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.
I took a few pics of our Luberon trails and routes, but not many of the challenging trails. Too busy clambering over stoney trails. Various routes wind down dirt roads, some through little paths, some past farmhouses, vineyards and olive groves. As I mentioned, the hardest part is following directions and trail marks.
The Brit hiking company (The Carter Company) that organized our trip gave us hiking guides (no maps). They also left off huge picnics each morning for us to carry, and transported our luggage from hotel to hotel. How long were the hikes? 5-6 hours.
As usual with hiking, it's mostly uphill but this bit was just easy and pleasant. Olive grove on the right, woodlands on the left::
Andrew Cuomo, Ron DeSantis Announce Major Rollbacks of Pandemic Restrictions. Two governors defined by their differing approaches to COVID-19 are both moving in the same direction.
New York City is home to 118 billionaires, more than any other American city. New York City is also home to nearly one million millionaires, more than any other city in the world. Among those millionaires some 8,865 are classified as “high net worth,” with more than $30 million each.
They pay the taxes. The top one percent of NYC taxpayers pay nearly 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected in New York. Personal income tax in the New York area accounts for 59 percent of all revenues. Property taxes add in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, about half of that generated by office space
What the hell is going on in this country? When did we, the majority, stop speaking up for ourselves? Crimes against common sense seem to happen every week, yet most of us stay silent.
A very weird list written by someone who's heard of older workers, but never met one, and who doesn't know that you don't put a period after each item in a bulleted list. I noticed "editor" isn't on your list.
From Cavalleria Rusticana (trans, Rustic Chivalry), 1890. The opera is set on Easter Day.
Before the action takes place the young villager Turiddu returned from military service to find out that his fiancée Lola had married the carter Alfio while he was away.[11] In revenge, Turiddu seduced Santuzza, a young woman in the village. As the opera begins, Lola, overcome by her jealousy of Santuzza, has begun an adulterous affair with Turiddu.
At the centre of the story is an unhappy young woman, Santuzza, who feels that she is not worthy to attend the Easter mass as she has had a sexual relationship outside of marriage. The opera is based on a short story by Giovanni Verga. It is set in a Sicilian village in the 19th century, where a tense drama unfolds on Easter Sunday. The Easter Hymn is a tribute to the Lord, performed by the villagers and Santuzza:
"Despite a new imperative to be scrupulous about affirmative consent, young men are still subject to incessant messages that sexual conquest... remains the measure of a 'real' man..."
Thanks to the Department of Justice Inspector General's report, we now know for certain what has been, for those paying attention, fairly obvious. The Steele dossier played a central role in the genesis of the Russia hoax and was used to justify extensive spying on former naval officer and Annapolis graduate Carter Page.
The top two leaders of the FBI were closely involved in this fiasco. Other powerful people knew what was happening and lied to cover it up. That all was confirmed by the IG report. The report was a disaster for the credibility of top leaders in Barack Obama's FBI, and it's also a big problem for the American news media...
As I’ve often said, conservatives are like doctors. Ours is a noble but tragic business. We’re trying to conserve a living thing: American liberty. And like all living things, liberty will one day die. But not today.
I don't think people should have strident opinions about trivialities. Children have strident opinions about trivialities.
Men don't. Men are supposed to be wise enough to know which things are trifling, and which things deserve their concern, and express themselves accordingly.
If it's important, you say something.
If it's not important, you practice the most ancient of all manly arts, the Manly Art of Shutting the F*** Up Once in a While and Giving Your C***slappers a Rest.
The Afghanistan fiasco reads like a systematic failure of leadership. The people in charge did not know what they were doing. They did not know what victory would look like. They did not set the agenda and define the policy. As a result, every junior officer and every junior bureaucrat could project his or her own priorities.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker re-named the state capitol "holiday tree" the "Christmas tree," and the new governor, Tony Evers, renamed it back to "holiday tree"... and declared that it would "celebrate... science."
“But everything that we’ve achieved is under threat from the left-wing ideology that demands absolute conformity, relentless regulation, and a top-down control of the entire U.S. economy. Far left politicians in our nation’s capital want a massive government takeover of health care. They want to give government bureaucrats domination over every aspect of your business and your life. They want to eliminate American oil and natural gas. They want to enlist us in global projects designed to redistribute American wealth and kill American jobs all over our nation.”
Joseph Henry Green (1791-1863), an English surgeon who became the literary executor of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The word was spoken upon checking his own pulse.
Joseph Henry Green, a surgeon and professor of anatomy, suffered from inherited gout and died of an acute seizure at his house in 1863.
An account of his final moments has been given by Sir John Simon:
“I would show that not even the last sudden agony of death ruffled his serenity of mind, or rendered him unthoughtful of others. No terrors, no selfish regrets, no reproachful memories, were there. The few tender parting words which he had yet to speak, he spoke. And to the servants who had gathered grieving round him, he said, ‘While I have breath, let me thank you all for your kindness and attention to me’.
Next, to his doctor, who quickly entered – his neighbour and old pupil, Mr. Carter – he significantly, and pointing to the region of his heart, said – ‘congestion’. After which, he in silence set his finger to his wrist, and visibly noted to himself the successive feeble pulses which were but just between him and death. Presently he said – ‘stopped’. And this was the very end. It was as if even to die were an act of his own grand self-government. For at once, with the warning word still scarce beyond his lips, suddenly the stately head drooped aside, passive and defunct for ever. And then, to the loving eyes that watched him, ‘his face was again all young and beautiful’. The bodily heart, it is true, had become more pulseless clay; broken was the pitcher at the fountain, broken at the cistern the wheel; but, for yet a moment amid the nightfall, the pure spiritual life could be discerned, moulding for the last time into conformity with itself the features which thenceforth were for the tomb.”
You have to admire someone who takes his own pulse and pronounces himself dead. Now that’s cool.
Every one of these Democratic candidates is promising a vision of a vast central government administering almost every aspect of American life. They are gambling on persuading the nation that government alone can make life better and that, somehow, only the government is able to create cost-effective and efficient solutions. They are promoting a massive, administrative state when, at no point in history, has such system produced efficiency, economic prosperity, more freedom, and less corruption.
When all is said and done, the Democratic message to the American people is: “Your life sucks and your country is awful, so get your revenge by giving us all the power.” Moreover, Americans traditionally do not get enthusiastic about the idea of the government telling them it knows better than they do how to run their lives.
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The human brain processes thoughts
Image stolen from Ace 
Mr. Vanderleun confesses his 
Photo from a friend in Yucca Valley this week 
Impossible burgers 
Microsoft Removes Santa Hat Icon
WSJ: 
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