I have been a pretty fast hunt-and-peck, two-finger typist for nearly 50 years, in occupations that require me to write a great deal. I probably should have learned to touch-type, but the increased speed didn't seem to be worth it.
Then again, in my day they didn't teach history because there hadn't been enough yet.

Nah, he’s just saying what he actually thinks vs saying what’s likely to maximize election results.

Well, er, yes. I think that's part of Don's point.

I learned better in the first two weeks of my Econ 101 class,

Thanks for this. One thing I have learned in a long and busy life is that nothing following such a sentence is worth reading, and you saved me a lot of time.

I do this often myself, though in my version I find often myself saying "Oh Shit" when the coin tells me something, so I disregard the coin.

For decades I've been telling people that we should lower the drinking age to 12. When I was a lad, you could drive at 16 and drink at 18 (now 21). Young men are notoriously bad drivers for their first several years, and then you hit them with booze. Recipe for disaster. Instead, give them 4 years to learn to hold their liquor before they get behind the wheel. Now I see that a genuine expert agrees with me (I won't quibble about the exact age).

I assume that the Archdiocese of Louisville has generally-applicable rules about its cemeteries. If I opened a cemetery, I could have generally-applicable rules, even though I'm not a church. So what are the Archdiocese's rules? And why don't they end the matter? But maybe the Archdiocese's lawyers screwed up long ago and didn't make rules, so the Archdiocese has been making it up as it goes along ever since. If so, I'm not sure they can pull a rule, even a religious rule, out of their butts now. Maybe they can, maybe they can't. Cemetery lawyers should be getting calls about now.

Yes, they are. And I do this sort of thing for a living, so my ipse dixit trumps yours.

Why do we care what Sullivan says?

I've long thought that colonial rule was never that irksome and that the representation argument was largely bogus because even granting the colonies representation in Parliament, even on a fair basis (itself a radical idea in England, where constituencies varied enormously in size), the colonies would likely have been consistently outvoted. What they really wanted was to run their own show, which is a legitimate enough beef. Whether I would have been willing to go to war over it back then I don't know, but since it worked out at fairly low casualty levels, I can't say now that it was a bad idea.

I remember the Nelson Biddle orchestra, backing up Frank Sinatra.

Maybe we should consider not limiting each denomination to a single person, and use a rotation of worthies. Perhaps they could be thematic. With Lincoln as the main man on the five, we might rotate in William Seward, Frederick Douglass, and other contemporaries.
The only problem I see with this (I don't see vigorous debate over whether Jackson or Calhoun ought to be on a bill as a problem.) is that it might slow down recognition of denominations, a problem we could solve, as other countries do, by making each denomination a different color.

Spaghetti carbonara has been my go-to dish for decades. I ate it often in law school because it was fast, cheap. filling, and delicious. I have used it for seduction and, sometimes, succeeded. I fully endorse the instructions in the video, but, not being a complete purist, I make some room for variation. I don't think there's a significant difference between one whole egg and a yolk or two whole eggs. A dash of cream, but no more, is OK if you like it, but not needed. I accept onions as a legitimate addition, and know a place that makes an excellent carbonara with them, but I don't use them myself. I also like to add a bit of garlic and crushed red pepper to the pancetta, and some white wine, not much, after it browns. Some parsley as a garnish is a nice option as well.
Now I'm hungry.

So you say. I say otherwise. Is there some way of finding out who is right? Perhaps if we asked a bunch of people whether all government was based, ultimately, on force, and, when we got "Huh?" as a response, unpacked the notion and got a more nuanced response? Short of spending money on such a survey, maybe we can ask if anyone here is the least bit surprised by the assertion that all government is, ultimately, based on force.And then ask what they make of it if they're not surprised.

People "ignore" the idea that government is backed by force for the same reason that they "ignore" gravity. It's obvious and doesn't tell you much more than not to piss off the cops without good reason or walk out of tenth-story windows.

Two words: Ted Cruz. Three words: New York values. Three more words: media and finance. It was as obvious as a slap in the face, and I'm not even Jewish.

Isn't it fun when somebody proves your point so thoroughly and so fast?

I largely agree with this, but most of Obama's critics are coming from the opposite direction.

Calling Captain Renault!

Grown-up is, to a considerable extent, a matter of context. I'll say what Burt didn't (and might not even believe): Romney is "an entitled, out-of-touch goof, a total establishment tool, a product of such privilege that nothing he said meant anything." Even so, compared to the current crop, he is a grown-up. It's not that he has become any more grown-up, it's that those around him have regressed.

I thought that was the Hair Club for Men.

Well, given that choice......

As someone old enough to remember the 60's and 70's, I can report that "neoliberal" was originally used to describe a constellation of beliefs similar to those North describes, and that, sociologically, neoliberalism appealed to the sort of folks Ronald Dodds is talking about, with political effects evolving pretty much as he says. One of its signature beliefs was an eagerness to use market mechanisms for liberal ends, for example, effluent fees over emissions controls. The Washington Monthly of 40 years ago would be a good place to look for examples.

Almost certainly none -- and I've actually looked them up.

I've often said Pete Rose was the greatest utility player of all time.

When I was a believer, the main thing I had a problem with was original sin. Now that I am a heathen, original sin is the only part I don't have a problem with.