Stranger Things
YOU ARE THE REASON
pixel skylines
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Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
trying on a metaphor
@theartofmadeline
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Monterey Bay Aquarium
KIROKAZE
Misplaced Lens Cap
AnasAbdin
titsay
NASA
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
oozey mess
Jules of Nature
roma★
Janaina Medeiros
blake kathryn
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@maineyankee
Can You Say "Absurd"?
This article was originally published in 2002 at a now-defunct web site and is reprinted here in 2025 because it is still relevant. The lunacy began when I pulled up to order at a fast food joint. I asked for a hamburger and a small root beer. “I’m sorry sir, we don’t have ‘small,’” said the cute little voice. I couldn’t see her, but she appeared in my imagination exactly as she would appear…
Two Maines to Part Ways
This article was originally published in 2002 at a now-defunct web site and is reprinted here in 2025 because it still describes the attitude of those wielding political control of the state. (page 1, 7 February 2002) WARNING: You may think this is a satire, but if the governor’s comments of February 7 were serious, then so is this response.) BANGOR DAILY NEWS, page 1, 7 February 2002 KING…
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The Perils of Isolationism
It’s hard to describe the importance of the article linked below, but I’ll try. This is a classic example of Isaiah’s Job, both for me to promote it here and for Condoleezza Rice, who wrote the piece late in 2024. She is uniquely qualified to speak to the complicated issues in her article. Besides her role in the Bush administration and her present position with the Hoover Institute, Dr. Rice…
Rights, Negative and Positive
March 19, 2025 This meme, floating around Facebook this month, is further explained by this article published by the Foundation for Economic Education. =David A. Woodbury=
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TikTok Guy
Because my brother, Charles, sent this video to my wife, which we assume was meant for both of us, I dutifully watched it as did she. From my brother’s expressions of worry before the election of 2024 I understand that he no doubt perceives the video as a reflection of his own frustrations with the outcome. I don’t do TikTok so I don’t know who the man is in the video. His identity there…
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An Abomination
I won’t remark upon the event that gives rise to this lesson. It’s immaterial. I have been witness, though, to an argument over what some behold as an abomination and a personal affront and others regard as an expression of personal taste. As to one side’s fixation on the word, abomination, the Hebrew word, to’eva or toebah which King James’s scribes translated that way has a range of meanings…
It's an Abomination
I won’t remark upon the event that gives rise to this lesson. It’s immaterial. I have been witness, though, to an argument over what some behold as an abomination and a personal affront and others regard as an expression of personal taste. As to one side’s fixation on the word, abomination, the Hebrew word, to’eva or toebah which King James’s scribes translated that way has a range of meanings…
The Second Word in Gun Violence
Sheriff Billy Woods of Marion County, Florida, holds that children who commit violent crimes need to be held accountable and calls for parents and schools to take more responsibility in raising children. He criticized “society,” “school districts,” and gun law rhetoric after announcing the arrests of two juveniles, one of whom is 12 years old, in connection with the killings of three teenagers in…
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On Taxes and Licenses
A tirade against taxes, recently posted on Facebook, recalls something I encountered several years ago when I sought information from my home state about professional licensing. The Facebook post, which sets out initially to describe the scale of the number one billion, contains the following (unedited) list of taxes and “fees” (a euphemism for taxes). I make no attempt to polish the list or add…
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Wealth from a Child's Perspective
I stumbled onto this essay today, one that I had composed in 2003 — 20 years ago — and had forgotten. Since then I have published articles on money and wealth both at this page at AlbertJayNock.org and at this page at Poor David’s Almanac. I understood money in pennies and even in quantities as high as a few hundred dollars.” There is enough here, though, to offer it as a stand-alone article,…
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Is This Forgiveness?
I didn’t realize until now that The Onion leans toward the delusions of collectivism — (left, new liberal, socialist; choose your flag). Inasmuch as I read a clip from it perhaps only a couple times a year I hadn’t looked at it enough to notice. Plainly, though, it struggles to deliver satire as effortlessly as does The Babylon Bee. Maybe the subjects that lend themselves so easily to the…
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George Orwell's1940 Review of Mein Kampf
George Orwell’s1940 Review of Mein Kampf
It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and present Hitler in as kindly a light as possible. For at that date Hitler was still respectable. He had crushed the German…
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Ukraine: A Settlement
If you don’t condemn Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin as a villainous tyrant, if you don’t call for regime change in Russia, and if you don’t demand that the rest of the world arrest and prosecute him on charges of mass murder, you may as well call him Vladimir the Great and prepare to applaud his next conquest. In a speech he was giving in Poland on March 26, 2022, Bystander-in-Chief Joe Biden…
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The painting by Ilya Yefimovich Repin is titled “Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Sultan of Turkey” and this is the story behind the painting: Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV to the Zaporozhian Cossacks, A.D. 1676: As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the sun and moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors;…
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Ukraine and Your Future
Ukraine and Your Future
It’s only three weeks into Russia’s murderous assault on its neighboring country, but Ukraine fatigue is already setting in. If you are one of those Americans, ignorant of that region’s geography and history and feeling sorry for the Russians killed in Ukraine’s resistance, this brief piece will not untangle your confusion. It may prod you to some research, though, and that is to be…
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DOES MY MASK HURT YOUR FREEDOM?
DOES MY MASK HURT YOUR FREEDOM?
If I were motivated to take such an interesting journey, I could step out my back door and hike 55 miles through the Maine woods to the border with Canada without crossing a paved road. (I’d reach U.S. 1 just before the border, to be precise.) Since I’m a wildlife biologist and Registered Maine Guide, this particular hike does not entice me. My feet have trod plenty of forestland and I can…
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Facebook's Yawning Arrogance
Facebook’s Yawning Arrogance
It has been a long time since I was last reminded how small and insignificant I am. In spite of its pretensions to virtue and social responsibility, Facebook is really just the modern face of corporate greed and manipulation. I need to use it as I originally started out doing, to make connections — (I’m still “bumping into” old childhood acquaintances) — and just stay clear of its bulldozer…
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