We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Over the past six months or so, in our posts about physical fitness, we have always made a distinction between strength training and the other useful activities which build strength minimally or not at all but are more maintenance-oriented and endurance-oriented such as cardio intervals, calisthenics, heavy calisthenics, high-rep weights, isometrics, pliometrics, recreational sports, or mucking out the barn. In other words, activities which use your muscles - or "tone" your muscles, but do not build them.
The latter activities so not require any more protein than one's usual diet.
Strength training is ideally part of any fitness program, but most people don't do much of it because it hurts. I am not talking about "body-building" in the extreme sense, just strength-building. Strength-building entails moving heavy things in order to break down, damage, muscle tissue. Generally-speaking, if you can do more than 12 reps you are doing a warm-up or working on endurance, not so much muscle-building so it's time to raise the weight. The strength-building part occurs during several days afterwards, the recovery phase. As with bone fractures, your body's repair leaves it stronger than it was before you broke it down.
Muscle repair and building requires more protein than the average diet, but probably not a whole lot more. There is a lot of wacky advice out there, but for those who move heavy weight two or three times/week, I think this article is reasonable: Are You Eating Enough Protein To Build Muscle?
The article claims that, for a male, a serious muscle-building program with heavy weight, 2-3 times/week, needs up to 1 gm protein/lb body weight daily. (On average, non-pregnant women have about half the dietary needs of men). It's all approximate, of course. And who knows how many grams of protein there are in my particular hamburger anyway? With a whey powder, you know what you're getting if you like that sort of thing.
(FYI, an average burger has around 20-30 gms, an egg 6 gms, a glass of whole milk about 8 gms. You can Google all food numbers. Whey powder is labeled by gms per scoop.)
Liberty means freedom from the power of the State. America's founders grappled mightily with the paradox of assigning the State to preserve freedom form an overly-powerful State.
Reflecting on his American travels, which he hoped would help him better understand the democratic wave he saw sweeping Europe, Tocqueville noticed the buds of a more troubling tyranny—not an intellectual oppression but a gentle though genuine political oppression—that threatens all democratic nations and that later really did come to full flower not just in the European Union but—though much less flamboyantly—even in America. Democratic governments, Tocqueville theorized, have a tendency toward paternalism, which would be untroubling if “its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing”—as with my Soviet acquaintance’s sexual revolution. Such a government, writes Tocqueville, in his most-quoted passage, “covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better but a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” Such “gentle . . . servitude,” Tocqueville feared, could easily coexist with “the outward forms of freedom” and arise even “under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.”
Prophetic words, for in fact, America lives under that gentle servitude and has done for decades, without really noticing and without understanding how it happened. Woodrow Wilson, believing that the Founders’ checks and balances merely gummed up the efficiency of government, set out to replace their Constitution and the “nonsense [they] talked about the inalienable rights of the individual” with a “living constitution,” reshaped daily “with boldness and a touch of audacity” by “judicial interpretations” that would be ever “more liberal, not to say more lax.”
Most Maggie's Farmers love coffee. Most Americans love coffee, and do not fuss too much about how good it is as long as it is hot. Or iced. I drink plenty of Dunkin Donuts coffee. It's not very good at all, but it's a familiar routine. Just remember the rule "Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks."
My favorite coffees are Espresso (as made in Italy) with sugar. I have yet to find a decent espresso in the US - too watery. I like Iberian Cafe con leche. Also, a cappucino is a good breakfast. What I have enjoyed most, recently, is Arabic (aka Greek, aka Turkish) coffee.
Do you remember percolators? They still sell them, can get them on Amazon. They basically boiled the heck out of your Maxwell House coffee, but nobody cared. You put them on the burner, later plugged them in before Mr. Coffee was invented.
In European 1930s street-brawling fashion, no one knows quite whether Trump is a 1990s Clinton Democrat, a 1980s Reagan Republican, or a Perotist misfit. He has thrown a ball and chain through the pretentious glass of American campaigning. Trump excites voters because he can profane, smear, interrupt, fabricate, and be profane—on the premise that as a performance artist he reifies what they think but don’t dare say about a corrupt political class and its warped, politically correct values. Trump reminds Americans what deterrence is: the supposedly courageous media, the so-called truth-to-power leftists, and the sober and judicious careerist politicians are all terrified how he might reply or react to their criticism. None of them want to spend 2-3 days trading smears with Donald Trump.
A dramatic and impressive argument against Brexit by PM Cameron. Watch it.
Good arguments, but count me a skeptic. Why vote for serfdom to Brussels? I do like the Parliamentary system though, compared with ours. Much more fun.
Mrs. BD and I spent a balmy (low 50s) Sunday tramping around midtown because we had a special date day for elegant lunch and ballet, and walking around NYC is something we love to do. Golly, it is a blast to walk around and to look around.
Instead of tramping, I should have said "Trumping" around midtown. That is because The Donald was on our minds, and we must have passed ten buildings with his name on them. Not to mention the Plaza Hotel which he used to own. We kept laughing about it, and I laughed some more when we got to one of our favorite NYC lunch joints - Jean-Georges right off Columbus Circle. Wonderful prix-fixe luncheons. Damn if I had never noticed before that it is on the ground floor of The Trump International Hotel and Tower, southernmost building on Central Park West.
View from our table, Central Park on left, Columbus Circle on right, mounted cop in center, construction cranes everywhere in the sky:
Just a couple more pics below the fold. Marianne would have enjoyed all this.
The dreams of a United States of Europe never made sense. The Common Market did, but it was meant to be just a stepping stone towards the reconstruction of a bigger, better Holy Roman Empire run by grey technocrats in gigantic office towers in Brussels.
It should be no surprise that the colonies are feeling restless as all forms of local sovereignty are slipping away.
There is a veritable truckload of bullshit in science.¹ When I say bullshit, I mean arguments, data, publications, or even the official policies of scientific organizations that give every impression of being perfectly reasonable — of being well-supported by the highest quality of evidence, and so forth — but which don’t hold up when you scrutinize the details. Bullshit has the veneer of truth-like plausibility. It looks good. It sounds right. But when you get right down to it, it stinks.
I have a good bullshit detector. I am skeptical of everything, to a fault.
9:28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
9:29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
9:30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.
9:31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
9:32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.
9:33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" -- not knowing what he said.
9:34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
9:35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
9:36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
9:37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.
9:38 Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.
9:39 Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.
9:40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not."
9:41 Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here."
9:42 While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
9:43a And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
The great Okefenokee Swamp - 430,000 acres straddling Georgia and Florida.
Mrs. BD is talking me into doing a kayak trip through it. Being the home of Pogo, I should be more enthused but I watched this excellent video and think I got the gist of it without having to actually do it. Lots of reptiles.
Really, not enough interesting bird life there. Everglades, or the Georgia barrier islands are better for that.
Many Americans feel helpless in the face of government invasions into private life, all in the name of safety. We have police video cameras at every intersection. Cops are using fake cell towers to listen in on calls. They want to eliminate cash so private transactions can't be private. The EPA wants to police your land use. Etc, etc. Government agencies are militarizing. Why is all of this happening now?
The ‘Risen’ movie: 
Bring Back Dueling!
From 
The great 
Showdown