TCF Returns
"I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult." -- E.B. Whiteand:
"The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it." -- Madame de Staëland:
"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." -- Annie Dillardand:
"I never thought I'd live this long. Clean living and dirty thoughts probably did it. I don't believe in adhering to any rules I don't support and I didn't vote for. To hell with what people think. Just be who you are and you'll be happy." -- Willie Nelson
From smith2004:
"Don't try. I am sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer." -- sign on a boarded up shop in New Orleans
From The Federalist:
"There never was an idea stated that woke men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
From trt-ny:
"We must be careful that we do not trade freedom for security. Whenever that is attempted, usually we lose both. There is always a tendency when nations become mature for the people to become more interested in preserving their luxuries and their comforts than in safeguarding the ideals and principles which made these comforts and luxuries possible." -- Ezra Taft Bensonand:
"Give a pig and a boy everything each wants, and you will get a good pig and a bad boy." -- Ezra Taft Benson
# Tocci - I Can't Afford My Gasoline - flash animation and song. Hehe. [smith2004]
# Claire Wolfe - The Claire Files Forum is back in operation, thanks to Bark and Elias. Yippeeeee! I changed the "+" next to "Wolfesblog" in the "Weblogs" column of my links page ("++" goes to the TCF Refugee Shelter). [claire]
# Paul Palmer at Mindfully.org - Comments on 'Changing World Technologies' Plan to Turn Garbage into Oil - a debunking of Changing World Technologies' "anything to oil" claims. My opinion: confused. [smith2004]
# Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - Fit, Not Fat, but Definitely Fifty: or What's in Claire's Bug-Out Bag? - Claire is definitely prepared. I, as she, prefer to bug-in. I've got gravity flow water to my house and a wood stove in the basement that I can switch to the chimney. The water will even be hot until the propane runs out. Won't work too well if the house gets destroyed, but that's unlikely. [claire]
# Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch - Another Terrible Casualty of the Iraq War: How New Orleans was Lost - blames the flooding of New Orleans on a shortage of National Guard personnel and helicopters; they're in Iraq. Also bemoans the death of Jude Wanniski. [grabbe]
Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war.
There were not enough helicopters to repair the breeched levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guards available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting.
The situation is the same in Mississippi.
The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fools mission in Iraq.
The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconsevatives in the Bush administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because the incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the generals, who told him there were not enough regular troops available to do the job.
After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps.
# John R. Lott, Jr. and Sonya D. Jones at LewRockwell.com - In Defense of Price Gouging - gummints can force prices artificially low, but the result, severe shortages, won't be what anybody wants. The law of supply and demand is a real, natural law. No amount of hand-wringing or legislation will change it. Might as well make a "law" repealing gravity. [lew]
# John Ross - Feminism's Terrible Blunder, or Want to "Have It All"? Then Don't Do It Backwards - Some practical advice for women who want careers and families. Marry an older man and have some children. Start your career when they start school. Go into full gear when they leave the house.
This is the great tragedy of feminism: The so-called women's movement has encouraged women to get the specialized education and pursue careers right out of school. Feminists have said over and over that women can succeed at any business endeavor a man can. THIS IS TRUE. But what makes this message so damaging: Saying it over and over to young women has distracted them from remembering (or realizing) that they have a tremendous comparative advantage over men. This comparative advantage is their ability to have children, and it exists for only part of their lives.
If a woman doesn't particularly want to bear children, fine. But almost all of the young women I meet do have the maternal instinct and say they definitely want kids. Why don't they realize that their youth and ability to bear children are expiring assets? Why are they doing what you can do at any time (work in a business) during the only time they possess those valuable assets?
What if a recent college graduate who was the star pitcher for his college baseball team told you that he intended to play professional baseball, but not until he'd gotten his law degree and had established a successful law practice? You'd think he was crazy, yet women do the equivalent every day.
