What do American Presidents drink?

Here's the favorite drink of every US president

[...] No one knows more about political drinking than author Mark Will-Weber, whose book "Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking" explores the stories behind each president's favorite alcoholic beverage.

"Presidents drink for the same reasons we all drink," Will-Weber recently told Business Insider. "Sometimes because it's part of the job, sometimes it's because they're lonely or depressed — there's a whole gamut of reasons of why people drink."

For Will-Weber, knowing what the former presidents like to drink brings a "human side" to those who we "normally hold on a pedestal."

Ahead, take a look at the president's favorite alcoholic beverages, rounded up from Will-Weber's book and The New York Post. [...]

It looks like the best presidents at least drank some. Read the whole thing, for embedded links and more.

Here is another list, with historical tidbits and some cocktail recipes:

A complete list of every president’s favorite drink

   

Successful people don’t operate alone

America's Insensitive Children?
Perhaps unlike their U.S. peers, kids in Denmark—where happiness levels are the highest on Earth—are taught in school to care for one another from a young age.

Contrary to popular belief, most people do care about the welfare of others.

From an evolutionary standpoint, empathy is a valuable impulse that helps humans survive in groups. In American schools, this impulse has been lying dormant from a lack of focus. But in Denmark, a nation that has consistently been voted the happiest place in the world since Richard Nixon was president, children are taught about empathy from a young age both inside and outside of school.

[...]

Another, less obvious example of empathy training in Danish schools is in how they subtly and gradually mix children of different strengths and weaknesses together. Students who are stronger academically are taught alongside those who are less strong; shier kids with more gregarious ones; and so on. The goal is for the students to see that everyone has positive qualities and to support each other in their efforts reach the next level. The math whiz may be terrible at soccer, and vice versa. This system fosters collaboration, teamwork, and respect.

Studies show that this system of interactive teaching involves a steep learning curve. Students who teach others work harder to understand the material, recall it more precisely, and use it more effectively. But they also have to try to understand the perspective of other students so they can help them where they are having trouble. The ability to explain complicated subject matter to another student is not an easy task, but it is an invaluable life skill. Research demonstrates that this type of collaboration and empathy also delivers a deep level of satisfaction and happiness to kids; interestingly, people’s brains actually register more satisfaction from cooperating than from winning alone.

Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that empathy is one of the single most important factors in fostering successful leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, and businesses. It reduces bullying, increases one’s capacity to forgive, and greatly improves relationships and social connectedness. Empathy enhances the quality of meaningful relationships, which research suggests is one of the most important factors in a person’s sense of well being. Research also suggests that empathetic teenagers tend to be more successful because they are more purpose-driven than their more narcissistic counterparts. And if you think about it, it all makes sense. Successful people don’t operate alone; every human needs the support of others to achieve positive results in his or her life. [...]

When I was younger I might have dismissed this as new age twaddle. But I'm older now, and I've learned to appreciate that people are, to varying degrees, interdependent on one another. No one lives in a vacuum, and certainly "successful" people have good relationships with other people.

Empathy does matter. I think we are sometimes resistant to it because our empathy can be manipulated for political or commercial purposes. But regardless of attempts to misuse it, it still has a place in human society. There is a lot of alienation in American culture. You have to wonder, if children were taught to recognize and understand empathy and human emotions, their own and others, at an early age, if there would be less school shootings and bullying?

As a landlord, I've also seen a lot of people, many young people, who seem to have no control over their emotions, and they often end up being evicted, because they lack self control and seem not to understand basic human interactions. They seen not to understand their own emotions, and unable to empathize with other peoples emotions. In frustration, they become angry and lash out, which only makes their problems worse. It does not bode well for our culture or our country.

I'm amazed at how many young people I see, who have everything going for them, who have much more help and resources available to them than I did at their age, repeatedly fail and sabotage themselves. They are angry all the time, and seem to lack basic social skills to succeed in life. Even if one does not agree with everything in this article, I would still say there is definitely room for improvement in this area.

     

States people are migrating to...

And of course, those they are leaving...


The states people really want to move to — and those they don’t

When the U.S. economy slowed during the recession, so did one of the major demographic shifts of the last several decades. For a brief respite, the Northeast and Midwest stopped shedding quite so many residents to the burgeoning Sun Belt. That trend, though — which has big consequences for politics, among other things — has been picking back up.

New census data shows the trend accelerating back to its pre-recession pace. Florida, which actually lost more domestic movers than it gained right after the housing bubble burst, picked up about 200,000 net new movers between 2014 and 2015 (this number includes people who move between states, not immigration into the United States from abroad). Illinois, meanwhile, had a net loss of about 105,000 residents, its largest one-year population leak in the 21st century.

The District of Columbia, perched between the North and South, has been a winner, too.

The other big gains over the past year were Texas (170,000 new migrants), Colorado (54,00o), and Arizona and South Carolina (both with more than 45,000 each). Not a single state in the Northeast or Midwest gained domestic movers over the last year. [...]

I think much of it can be explained as people retiring and looking for a comfortable, affordable place to retire to. Younger people are likely going where the jobs are, and where there is affordable housing. Read the whole thing for more details, lots of embedded links, and more graphs showing stats for the regions of the US, and more.

   

"Constructive. Business-like. Surprisingly frank."

Kerry says US may offer Russia 'something' to keep Assad from dropping barrel bombs: UN debate live

[...] Constructive. Business-like. Surprisingly frank.

Those are the diplomatic euphemisms Vladimir Putin used to describe his meeting with Barack Obama on Monday night, and it says a lot about the dire state of US-Russian relations that they sounded positive.

But it also says a lot about the awkward personal dynamic between Mr Putin and Mr Obama. For no matter what their spin doctors say, there can rarely have been two world leaders so obviously physically uncomfortable in one another’s presence.

It is not even like the geopolitical relationship between their two countries, a previously perfectly workable if strained partnership until it fell apart with the Ukraine crisis. To put it diplomatically, Mr Obama and Mr Putin have just never quite "gelled"....

Maybe there is a basis for understanding. Undisguised mutual dislike, frank disagreement on Ukraine, and a business-like recognition that it is much safer to argue about Syria than do anything about it.

And maybe Mr Putin is not wrong. After all, a frank discussion of interests and demands is a decent starting point for a deal, even on a problem as intractable as Syria. Perhaps Monday's meeting was, in some sense, constructive after all. [...]

The US has withdrawn troops from the Middle East, and failed to support Syrian Rebels in any meaningful way. That left a vacuum, and Russia is filling it. Putin knows nobody has the will to help the rebels. Russia is allied with Syria and Iran. Putin is doing this because... he can.

So if we aren't going to fight it, do we work with it? Some say that Russia is not the enemy. Even if that is true, they are not automatically our friends, either. Perhaps they are our "Frenemy". America has lots of those, and we work with them from time to time. Will this be one of those times? Should it be? I couldn't say if it should. I think it may become one of those times by default, simply because no one is willing to do anything else. At any rate, we shall see.
     

Nations within Nations. Is it true?

Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?

Red states and blue states? Flyover country and the coasts? How simplistic. Colin Woodard, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and author of several books, says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.

“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.” [...]

See the whole article for a larger map, embedded links, and descriptions of each of the individual "nations" on the map.

This reminds me a lot of a similar map I blogged about in 2007. The older map broke up areas into even smaller areas. So which is better? Have things changed much? Or is it just a matter of perspective?
     

Exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states, the “most distinctive” causes?

Death Map: What’s Really Killing Americans

Heart disease and cancer are the most common killers in the United States but a new map sheds more light on exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states.

Using statistics from 2001 to 2010, the map highlights the “most distinctive” causes of death, rather than what kills the most people. A ‘distinctive’ cause of death is when the rate is higher compared to the national average.

The map is “a somewhat of a colorful and provocative way of starting some conversations and highlighting some unusual things that are going on,” study co-author Francis Boscoe told LiveScience.

The flu was the most distinctive cause of death in Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. In mining states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, lung diseases caused by inhaling certain dusts were the most distinctive causes of death.

Dying in a plane or boat accident was the most distinctive cause of death in Alaska and Idaho, while sepsis was the most distinctive cause of death in New Jersey. The most distinctive cause of death in New York and Connecticut was inflammatory diseases of pelvic organs.

Possibly the most surprising statistic comes from Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon, where deaths caused by law enforcement officers — not including legal executions — were the most distinctive cause of death in those states, meaning “death by police officer” occurred in those states at a higher rate compared to the national average.

The numbers of “distinctive” deaths vary greatly. For example, 15,000 people in Florida died of HIV, the most distinctive cause of death there. Meanwhile, there were 22 deaths from syphilis, the most distinctive cause of death in Louisiana.

The source of the map is here.

   

How to educate Americans for jobs

How to educate Americans for jobs? Ask the Germans, employers urge

INDIANAPOLIS — Two years. That’s how long it takes William Lankin’s fast-growing electrical contracting company to teach new hires with four-year university degrees the tricks of the trade.

These college grads “have learned the book stuff, but they don’t have real-world experience,” said Lankin, vice president of Industrial Electric. “They don’t know how to work with other people, or subcontractors — how to actually do business.”

Bringing them up to speed while paying them a salary is time-consuming and expensive, and even then there’s no guarantee that they’ll be good enough to keep. Which only complicates the original predicament: In spite of the still-soft job market, companies like Lankin’s can’t find enough qualified workers.

Now some hiring managers, a few policymakers, and a handful of community colleges are accepting help to solve this problem from an unexpected source: Germany

Through an initiative being quietly promoted by the German Embassy, U.S. colleges, which consider themselves part of the greatest higher-education system in the world, are importing the German model of career and technical education to keep up with a demand they can’t fill for skilled American workers.

“We said, ‘What is the best model?’” said Sue Smith, vice president for technology and applied sciences at Indiana’s Ivy Tech Community College, which has teamed up with Lankin’s company to create a program for prospective employees based on what the Germans do.

“And, quite honestly, the German model is the best model.”

It consists of a so-called dual system of education and training that combines a few days a week of classroom instruction at vocational schools with on-the-job apprenticeships that are designed to lead to full-time jobs for which graduates are ready straight out of school. The German students also receive a form of credential called a certification qualification.

This simple setup keeps German industry humming, and youth unemployment down to about 8 percent — less than half of what it is in the United States — according to the German Embassy.

By comparison, routes to similar careers in the United States are convoluted and confusing, even as the need for workers to fill them escalates, a study by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development found. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links, video and more. There are some interesting comments in the comments section.

This website has a seven minute video:

Skills Initiative: Enhancing German-American Cooperation on Workforce Training

The German Embassy in Washington, DC presents the Skills Initiative as one of the cornerstones of its work.

Through the Skills Initiative, the German Embassy is bringing together German and American businesses and local education/training providers with the aim of developing training programs best suited to businesses’ needs. The Embassy launched the Skills Initiative to identify and spread best practices in sustainable workforce development in the USA.

Now the Embassy, through Skills Initiative, is seeking cooperation with federal states, locally convening groups of German companies and bringing them together with training providers so that they can work on the best fit for training programs in their area. [...]

The video has some interesting comments by American students who are participating and learning career skills, about why it is such an attractive alternative to college.
     

"Who the heck was Anne Hutchinson?"

A well known New Age guru has released a novel called "God". I was reading the blurb from the back of the book, part of which said this:

[...] Job in the Old Testament experienced something completely different from Paul in the New Testament, Socrates chased a mercurial spirit almost unrecognizable to the strange voice that called to Rumi, and Shankara moved from town to town sharing the truth about a God that stood in marked contrast to the one that guided Anne Hutchinson—yet one sees an undeniable pattern. These visionaries took the human race down unknown roads, and Chopra invites us to revisit their destinations. Tearing at our hearts and uplifting our souls, God leads us to a profound and life-altering understanding about the nature of belief, the power of faith, and the spirit that resides within us all. [...]

I had heard of most of those names before, but I thought, "Who the heck was Anne Hutchinson? And why is she listed with those others?" I googled her name and found her Wikipedia page. It's really quite a story. I was a bit embarrassed that I didn't know, being a New Englander myself:

[...] Anne Hutchinson, born Anne Marbury (1591–1643), was a Puritan spiritual adviser, mother of 15, and important participant in the Antinomian Controversy that shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her strong religious convictions were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area, and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened to destroy the Puritans' religious experiment in New England. She was eventually tried and convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters.

Born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, Anne was the daughter of Francis Marbury, an Anglican minister and school teacher who gave her a far better education than most other girls received. She lived in London as a young adult, and married there an old friend from home, William Hutchinson. The couple moved back to Alford, where they began following the dynamic preacher named John Cotton in the nearby major port of Boston, Lincolnshire. After Cotton was compelled to emigrate in 1633, the Hutchinsons followed a year later with their 11 children, and soon became well established in the growing settlement of Boston in New England. Anne was a midwife, and very helpful to those needing her assistance, as well as forthcoming with her personal religious understandings. Soon she was hosting women at her house weekly, providing commentary on recent sermons. These meetings became so popular that she began offering meetings for men as well, including the young governor of the colony, Henry Vane.

As a follower of Cotton, she espoused a "covenant of grace," while accusing all of the local ministers (except for Cotton and her husband's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright) of preaching a "covenant of works." Following complaints of many ministers about the opinions coming from Hutchinson and her allies, the situation erupted into what is commonly called the Antinomian Controversy, resulting in her 1637 trial, conviction, and banishment from the colony. This was followed by a March 1638 church trial in which she was excommunicated. With encouragement from Providence founder Roger Williams, Hutchinson and many of her supporters established the settlement of Portsmouth in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. After her husband's death a few years later, threats of Massachusetts taking over Rhode Island compelled Hutchinson to move totally outside the reach of Boston, into the lands of the Dutch. She settled with her younger children near an ancient landmark called Split Rock in what later became The Bronx in New York City. Tensions with the native Siwanoy were high at the time. In August 1643, Hutchinson and all but one of the 16 members of her household were massacred during an attack. The only survivor was her nine-year old daughter, Susanna, who was taken captive.

Hutchinson is a key figure in the development of religious freedom in England's American colonies and the history of women in ministry. She challenged the authority of the ministers, exposing the subordination of women in the culture of colonial Massachusetts. She is honoured by Massachusetts with a State House monument calling her a "courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration." She has been called the most famous, or infamous, English woman in colonial American history. [...]

If you follow the wiki link, there's lots more information, and embedded links too. The details of her trial were chilling. Her descendants included three U.S. presidents, and, well, read the whole thing, if you enjoy history.

   

Memorial Day, 2013

http://www.usmemorialday.org/
   

Save the S.S. United States from the scrap-heap

I was gonna do a post about this great old ship a few years back, when they were planning to refurbish and relaunch her. But it seems that bringing her up to modern code proved to be too cost prohibitive; those plans all fell through. Now she is in a fight for her life:



Historic Ship Short on Funds and Time

The SS United States is sending out what may be its final distress call.

The 990-foot-long ship could be sold for scrap within two months unless the grass-roots preservation group that's working to secure a home and purpose for it can raise $500,000 immediately, the group told The Associated Press. Talks are under way with developers and investors about the ship's long-term future, but without the emergency funding, its caretakers fear they will run out of money before a deal is inked.

The historic ocean liner carried princes and presidents across the Atlantic in the 1950s and 1960s but has spent decades awaiting a savior at its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront.

"We've made progress on the fundraising side and the redevelopment side," said Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy and granddaughter of the ship's Philadelphia-born designer, William Francis Gibbs. "Our immediate goal is to buy some time."

The group has raised $1 million through fundraisers and a website, where contributors can sponsor a piece of the ship for $1 per square foot, but has received no public funding. What is desperately and immediately needed, they said, are donors with deep pockets and high profiles.

"Are we giving up on successfully redeveloping the ship as a self-sustaining entity? Absolutely not," said Dan McSweeney, head of the redevelopment efforts. "We continue to have active discussions with potential partners, we have ideas of potential sites for the ship, but we need more time to get it off the ground ... and we're running out of runway."

It costs $80,000 a month just for mooring, basic maintenance, insurance and security, he said.

The conservancy is exploring potential partnerships with four entities in Philadelphia and New York City to refashion the vessel as a stationary entertainment complex with 500,000 square feet of space for a hotel, theater, restaurants and shopping. The sluggish economy and other factors have slowed negotiations, McSweeney said.

As talks continue, he said, the hope is to convince corporate sponsors, influential politicians and prominent business leaders — are you listening, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg? — to lend their political and financial capital to the effort.

"Any way you look at it, there is no downside to this project," McSweeney said. "It's an economic and community development project that's going to create jobs."

The SS United States carried more than 1 million passengers at record-breaking trans-Atlantic speeds over the course of 400 round trips from 1952 to 1969, among them President John F. Kennedy, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Salvador Dali and Elizabeth Taylor. A joint venture between the Navy and ship designer Gibbs & Cox, the luxury liner was made with hidden military might: It could have been converted in a single day to transport 14,000 troops for 10,000 miles before refueling.

After being decommissioned it changed hands multiple times, from the Navy and on through a series of restoration-minded investors.

It was towed from Virginia to Turkey to Ukraine, finally arriving in Philadelphia as a gutted hulk in 1996. Another succession of developers and a cruise lines failed to return the ship to service as retrofitting costs proved too great. [...]

I remember reading about this ship when I was a kid, I was a real fan. Our local library had and encyclopedia, that had a three panel color fold-out of a cutaway diagram showing all the inside parts and levels of the ship. I had a model kit of the ship that I built and painted. It was the greatest ocean liner ever.

How ironic that it can't be brought up to "modern" standards. It was not unsinkable, but it was hard to sink. It had five chambers. Even if all 5 chambers were to flood, up to the waterline, it would still not sink. Compare that to modern cruise ships, that have only two chambers. And their "modern" propensity to break down at sea and become floating toilets.

The hope now is to turn the ship into a permanently docked museum/hotel/office space/restaurant/conventions center complex. It seems like a worthy venture. We once visited the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. It had been converted thus, and it was a very enjoyable visit. I would love to see that happen for the S.S. United States, since it can't be allowed to compete with our modern floating toilet bowls.

Here is a video about the ship. It's part of a series, I think I shall try to post one a week, for the next several weeks.




SS United States: Made in America (Chapter 1)


Also see:

Granddaughter of SS United States' designer turns to documentary, social-media campaign to save ship

www.savetheunitedstates.org

   

In Honor of Veteran's Day 2012

To All of Our Veterans,

Thank You

   

We owe you more

than words can say.

Why I'm not an Environmentalist

I really enjoyed the part about the spotted owl, it was spot-on:



“If I wanted America to fail” video goes viral, but Twitter suspends group’s account

“Crucify them:” It’s the Obama Way

I'm a conservationist, and I agree with practical things like recycling, clean air and water standards, efficient energy use, development of renewable energy sources, etc. But that doesn't mean I believe every liar with a hidden agenda who claims to be "Green". Too many of them are "Watermelons"; green on the outside, red on the inside.
     

Happy Places in America

More specifically, happy states:

Top 5 Happiest States in the U.S.

Feb. 28, 2012 -- People who live in Hawaii are the happiest in the U.S. and have the most positive outlook, according to this year’s Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

It’s the third year in a row the survey has ranked Hawaii as the No. 1 state for well-being. North Dakota, Minnesota, Utah, and Alaska rounded out the top five happiest states.

West Virginia scored lowest on well-being, but did slightly improve from last year.

The Well-Being Index score for the nation as a whole is the lowest since tracking began in 2008.

The rankings are based on daily surveys conducted from January through December 2011. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 100 represents ideal well-being. Hawaii’s score of 70.2 wasn’t perfect, but it topped the list.

Staying consistent with the trend for the past four years, Western and Midwestern states notched nine of the 10 highest well-being scores, while Southern states claimed half of the bottom 10 scores.

What Makes a Happy State?

The Well-Being Index is calculated based on six key areas:

Life Evaluation: Alaskans ranked their lives as “thriving,” giving them the highest ranking in this category with a score of 60.2, while West Virginia residents ranked lowest on this scale at 41.1.

Emotional Health: Hawaiians were the most likely to say they smiled or laughed a lot “yesterday” and were the least likely to report daily worry, stress, or depression, scoring at 83.3. Kentucky ranked lowest in emotional health with a score of 75.5.

Work Environment: North Dakota workers said they have the most positive work environments, including job satisfaction and trust, and can best use their strengths while performing their job. This gave them the highest ranking in this category at 54.3. Delaware ranked lowest in job satisfaction at 40.6 and had the worst workplace perception for a third year in a row.

Physical Health: Minnesota ranks at the top of this category -- which includes the percentage of obese residents, disease, and other health problems and daily ailments -- with a score of 79.9. West Virginia ranks lowest at 69.9, in part because it has the highest obesity rate.

Healthy Behaviors: Hawaii ranks at the top of this category also, with a 68.9. The Hawaiians’ good eating and exercise habits, along with their lower smoking rates, gave them the top spot. Oklahoma ranks lowest with a score of 59.1.

Basic Access: Massachusetts residents rank highest in this category for a second year in a row, with an 86.6. This high rating is a result of the high percentage of residents who have health insurance along with access to basic necessities and satisfaction with one’s community. Mississippi ranks lowest in this category, as it did in 2010, with a 77.6. [...]

Oregon was ranked #15. Read the rest of the article for the full list of states.
     

"... don't give up on America"

The deal disappoints, but don't give up on America

Derbyshire, England (CNN) -- Tucked away here at a family reunion among rolling hills, one can easily drift into another, more pleasant world, but the old realities keep intruding. Time and again, English relatives have gingerly but worriedly asked, "What is to become of America after this debt struggle?"

How to answer? The truth is that none of us knows, and deep insights are especially elusive at this distance.

I try to tell them that the United States is going through a rough patch: the rise of lots of problems that we have allowed to fester over the years now coming to a head just when our politics are polarized, poisoned and paralyzed. Moreover, there is almost no one in high places who commands the full trust of the country -- from the White House to Wall Street, from Congress to the media.

But, I hasten to add, don't write off America -- we are usually at our best when we are down. These are the toughest tests we have faced since the 1930s and '40s, but remember how well we pulled together then.

[...]

Still, this is a deal that deserves only one hand clapping, not two. It fell far short of a "grand bargain," a dream scuttled by the tea party as well as the White House. In particular:

• With at least $10 trillion in new deficits expected over the next decade, it cuts only a little more than $2 trillion. The grand bargain called for $4 trillion.

• It solves neither of our biggest fiscal problems: reform of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and reforms of taxes that are not only fairer but bring in more revenues, especially from the affluent.

• It does not provide for an equal sharing of burdens: The middle class and working people are likely to bear the most.

• It fails to provide an extension of payroll tax relief and jobless benefits into next year, which are so needed in this economy.

• It could well weaken the economy in the near term and, given the debates that will now arise in this congressional committee, will set off a flurry of lobbying and uncertainty in a business community that desperately craves a clearer sense of policy and regulation.

• And it threatens to savage the Defense Department with cuts that will force the United States to pull back from its leadership role in the world and reduce the pay and benefits of those in uniform.

With the fight over, it is like waking up to a bad dream and realizing that much of the nightmare is still here.

The markets recognized that hard realities still persist on Monday after the deal was done -- stocks sank at the end of the day -- and the rest of us will likely get our dose Friday with new unemployment numbers. The politicians will immediately turn their attention to jobs, but they seem to be mostly out of ammunition and so is the Fed. (QE 3 anyone?) [...]

QE3? I sincerely hope not. QE1 & 2 have only created more problems, and devalued our currency. Why would QE3 be any different? Why keep doing what doesn't work? Unless you WANT to collapse our currency and destroy our economy?

I've resisted the temptation to blog on all this; it's been such a dog and pony show. And if doing things like balancing the nations budget and living within our means are now considered to be radical, dangerous "fringe" ideas, I can only say, "Where are all the grown-ups?". If this is what America has become, then I can only wonder if it can, or even should, survive? I only say that because, Nature does not tend to favor the foolish for survival.

No, I've not given up yet. But it's hard not to feel pessimistic as we continue following policies that are failing us. Also, it's taken a while for us to get in this mess; I suspect getting out of it will not happen in a hurry either.

The author of the article ends his piece by saying: "Can Gabby Giffords just show up a few more times this summer? She surely reminds us that no one should ever give up on America." That's a nice sentiment, but we are going to need a lot more than that. We are about to see if we have what it takes.
     

Brits, Americans, and cutting budgets

Can the Brits teach us something about it? Yes, and no:

Lessons from London
The British Tories have demonstrated how a newly elected party can deliver a program of radical spending cuts.

Deficit hawks are flying high in Washington.

With rediscovered virtue, Republicans are vowing to rein in government spending and cut the deficit. Incoming House speaker John Boehner argues that voters want “a smaller, less costly” government, while Republican senator-elect Pat Toomey says that “the government has overreached dramatically. . . . Spending has been wildly excessive.” Even Democrats are singing a new tune, with Senate majority whip Dick Durbin saying that his party will be looking for compromises: “We’re going to be giving on spending, I’m sure.”

But restoring fiscal sanity won’t come easily. The Republicans’ $100 billion in promised spending reductions will hardly make a dent in last year’s $1.29 trillion deficit. To make a difference, would-be cutters will have to convince a skeptical electorate — polls consistently show that most substantial, specific spending cuts are unpopular — and navigate a treacherous two-year electoral cycle.

Across the Atlantic, however, the British Tories have demonstrated how a newly elected party can deliver a program of radical spending cuts. The coalition government, led by Conservatives and supported by Liberal Democrats, aims to cut spending by £81 billion and departmental budgets by 19 percent over five years, eliminating the U.K.’s structural deficit. It is a strikingly bold plan: An estimated 500,000 public-sector jobs will be lost; higher-education spending will be reduced by 40 percent; and departments will be cut by up to 51 percent.

These dramatic cuts illustrate the kind of action the U.S. will eventually have to take. The U.K.’s fiscal context is roughly analogous to America’s: The current budget deficit totals 11 percent of GDP in the U.S and 10 percent in the U.K., while the national debt is 66 percent of GDP in the U.S. and 69 percent in the U.K. (2010 figures). In many ways, however, the Conservatives’ success at tackling the deficit illustrates the roadblocks that Republicans face en route to implementing such policies. [...]

It goes on to describe the reasons why the Brits have a good chance of success... and why some of those reasons will NOT apply to American conservatives, due to differences in political structure and dynamics, and election cycles. It makes for an interesting comparison. America will have to find it's own way.

     

Restoring the Constitution to it's rightful place

It's being butchered piece by piece; can it be restored by a similar process?

Taking back Constitution piece by piece

It is an immutable fact that the Constitution is the law of the land, but the law of the land should not be presumed to be immutable.

It isn’t.

No artifact of the human mind can be maintained intact like a formalin-preserved insect on a pin. No matter how much comfort it would give us to have predictability and certainty in our law, the elements of human curiosity and cussedness would always give rise to unpredictability and chaos.

This introduces the possibility of improvement, whether through design or through accident, but it also raises the spectre of decline, whether through stupidity or sabotage.

Improvements have come in the form of amendments that accomplished the abolition of slavery and giving women the right to vote. Those were both long overdue by the time they passed.

But there have also been mistakes made in the amendment process, including the prohibition of alcohol and the decision to turn senators into panderers by making them directly electable by the people instead of through the choice of each state’s legislature.

With more than a hundred years of monkey-wrenching the prime law of the land through “progressive” court decisions, there is also lots of damage to undo that is based on “precedent” rather than the plain language of the Constitution.

You could start with the Commerce Clause, which has been shaped into a choke collar to restrict the freedom of the people to engage in trade and seek prosperity. You could start by re-instituting real limits on the powers of Congress or the president, as enumerated in Articles I and II. You could force the nation to honor the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which are included in the Bill of Rights but might as well have been written in invisible ink since they are treated as if they were nonexistent by the Supreme Court, Congress and many presidents. [...]

It's worth reading the whole thing. But we've already reached the point where many people don't know what the Constitution says, and they don't care. In fact, many see it as an obstacle to "progress", and want it abolished.

More people need to wake up, before it's too late.
     

You can never go back, but can you bring the best forward, and discard the mistakes?

The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism

We are once again—as in the days of the early republic and not in the heyday of the Progressives and the New Dealers—a republic of property owners.

“No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” So reads a portion of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights passed by the First Congress and ratified by state legislatures, sponsored originally by Thomas Jefferson’s friend and political ally James Madison. It echoed, of course, Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Madison and Jefferson followed the tradition of John Locke, the British philosopher whose Two Treatises on Government was taken as the justification for the transfer of power known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89—the subject of my 2007 book, Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers. Locke believed that men could be free only if their lives, liberty, and property were protected by the rule of law. And he believed that only men with property could be relied on to self-govern.

Locke, therefore, thought that the responsibility for choosing legislators in representative government should be limited to property owners, as it was in elections to the House of Commons. In English counties, the franchise was limited to 40-shilling freeholders—owners of property that brought in two pounds a year. The franchise in the more numerous boroughs was limited in different ways, in some cases to the owners of specific pieces of property.

The American people, the property-owning majority, even in this time of economic distress, seem to be embracing instead a culture of independence, a culture as old as the republic itself.

The Founders anticipated a limited but broader franchise in America. They provided that senators should be chosen by legislatures, whose members were typically selected by a large electorate, and that members of the House should be chosen by voters with “the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.”

The Founders had different ideas of the worthiness of commerce. Jefferson envisioned a republic of freeholding egalitarian farmers. Alexander Hamilton envisioned a republic on the path toward commercial and industrial preeminence. But Jefferson’s vision was a more accurate picture of the United States in the early years of the republic, where land was plentiful and labor scarce, where the large majority of white men were farmers and most of them owned the land they worked.

In this freeholders’ republic, it was natural to move toward universal manhood suffrage, to allow every white male adult to vote. Some states took longer than others to reach this goal—South Carolina still had the legislature choose its presidential electors until 1860. But the principle was widely accepted elsewhere: since almost everyone owned property, everyone should be allowed to vote. There was a danger, recognized by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s, that the poor would vote to strip the rich of their wealth and, in President Obama’s words to Joe the Plumber, “Spread the wealth around.”

The New Deal was an attempt to freeze an economy, then in a downward spiral, into one place.

Tocqueville pointed to another danger as well, the danger of what he called “soft despotism,” in which a seemingly benevolent government would channel citizens into docile obedience like a herd of sheep. But that danger seemed distant, even to Tocqueville, in an America whose dominant and more populist party, Andrew Jackson’s Democrats, opposed government spending on public works projects and feared the power of a central bank.

Up through the end of the 19th century there did not seem to be a significant tension between universal democracy and property rights. The Founders’ vision prevailed.

A New Vision Based on Fear

But that was no longer the case in 1910. By then, another vision was being advanced, the vision of the Progressives—the vision of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, of political philosophers Herbert Croly and John Dewey.

The Progressives explicitly repudiated the Founders’ vision of limited government. They argued that government needed to redistribute property, to take money from one group of citizens to help others, and to regulate economic activity in ways previously considered unconstitutional. The Constitution, they said, was a “horse and buggy” document, suited perhaps to the simpler society of the 18th century, but dangerously out of date in a complex industrial society which could not expect ordinary citizens to make their way without government guidance and assistance. They were acting, they said, in the interests of the people. Their critics said they were acting out of hunger for power.

I want to advance another thesis: That they actually acted more out of fear than of benevolence. They feared revolution. [...]

Read the whole thing. There is lots to chew on here. It's pretty clear where we went wrong. But can we make corrections, and make it right?
     

Happy July 4th, 2010

Happy 234th Birthday America!

The roots of the American Revolution

Americanism is my religion and the Declaration of Independence is my creed
     

Coffee House Collectivists VS Tea Party Individualists, and the Middle Ground

Coffee vs. Tea: A political movement is brewing

Washington (CNN) -- Is the Coffee Party on the scale of the Tea Party movement? Saturday is the first big test in attempting to answer that question.

Leaders of the fledgling movement say they plan to hold 350 to 400 events at coffeehouses across the country. While the Coffee Party has become an instant hit online, gauging the success of Saturday's coast-to-coast events could be an indicator of the group's strength.

"We need to wake up and work hard to get our government to represent us," says Annabel Park, the movement's founder.

[...]

Park, who worked as a volunteer for then-Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia's 2006 campaign, says the Coffee Party is not aligned with any party. She calls the two-party system out of date.

"It encourages people to think of politics as a kind of game, like a football game, in which there are two sides, and it's a zero sum situation. If one person wins, the other person loses. That's really not a healthy way to conduct collective decision-making. That's not a democracy."

Park said the bitter battle over health care is an example of how government is not working.

"We feel like the health care debate showed not only that we are a very divided country, but there's something really wrong with our political process. We kind of got to see the innards of the political process and realize there's something very broken. I think that's what we're responding to." [...]

What "health care debate" is she talking about? One side dictating to the rest of us, is not a "debate".

The two party system is out of date? Really? What do we replace it with? Seriously?

When I've talked to Leftists about this, the answer I usually get is that we need a one-party state, in order to "avoid divisiveness and conflict, to make sure that we all agree. It's VERY IMPORTANT that we ALL AGREE".

That's been tried before. It's called totalitarianism. Or fascism. Nazism. Communism. Whatever the name, it's absolute power, corrupting absolutely.

A Multi-party system is messy and contentious, to be sure. But adversarial, multi-party democracy is the only way prevent absolute power, and to fight the corruption that always goes along with wielding power. It's not perfect, but it beats the alternatives.

In my experience, when collectivists talk about "collective decision making", that means agreeing with them. Period. When they say we have to avoid having winners and losers, they mean we should have only one party so there is no "opposition", no competition in the market place of ideas.

Collectivists are always saying "we need more democracy". That's because a 100% pure democracy is the same as mob-rule. That can sweep the collectivists to power, but pure democracies always destroy themselves, only to be replaced with some sort of totalitarian system. That's fine with many collectivists, because they don't want to compete; a totalitarian system that does what they want, is what they want.

The only thing wrong with our political process is, that it's not being respected.

The US Constitution is there to limit the powers of Government, so that no one political party can trample all others; to ensure that there is a middle ground on which we can meet, and stand and govern from. We need to respect that middle ground.

Something about our system is "broken"? Well, yeah; Our political system can't "work" if it's not followed. Duh. Unfortunately, we have politicians in our system who are deliberately working to break it, so they can then replace it with something else; yet another power grab, mob rule degenerating into totalitarianism, as history attempts to repeat itself. Same old story. We've managed to avoid that for over 200 years. Are we going to give in to it now?

When we no longer respect the Constitution and it's roll in our government, then our Republic cannot last. Will we only appreciate it when it's gone?

Our country has always had both collectivist and individualist traditions. I don't say that we need to discard one for the other; we can keep having both! We just need to preserve the middle ground on which we can all stand. We can do that by respecting and following the US Constitution, which will continue to serve us well, if only we let it. If we actively support it and not allow it to be subverted. It's ours to hold or lose. Use it, or lose it.
     

Getting Around the Constitution: butcher it, until you have the power to utterly destroy it

So the slimeballs want to pass the bill with legal tricks: Louise Slaughter and Nancy Pelosi want to present a rule, issued by Slaughter's committee, that says that the House already adopted the Senate bill when it didn’t, so members of congress can say they voted for a rule, and not for the bill. WTF!?! How much deeper can the Bullshit get?


Constitution Butchers: Stop Pelosi’s Slaughter House

Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower, they do. They took an oath to uphold the constitution. Clearly it means nothing to them. Follow the link, and read about what they are doing. It's criminal.