the war written during and shortly afterwards depicted Vietnam as a bad war that the United States should not have fought. Antiwar history of the Vietnam War thus acquired the label of “orthodox” history.”) versus the “revisionist” historians who disagree and have unearthed formerly unreleased or unknown facts.
The recent revisionist histories, in contrast to some earlier revisionist works, have generally been backed by voluminous research, captured in numerous footnotes. Although not all of their authors are excellent scholars, they are generally more rigorous in their analysis than their orthodox counterparts, because they are so often challenged that they have become adept at anticipating and countering contrary assertions. Because experience has given revisionists a better understanding of the importance of wrestling with differently minded people, they have also been much more willing than orthodox historians to invite the opposing side to conferences they organize….Slowly but surely, the revisionist view is gaining ground.
If a student needs an understanding of the historiography of the Vietnam War and a guide to differing accounts, Mark Moyar’s essay is a great launching point.
P.S.: For historical record, below is the never before published look back at the last diplomatic days of South Vietnam as told by its longtime Ambassador to the US, Bui Diem, at a conference last year.
After fishing yesterday, Gwynnie and I took a drive through Lyme, CT, as charming and homey an antique town as I have ever seen in the US. It runs along the east bank of the lower Connecticut River, has wonderful riverside marshes for bird watching, fishing, and hunting, and has a fine cove with a marina - Hamburg Cove. "Quaint and charming" can be real things in our Yankeeland.
I even began looking at the For Sale signs (which was my first symptom of Lyme Disease), but there is no work for my profession there, I'm afraid. For jukebox maintenance and repair, one must go where there are jukeboxes...
Where I live, there are many highly-accomplished, scary-smart and mega-educated people, but "quaint and charming" does not jump to mind. ("Wonderful friends" does jump to mind.)
I took a few snaps, but Gwynnie declined to stop for my architectural photography. I don't blame him - if you stopped every time I wanted a pic, one would never arrive at one's destination. I can be a pest, that way. Also, in other ways (pedantic, insensitive, critical, intolerant, etc.).
Richard Louv is not an environmental extremist but a lover and appreciator of nature. A review of his latest book, The Nature Principle, contains his question:
“What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in electronics?”
Another quote reminds me of a friend who would take me on nature walks:
Louv takes us along with him on a walk near Lake Hodges, where the guide, a botanist, shows him the stunning biodiversity of this region. “Your eyes don’t know what to look at,” the botanist says, “so you don’t see.” By the end of the afternoon, Louv has discovered “a world that suddenly seemed as exotic as a rain forest.”
Louv used to be a columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune. I miss his columns and the walks with my friend.
The book review in the New York Times of the new edition of Friedrich Hayek's Constitution of Liberty credits his thought -- at core, distrust of central government and its ability to coordinate society better than the agglomeration of individual and local choices -- as winning since the 1980s. As the reviewer says, "President Obama’s return to “big government” didn’t last more than a year before it was met with fierce resistance."
The reviewer, still, raises limitations on that core thought as presented from Left and Right, but moreso from practicalities and realities in some cases, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 needed central government to correct a long-lasting wrong.
All well and good. But, doesn't undermine Hayek's core point, except in cases of major and agreed need.
The criticism from the Left is spurious. The economic and social schemes of government to increase the freedom, as the Left sees it, of the population have proven largely failures and counterproductive.
The criticism from the Right bears more weight, although the reviewer doesn't delve deeper than this:
A second critique of Hayek has tended to come from the right. He is necessarily a moral relativist, since he does not believe that there is a higher perspective from which one person can dictate another’s ends. Morality for him is more like a useful coordinating device than a categorical imperative. But surely the Western tradition that Hayek celebrates is as concerned with virtue as with freedom, whether from the standpoint of Christianity or that of classical republicanism. One searches in vain through this or any of his other books for a serious treatment of religion or the moral concerns that animate religious believers.
Just as Big Government is a slippery slope, so too is moral relativism.
Read the review for yourself, and comment. (I've omitted the reviewers name from this post so as not to have it, one way or the other, influence the reader's consideration.) Above all, I think Friedrich Hayek would want you to think for yourself.
In that vein, The Institutional Risk Analyst, presents an essay on Keynesianism corrupted by "today's econometricians pretending they are." The essay requires subscription, so it is presented below (via one of the co-authors blog; and don't miss the real story of Gunnar Myrdal, Hayek's co-winner for economics of the Nobel Prize). First, an excerpt:
It is true that Keynes was an interventionist, that he believed government had a role and should employ it, to curb and limit the business cycles which have dominated modern economic life since The Industrial Revolution began with the advent of capitalism -- and perhaps before. But Keynes set strict limits on how governments might borrow and toss capital into the machinery to get it up and going again.
Lovely day of fishing with "Gwynnie" today on his beautiful stream. Is there a name for the color of the earliest spring leaves in New England, that easy-on-the-eyes translucent yellow and green?
A darn shame Capt. Tom couldn't join us to offer me some fishin' tips and some photo tips.
Pool on the stream. There's a Red Tail nest down a little ways. We saw a Bald Eagle en route. Woods were full of singing flycatchers, warblers, and thrushes mostly headed further north. Atlantic Flyway.
Brought home a good-sized Brookie who obviously thrashed in the leaves for a minute. I considered a new recipe - oak-leaf-encrusted trout. Will cook him up for dinner tonight for Mrs. BD as an early Mother's Day treat. Orange flesh, like Salmon.
(No wonder Dunkin Donuts pays Maggie's $5 million/year for publicity...it's a good deal for them. Next, we'll work on a similiar deal with HARPOON BREWERY, makers of delicious brews. Consider it, fellas - Maggie's is an elite market!)
Now that I'm actually using Windows 7, I'll have to take back all of those cruel, nasty, horrid things I said about it in my initial review.
I hereby take them all back.
So, to sum up:
— If you're an average user who just grabs the ol' email and surfs the 'ol web, then Win7 is a great step up from XP or Vista. It's quicker than older versions in almost every way you can name.
— On the other hand, if you're a geek like me who wants a tough, robust operating system that you can tweak and reconfigure and generally thrash about, then you want Windows 7. You don't get any of the tweaking and reconfiguring and thrashing stuff — but the increased speed makes up for everything.
I have a friend who was a dog handler in Vietnam. He would take the dogs into the jungle, find the caves, then go into the caves. Scary as hell, even with the dogs. Last I recall, he and his wife have two little Shih Tzus.
Good interview with George Leef, who contends that half of the kids who go to college in the US these days do not benefit and should not bother. Higher ed has become a self-interested industry with a greater investment in sales than in product...the product often being an unaccomplished, ignorant person with a piece of fancy paper in hand.
When you think about it, it is rather remarkable that there is no exit exam of advanced intellectual achievement. I would offer to design one. Maybe I will design one, just for fun (there will be Math because, in my reality, there is no higher ed without Calculus and Statistics).
In Sweden, you can get disability for this: 
Many people today are obsessed with food, what to eat and how much. Government wants to get in on the game and to tell you what to eat, but the experts have no answers. So governments just make it up.
Between Arnold and The French Great Seducer, I am reading plenty of baloney about sex. Things about power as an aphrodisiac, things about "primitive men," that old feminist meme that it's about power and not sex, all sorts of nonsense.
No sooner had the tin-foil hat world just begun to gin up conspiracy theories about Bin Laden than we get the new story about the "great man" (I had never heard of him before) Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now we have to have a new slew of conspiracies about him, as if life were not interesting and confusing enough without them.
Photo and link via
Now that I'm actually using Windows 7, I'll have to take back all of those cruel, nasty, horrid things I said about it in my initial review.