JustThinking.us

Here's the most even handed and thoughtful analysis of the Occupy Wall Street movement we've heard yet.

Jay Smooth gets it right. 

The above cartoon is part of a series we first saw posted at Don't Tread on Me who we have always thought of as being a lot like Just Thinking except maybe somewhat less random, more professional, polished, better edited and seemingly profitable.

Click on the photo for the original post of four cartoons, the last of which might be called provocative.

We've been having just the best time enjoying the haters on both the left and the right as they attempt to either dismiss or insert themselves into the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The trolls, media and politicians of the right religiously pursue the most cliche' ridden and ditziest possible occupiers for their film crews and interviews in an effort to portray the occupation as a gaggle of stupid, lazy, foul smelling, ner-do-well, hippy socialists.

The trolls, media and politicians of the left in a cynical attempt to ride it into electoral glory and in so doing provide themselves with yet another opportunity to plunder America for still one more election cycle, are now seeking to portray themselves as part of and ingratiate themselves into a movement that has correctly identified those very people to be a significant part of the problem.

Both will fail.

To quote anonymous,

"The abuse of corporations, banks and governments ends here."

As we have made a point of explaining in the past, we're guys around here and as such we like football.

And to paraphrase somebody, as nobody around here can remember who came up with the original schtick, "If it wasn't for football, we would not be watching football today." 

So anyway, we had an idea for a post having to do with our strongly held opinion that football is the single most competitive activity/endeavor/business within all of modern American life.

We pestered our friend Thunder who runs one of our two favorite Michigan football sites Touch the Banner and has forgotten more about football than most people are likely to know for some links/thoughts.

We did our homework and wrote, rewrote and wrote again 53 different posts without even sniffing a satisfying result.

Yesterday our other favorite Michigan site MGoBlog posted the following what we consider to be brilliant layman's analysis of the inside zone read play as run by the Oregon Ducks that was originally posted at FishDuck.com.

We just compile the stuff around here, we don't name it.

About which all we have to say is ..... "It is our strongly held opinion that football is the single most competitive activity/endeavor/business within all of modern American life."

That is all.

Among our new favorite sites is Eyewitness to History.com.  

And among the most remarkable sentences we've ever read is the following from the account of Erwin Rommel's then 15 year old son Manfred regarding the last 15 minutes of his father's life.

On October 14, 1944, his house surrounded by Gestapo, Rommel had just been given the choice of suicide, a state funeral and protection for his family and staff or face trial for treason for his alleged part in a plot to overthrow Adolph Hitler.

Click on either the photo or the quote for the story of the future Mayor of Stuttgart's last moments with his father.

Among the links Kaitlyn sent over the other morning was one to Indian-languages.org which produced the following map.

Click the map below to open up their state by state interactive on the individual tribes and branches of tribes that were roaming your state prior to Columbus.

Pretty neat stuff.

Then, and also from Kaitlyn, Access Geneology provides a very good writeup on the history and leadership of most of the tribes, organized by state and/or tribe and subtribe, maybe faction or branch is a better way to describe it, offered occasionally with a distinct point of view.

Very good stuff and occasionally pretty funny.

In the long run we are all dead.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others. 

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

I think that one merits a repeat.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists:  that would be splendid.