All of our neighbors, surrounding us in our rural paradise, are members of AFSCME.  They are also, just genuinely, awful people.  They yell, all day, at each other.

They walk outside to talk on their cellphones and holler at people, because they never want that hollerin' in their homes.  They ride their ATVs into our property and send sheets of dust on top of us.  And we are not allowed to castrate those particular cattle.

Be of good cheer!  No matter what may be bugging you, somebody else is holding down a different corner.

Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men.

We have nothing left.  My Baby has packed all of the canned goods off for charity and we, literally, have nothing left. She won't allow me to stockpile goods

My beloved is a Sunshine person, but this is it.

The more I work to get money in, the more my beloved gives to charity.

She is a saint and I seem like a chump.

I feel that there are people working less hard than me.

My beloved has not been to a dentist for a simple teeth cleaning, in 4 years.  We are charitable people, but we have been giving hard for several years.i

And we have no money.  We even had to buy eggs this week, to make Christmas Cookies, because our 24 chickens won't even lay eggs.

Please understand, our most spoiled chickens don't lay many eggs.  We are not incompetent.  They just aren't laying.  You'll have factory eggs in your diners, but not from our farm.  They won't lay eggs, recently.

When you are looking at your Christmas Cookie recipies the difference between one of our eggs and a white, store egg is almost 100%, in how the cookies rise.

I am often wrong, and a scientist.  In my world, day-in and day-out, I encounter people that have a febrile concept of numbers, or chemistry.  I get lazy and I also get dismissive.

Isaac Asimov taught me to have respect.

In my opinion, Asimov was deeply Christian and I find a way to be a biologist, and a Christian.

That makes me a happy person and I wish the same, for other people.

Peace On Earth And Good Will Towards Men.

Ricochet has just been a stepping stone for me to be able to absorb and assimilate my politics, but an important stone.

I'm good.  How are you?

It's hard to watch stuff like that.  The only consolation is that those of a criminal bent also think it is far easier to assess a crime scene than it actually is.

Folks should be aware that this buffering of people from more natural experiences is very intentional.  I have spent decades studying marine natural resources and am watching recreational fishing being nibbled down by bureaucrats.  In the 1980s, when I worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service, it was emphasized that we were part of the Department of Commerce and that our job was to improve the lives of fishermen.

Today, the NMFS is run by "Regional Councils" that hold public meetings and stare past the public.  This policy design is the worst possible, for protecting resources.  Instead of soaking up information at the docks and being the friend to the fisherman, our resource managers are being driven from the top down.

When our game and fish managers become tools of the bureaucracies, we will cease being able to get good information from the hundreds of millions of pairs of eyes that no bureaucracy can replicate.

Important data is going to be lost.

I, too, thought askance when DeMint referred to Reid as a friend.  And then I remembered that it's the GOP leadership that has the most problems with conservatives.  I could see Reid being respectful and friendly towards a thorn in McConnell's side.

Ah.  All is right with the world.  The Ricochet guy is the one that seems to get spoken over, but that appears to have an intelligent thought to finish, juuusst before the other 4 have to get out their memorized reactions.

We lose in the Talkover Wars.  We lose them because we don't have to memorize them.  We lose them because we do not have a glib response when we honestly try to listen to someone.

When people advocate for a reduction in liberty, they are always wrong. It takes a moment to say that to somebody, if you are a conservative.

I enjoy Coffee and Markets.  Is there a way to get it without via many clicks through other sites?  (Serious question: you wimps that don't have to mow over an acre prolly have children that are better than mine).

EJ is right, about most of this.  Fox is a big business and it is about driving numbers.  This is the same xorporation that has made Seth McFarlane a multimillionaire.  It is just silly to have this discussion, without contemplating that Adam Carolla describes visiting Seth as first having to shovel aside the money clogging his foyer.

These days, I believe Fox is also controlled by Murdoch's liberal children, and also almost half-owned by a Saudi, is it not?  These owners are not likely to be friends to conservative Americans.

Fox News was merely a measured step, for conservatives.  I can't watch it, except, maybe, for Wallace on Sunday mornings.  Do any other Ricochet readers actually watch that network?  It's awful, but a useful bridge for folks that have never seen anything but the other networks.

Fox is crass and cheep and profitable, but not a useful source for information, most of the time.

Methane can be a problem.  Particularly if it's from one of the dogs.  The Maldives look good, when one of those methane factories starts clearing the living room.  And it's not just one breed that will send you scrambling, James.  All of ours are capable of ruining any given evening, indoors.

Perhaps a spaniel and an outdoor kennel?  It's either that, or I suggest you hand any dog on your lap to your least favorite child, the moment it appears to smile.

The Blaze videos mostly do not identify the participants.  So far, the most interesting guy, to me, is the one in the gray suit.  Is that BD?  I assume that Ben is the guy in the blue shirt, with the tie, who is good.  I want to hear a few more words that aren't talked-over, from the guy in the gray suit.  I just liked his demeanor and insight.  I know whom the other 3 participants are.

Ah, the final video has a brief labeling of Gray Suit.  That's Ben Domenech.  What do you know, I have good taste!

Louie, I really don't believe that to be true.  There is no point to being an American unless being an American means something.  There is very little that the Republican Party stands for, as we often witness, immediately after elections.

The promotion of a brand as a parachute, rather than a conveyance, is problematic to folks that don't live politics.

What is fear of government?  Liberty.

What do I fear of government?  The suppresion of liberty.

This is not about the 2nd Amendment, but about liberty.  Allowed, government may require that you walk down the street wearing an ascot encoded with your health information.  Not that you lose the right to carry something, but that you are required to do something, every morning.

Setting Barro aside, Murphy is often interesting.  He gets some things
pretty right.

But then he says that the latino vote is the fastest growing demographic, which may not be true, from the numbers I have read.  After that, he blankets people like me with, "nativist."  My avatar is me at two, in Ecuador, where I was born.  I don't have any issue with Latinos, especially considering where I was born.  And I don't much caew where other people were born.

All around the world, people line up and try to enter this country, legally.  Obama's gift has been to reduce those lines without streamlining the bureaucracy, but by making America less attractive.

Line-jumping is wrong.  It's really one of the most basic things a society can be organized around.  If somebody obeys the law and stands in line, but the government muscles them aside to make room for somebody that was less scupulous, what is the purpose of this government we organize around?

I honestly can't decide what was best, amongst the foods.  I have tried resampling, to clarify ranking on foods.  The single best and easiest item was Evan Williams Egg Nog, with the green label on the bottle.  No resampling there; leftovers are not recommended.

Two half glasses seems to be the limit, as it is both very rich and potent, but you have to get it now.  It only appears in stores for a few weeks and, when it's gone, it's gone.

That was great and I really need to watch, "The Big Uneasy".

I can't, at the moment, think of a nation in that part of the world that I would consider nationalistic, (except for the obvious exception).  All Iraq has as a cohesive element is nationalism and the factions blow each other up with regularity.  Jordan is a time bomb.  Syria is hardly nationalist.  Lebanon is a factional mess.  Turkey is hardly united, under Erdogan.  As for the Gulf states, even the House of Saud sits upon a tinder box that it barely quenches with petrodollars and oppresion.

"..bread, freedom, and social justice..."?  That is not a realistic assessment of the future in Egypt, or the rest.  Israel is nationalistic, but Rahman wasn't writing about Israel.  Morsi has a mess on his hands and it is unlikely that he will address it with bread, freedom, and social justice.  Tha's just naive.

Put another way, you are suggesting that Israel is attacking and "neutralizing" the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood.  With Egypt next door, run by the MB.  And Turkey balanced, precariously between Shia Iran and Sunni....  So Hizbollah (Shia) in Lebanon sits waiting.

I can see where this might make sense, if everyone in the neighborhood were friends, but Gaza is important to no one, including islamists of either stripe.  It is foolish to think that generations of muslims educated in western schools and dedicated to the annihilation of Israel have learned nothing since 1967.

The Sunni and Shia will come to common cause and some non-event will be used to allow Obama to wash his hands of Israel.  Probably a video.

Chess is an Iranian game.  The word "checkmate" is derived from the Persian word, "shakmati".  We are playing, "Angry Birds".