It's about time I said something about my nomination

by TF Stern, for a Nice Matters Award. (They do need a masculine version of the graphic. Or is it not nice to say so?)

Thank you, TF, for the nomination. Thank you, Ron, for seconding it.

So, how can I brighten you day, today? Apparently nobody cares to hear about my running, economics or political activities. Probably because I'm pretty incorrigible on all those matters. It wouldn't be appropriate [excuse the foghorn] to bring up anything that outrages me in this post, I suppose.

Heck of a nice day, eh?

69°F

Barometer: 29.9 in
Dewpoint: 55°
Humidity: 61%
Visibility: 10 miles
Wind: 6 mph N
Sunrise: 6:25 AM
Sunset: 8:04 PM
UV Index: 2 Low
Observed at Minneapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

A little humid, though. I ran this morning - about 4.4 miles - got pretty sweaty though the air was cool.

Look how fast the days are getting shorter. Sunset was 8:09PM Tuesday.

Okay, enough smartaleckiness.

Bastiat said,

I am looked upon as a man without heart and without feeling--a dry philosopher, an individualist, a plebeian--in a word, an economist of the English or American school. But, pardon me, sublime writers, who stop at nothing, not even at contradictions. I am wrong, without a doubt, and I would willingly retract. I should be glad enough, you may be sure, if you had really discovered a beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the Geovernment, which has bread for all mouths, work for all hands, capital for all enterprises, credit ofr all projects, salve for all wounds, balm for all sufferings, advice for all preplexities, solutions for all doubts, truths for all intellects, diversions for all who want them, milk for infancy, and wine for old age--which can fprovide for all our wants, satisfy all our curiosity, correct all our errors, repair all our faults, and exempt us henceforth from the necessity for foresight, prudence, judgment, sagacity, experience, order, economy, temperance and activity.

[Time for some ellipses

]...[N]othing could be more convenient than that we should all of us have within our reach an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment...such as you describe Government to be. ...[U]p to this time everything presenting itself under the name of the Government is immediately overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfill the rather contradictory requirements of the program.

Sure, there was still some smartaleckiness in that quote. I should have cut that off half-way throught the first sentence. My point was: that's why I'm surprised at this honor. I don't seek nice-ness. Not consciously, anyway. [I find myself doing a lot of things I didn't consciously intend. The N (for iNtuition) in INTP apparently means never having to explain to yourself. You always "just know."]

So, I now have the honor of trying to think of seven people whom I think are exceptionally nice to nominate for this award.

My brother Ron is not someone I generally think of as a great, fuzzy bunny - that ship sailed about 40 years ago, but I enjoy going over and talking to him. In order to retain my manhood, take this [nomination for this] big, sloppy, pink smooch of an award in the spirit of a little brother's revenge.

There are the Burri brothers, Todd and Lance, and their Uncle Steve who, more or less, blog together at Grandpa John's.

[I only get to count those as three, right? If I'm lucky.]

I can't forget Omni, that philosophy-warping polymath. Who quit on us, I guess. But she was nice.

LibertyBob.

And, the nicest of all, maybe, Oldsmoblogger.

Of course, I'm assuming I'm not supposed to duplicate other lists I've seen. I'd give TF and Teflonman nominations otherwise. I could bump Omni out, since she's done. Then decide which of the Burri's I like best.