You might also check out whatmesober.com, D-D’s sister site, for other addiction-related material.
Busting the Reagan Myth
…history shows that Ronald Reagan reversed a long trend of reducing the national debt as a percentage of GDP, which had been lowered by every previous president (except Gerald Ford) since the end of World War II.
Ronald Reagan exploded the federal debt, eventually to over a trillion dollars, by cutting taxes while demanding that the nation fund a huge expansion of the military. Even the Wall Street Journal at the time was aware of the unsound nature of this Republican deficit-spending scheme. They and other newspapers warned of the “baleful effects of big [government] deficits.”
Continue reading on Examiner.com: <a href=”http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/ronald-reagan-began-us-government-deficit-spending-addiction.
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. The ancillary remarks are kind of stupid, but the overall info is sort of interesting.
Here’s an excerpt:
4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 46,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 11 Film Festivals
The Diamond Sutra: The Extraordinary Discovery of the World’s Oldest Printed Book
Ask people to name the world’s oldest printed book and the common reply is Gutenberg‘s Bible. Few venture that the answer is a revered Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 A.D. Or that by the time Gutenberg got ink on his fingers nearly 600 years later — and his revolutionary technology helped usher in the Enlightenment — this copy of the Diamond Sutra had been hidden for several centuries in a sacred cave on the edge of the Gobi Desert and would remain there for several more.
The Diamond Sutra: The Extraordinary Discovery of the World’s Oldest Printed Book
Religious Debate? Or Battle?
I wrote this a couple of years ago. Given the current atmosphere of (in)tolerance that seems to pervade America, I thought it might be appropriate to link back to it.
I believe it is fine to debate religious ideas, within reason, but debate is always with the consent of both sides. It is not accomplished with bludgeons on unwilling participants. We need to understand that when people’s core beliefs are threatened, they become defensive and inflexible regardless of the content of those beliefs….
Happy 77th to His Holiness!
Geographic Cures and Denial
…when things get rough, we sometimes convince ourselves that all we need is a fresh start in a new place, and we’ll be able to get our lives back under control.
