Yom Kippur approaches. If I have offended any of you, please accept a piece of torte.
Used Lamborghini tractors are a thing.
I really hate scanning groceries at the new automated checkout counters. It’s not hard, but I miss the human checkers and I resent doing their jobs without compensation.
Dig up your lawn and plant good plants that draw bees, birds, butterflies. Include paths of moss or stone, and trellises, and roses, and orchard trees. Include Agastache foeniculum (Anise Hyssop), Monarda didyma and fistulosa (Bee Balm) , Buddleja davidii (Butterfly Bush), the Asclepia varieties syriaca, incarnata, and tuberosa (Milkweed), and any other plants you see swarming with bees at the nursery. In spring, plant eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, parseley, mint, fennel, arugula, and dill. In fall, plant flower bulbs. Have fun. Enjoy the absence of power lawnmowers. Meditate on Candide. Every gardener is the richest person in the world.
Anyone care to opine about the relative merits and legal histories of public (West Coast) vs. private (East Coast) shorelines?
In “The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom,” (thank you for the signpost, Curtis Yarvin), James Burnham recommends considering how people actually behave rather than inventing systems that aim to force them to act as perhaps they ought. Four insights:
a) Democracy, defined as self-rule, is impossible for more than about six people at a time. That’s why elite rule and tyranny are the natural successors of democracy.
b) The most important quality for becoming a leader is to work really hard. The next is to have aptitude and inclination for fraud.
c) People in power attempt to preserve their power and privilege, no matter how selfless their intentions.
d) Oligarchy, like the poor, will always be with us. If oligarchy abolished it will simply reappear in another guise.
White House fraud of the day: Let’s pretend we never hinted about forgiving student debt. There must be a pile of Sallie Mae debt still out there.
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