Welcome To ARL

“…to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”         - Thoreau

Eating Paula Deen

Blood is in the water and the sharks are hungry.  It seems that Paula Deen, the so-called “Queen of Southern Cuisine“, has Type 2 diabetes.  Moreover, she says that she has no intention of changing her style of cooking.  And, though she’s suffered the disease for more than three years, her recent announcement was apparently triggered by her announced partnership with diabetes drug maker Novo Nordisk. 

How Taxes Work

OK, feeling a little lazy today, so I’ll simply pass this little story along, a version of which arrived in the Inbox this morning and which has, apparently, made the internet rounds for the past decade or so.  There are some issues related to it’s attribution, so I’ll use what Snopes reports to be the original version, obtained here.  Regardless of it’s history, it’s accurate enough for our use here today.

Every night, 10 men met at a restaurant for dinner. At the end of the meal, the bill would arrive. They owed $100 for the food that they shared.

Thela Hun Ginjeet: The Return To Planet Paul

I couldn’t even see his face.
I couldn’t see his face.
He was holding a gun in his hand.
Umm… I was thinking…
This is a dangerous place..
This is a dangerous place..

Thela hun ginjeet thela hun ginjeet
Qua tari mei thela hun ginjeet
Qua tari mei heat in the jungle street

So, the list of good counselors in support of the enigmatic Mr. Paul grows.  On one level, this is a very good thing – it means I’m surrounded by those that really care about liberty. 

Econo-Quiz: Who’s in Worse Shape?

A)  The US:  with nominal GDP growth just downgraded by the World Bank to 2.2%, inclusive of deficit spending running at roughly 10% of GDP (and who knows just how much other misc. behind-the-scenes devaluation and Fed bond buying, reportedly running as high as $600 billion last year - or roughly 4% of GDP), and official inflation running at 3.0% (as of December 2011, with food at 4.7% and energy at 6.6%)….or

 

B)  The Eurozone:  with nominal GDP growth also downgraded by the World Bank to –0.3%, inclusive again of deficit spending averaging an estimated 6.2% (still looking for a proper aggregate forecast for 2012), with little or none of it being financed as yet through ECB purchases, and inflation officially reported at 2.7%….

 

Answer: 

The Meliorist’s Guide To Self-Sufficiency

Clearly euphoric from his recent gambling winnings, our Mr. White opines on why a meliorist (or, perhaps less accurately, an optimist) might “waste time and money” on preparedness and self-sufficiency.  

HT:  So, Mr. White, your particular brand of meliorism wouldn’t happen to have any association with the wing of the Italian Communist Party that goes by the same name?

The Road To Hell

Surprisingly, the Gestapo was never actually a very big organization. At its peak it employed only about 40,000 individuals, including office personnel and the plain-clothes agents. But each Gestapo agent operated at the center of a large web of spies and informants. The problem for the average citizen was that no one ever knew for sure just who those informants were. It could be anyone, your milkman, the old lady across the street, a quiet co-worker, even a schoolboy. As a result, fear ruled the day. Most people realized the necessity of self-censorship and generally kept their mouths shut politically, unless they had something positive to say.