Like the winter needs the spring................

America.....................................I Need You

Return.................................

"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity."
-Douglas MacArthur

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Power...........................

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and genuine to the bad and counterfeit."
-Samuel Johnson

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Opening paragraphs.....................

LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
-Charles Dickens, Bleak House

50 years ago.......................

Freddy Scott..............................Hey Girl

Now I know why.......................

...........cashmere sweaters are so expensive.  You can too, simply by going here.

thanks craig

Isn't he married to someone famous......?

Happy 52nd birthday..........

to Wayne Gretzky, one of the all-time great hockey players.

A few Gretzky quotes:

You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.

The highest compliment you can pay me is to say that I 
work hard every day, that I never dog it. 

When you win say nothing, when you lose say less.

Skate where the puck is going, not where it's been.

Actually, yes...................

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Friday threefer.......................

Incredible Bongo Band.........................Apache (1973)



The Ventures.......................................Apache (1962)




The Shadows......................................Apache (1960)

Favorite quote of the day...............

Scott Sumner has probably forgotten more about the dismal science then I ever knew, or wanted to know.  I read his The Money Illusion Blog, not because I understand NGDP (because I don't), but because I like watching smart and passionate people debate important issues about which I am clueless.  It is a twofer: entertaining and educational.  Here is the quote from this recent post:

"I don’t really have anything to say, other than that the world economy is in the hands of a bunch of people who are stark raving mad."

Apparently, us middle-class folk are doing just fine

From the Carpe Diem blog:

"Bottom Line: Despite assertions by progressives who complain about stagnant wages, inequality and the (always) disappearing middle class, middle-class Americans have more buying power than ever before. They live longer lives and have much greater access to the services and consumer products bought by billionaires."

Full post is here.

Opening paragraphs..................

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore:
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!
-The Iliad of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

Tynan writes.........................

 .........on non-regrets, happiness, and learning to make better decisions - here:

"....it's important to separate the gratitude and acceptance of events from the objective truth of them. It's better to say that I'm not glad that I lost all that money, but I'm still happy, unphased, and ready to push forward undeterred."

50 years ago........................

Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters..............Cry Baby

A few thoughts from Robert Frost..............

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. 

Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting.

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone. 

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

The best things and the best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

The best way out is always through.

The middle of the road is where the white line is-and that's the worst place to drive.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. 

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

Yep...........................

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Actually, it is the sun, but..............

Sometimes you just have to make your own heat...

Janis Joplin............................................Summertime

What part of "I'm busy" don't you understand.....

I don't usually watch the ads preceding Youtube videos, but for some reason this one happily caught my attention.  At a bit over three minutes, it's longer than your normal ad, but...............