AdamSmith

Just about guarantees another Republican nominee too far right to win the general election. Dixie rising How the Deep South is trying to game the GOP primary. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dixie-rising-113734.html#ixzz3MiT0s42M

Great gifts! I love mine. Some that I found. Recipients can guess which is theirs!

Lloyd George Knew My Father! http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_George_Knew_My_Father_%28song%29

With Whigs, or Tories?

Better than usual profile of a trans individual. 'Next time I work with you, I'll be a woman': What Britain's first transgender military pilot told Prince William as she speaks movingly of her momentous decision... and why she's frozen her own sperm to start a family http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2881925/Next-time-work-ll-woman-Britain-s-transgender-military-pilot-told-Prince-William-speaks-movingly-momentous-decision-s-frozen-sperm-start-family.html

We even do a little bit of it here, at our best. Twitter and Instagram users can learn a lot about capturing the zeitgeist from a 1920s Chicago journalist Social media give us the power to create a real-time portrait of our age, just as pioneering journalist Ben Hecht documented his own era http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/21/witter-and-nstagram-users-can-learn-a-lot-about-capturing-the-zeitgeist-from-a-1920s-hicago-journ

Or hide behind him?

Hard to compute whether this subversion of NAMBLA is sick, brilliant, or both.

Why Cuba move will help America By Fareed Zakaria cnn.com (CNN) -- In opposing President Barack Obama's opening to Cuba, Florida's Republican senator, Marco Rubio, explained, "This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people." Rubio has correctly touched on the core issue. But theory, logic and history suggest that he's wrong in his conclusions. I would recommend to Rubio one of the classics of conservative thought, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." He doesn't have to spend too much time on it. The first chapter outlines the "relation between economic freedom and political freedom." The point Friedman makes in the book is one that America's founding fathers well understood. Drawing on the political philosopher John Locke, they believed that the freedom to buy, sell, own and trade were core elements of human freedom and individual autonomy. As they expand, liberty expands. This is not just theory, of course. Over the last two centuries, the countries that embraced "more commerce and access to money and goods" in Rubio's phrase -- Britain, America, then Western Europe and East Asia -- have moved toward greater prosperity, but also political freedom. If you exclude oil-rich countries, where money is not earned but dug from the ground, almost every country that has used free markets and free trade to grow is also a democracy. Yes there are a few exceptions: Singapore and China (though the latter is still not quite a developed economy.) But on the whole, there has been a remarkably strong connection between economic freedom and political freedom. In Latin America itself, the line has been clear. Augusto Pinochet's regime opened up its economy in the 1970s. Chile began to grow, but that growth then produced a stronger civil society that over time clamored for the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. (The same pattern could be seen in Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and Portugal.) In Latin America today, democracy and markets have acted to reinforce each other, transforming the continent, which 30 years ago was almost entirely ruled by dictatorships to one that is today almost entirely ruled by democracies. Cuba is an outlier, one of the last regimes in Latin America that has embraced neither markets nor ballots. The Obama administration is acting on the theory that more commerce, capitalism, contact, travel and trade will empower the people of Cuba and thus give them a greater voice in their political future. And so the first point to make is that it will help Cubans economically -- it will raise their incomes, their standard of living, and boost access to technology. These are all good things in and of themselves. But easing the embargo will also help Americans, who will benefit from being able to trade with a neighbor. This is the reason that conservatives have long understood that free trade is not a gift bestowed on someone. It helps both countries and in particular, helps the United States. That's why the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- bastion of conservative thought -- has been an advocate on lifting the trade embargo against Cuba, which is a far larger step than Obama's normalization. So, did it support Obama's opening? Of course not. It turns out that he has done it in the wrong way. It is difficult not to think that the problem here is not the policy, but who the president is. Had George W. Bush announced this initiative, I have a feeling that the Wall Street Journal would be hailing it -- and Rubio would be quoting Milton Friedman to us all. http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/19/opinion/zakaria-cuba-embargo-change/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Also: some are born for sales & business development, while others are relegated to the back-office tech support function for good reason.

"The special is produced by Hot Snakes Media."

Well, not always, come to think. For the counterexamples, see: (1) Huntsman, Jon. (2) Romney, to some extent, when governor of Massachusetts. A far more centrist, sensible technocrat then than once he had to pander to the right wing nuts who call the Republican Presidential primaries. Of course the devil is in how you define 'conservative.'

And now, the perfect holiday gift...

Paul Krugman, NYT: "Putin's Bubble Bursts" http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/opinion/paul-krugman-putins-bubble-bursts.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&referrer=

Happy Hanukkah in return!

All that stuffing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fVWYIxZV6QE

Obama's Republican ally on Cuba How a conservative Mormon became the biggest Republican Cuba advocate. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/jeff-flake-obama-cuba-113717.html?hp=t3_r

Grohl is great. Dave Grohl: You dont need a needle hanging out of your arm to be a rock star Dave Grohl is a man of many talents. He is also a prolific, inventive swearer. Between expletives, he talks about the Foo Fighters guest-laden new album and why its accompanying TV series sees him jamming with Bad Brains and hanging with the US president http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/06/sp-dave-grohl-foo-fighters-sonic-highways-album-tv-show