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.
Squats are among the handful of essential strength-building and strength-maintenance exercises. They also happen to be highly-functional and, done properly, they can engage about 200 different muscles.
People tend to want to do barbell squats because they are the most demanding and stressful, but for beginners and for those who just want to stay fit and mobile without really increasing strength, higher-rep body-weight squats or light-weight squats (eg four sets of 20+ per week) are good exercise. You have to get low for it to work.
Is domestic Wagyu beef a scam? Since Japanese beef is no longer imported to the US, beef epicures are left with the US version of Kobe.
I would say it's not a scam. On Sunday morning I had a Wagyu steak salad for brunch at the member's dining room at the Metropolitan Museum and it was the best steak I have ever had. Pan-fried, caramelized crust, rare through, cuttable with a fork, dynamite flavor. I think it's my first time with Wagyu.
(Which reminds me to mention my view that, if you have some good steaks, do not cook them on a grill. London Broil, ok, but not good steaks. Pan-seared is the only way to do them.)
And speaking of steak, do you like to serve whole ones, or sliced? I think 1/2-inch slices are best except for ribeye. For London Broil, thinner. Need a good carving fork - a pique - to get it right. Same with grilled butterflied lamb which is my favorite grilled meat.
The midtown west side of Boom Town, USA has been transformed over the past decade. First came the giant high end residential Trump complex, as seen in my car pic below from the West Side highway. River views. A city itself, built on the old Hudson Line railroad yard. I think one or two more such apartment towers are in the works.
If you stroll over to the far west end of 42nd St., new luxury construction is everywhere. It all feels kinda sterile, but people want to live there now.
Passion, lust, desire, romantic enchantment are obviously the most powerful human human qualities. Forms of natural intoxication, the older folks say. To paraphrase the apocryphal Washington quote, they can be a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Also, a source of joy and deep contentment.
The classical scholar Bruce Thornton concludes that the ancient Greeks had an “overwhelmingly dark view of sexuality,” adding that “our own Romantic-inspired idealizations of sexuality as a force of personal liberation and self-fulfillment would strike most Greeks as a dangerous folly and delusion.” We can see an instance of their fears in the well-known story of Helen, a daughter of Aphrodite, in which the city of Troy was laid waste as the consequence of illicit sexual passion. Very sensibly, the pre-Christian Greeks believed that sex needed to be controlled in various social institutions. Rejecting such wisdom, we moderns “continue to cling to shopworn Romanticism that idealizes sexual passion and justifies abandoning the time-honored social controls -- marriage and chastity, guilt and shame -- that once helped to prevent sexual excesses from destroying American society,” in Thornton’s verdict.
1:11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin;
1:12 for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
1:13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.
1:14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.
1:15 But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased
1:16 to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being,
1:17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.
1:18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days;
1:19 but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother.
1:20 In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!
1:21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,
1:22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ;
1:23 they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy."
It depends on how accurate. Stereotyping is a form of mental shorthand. We all use stereotyping during the day, whether of people or of things and of situations. Rules of thumb. Sometimes wrong, but with limited information we have to go by something.
Note: All of our physical fitness posts are about "fitness for life" for ordinary people. That means functional strength, power, agility, and endurance - and it includes getting rid of excess fat. We are not about body-building, becoming an underwear or swimsuit model, or a serious athlete. However, "fit for life" does look much better than its opposite. We try to cover the three main categories: strength, cardio, and calisthenics. You can review our fitness archives here.
- Deep squats are killers for me. They are, however, one of the basic full-body exertions and no fitness program can be complete without them. It's best to start with just body weight 90 degree squats, then deeper ones, then goblets, then to barbell, over months. Ass (almost) to the grass, they say. Not at first, though.
What's a good weight goal for the average, non-gym rat? Just your body weight on the barbell for 5 deep reps. That's good enough for sturdy "fit for life" legs. How Much Should You Be Able to Squat?
I would not suggest that anyone, regardless of age, begin the very good and simple 5X5 without at least several months of mixed training to get in decent conditioning first. Once prepared, it's a good approach for ages 18-90.
- Isolation exercises (ie weight exercises that stress less than large and multiple muscle groups): Isolation exercises are mainly for remediation, rehab, or aesthetics. The goal is to get past these things to do the big, hard things.
Megan omits from her discussion the likelihood that real, meaningful warming, were it to ever occur, might be good for the planet and for humanity. It certainly was with past warmings.
Yale
Students Demand That Major English Poets Be Abolished for Being
Heterosexual White Males - See more at:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=72797#sthash.XvklNnlF.dpuf
Concert promoters in Europe cancel gigs in order to satiate politically correct millennials, but things are changing here. Where offended students used to get safe rooms and sympathy, they are now being derided. When they said seeing “Trump” written in chalk on their school made them feel “traumatized,” we had #TheChalkening where students all over the country wrote “Trump” in chalk all over schools. I don’t even think they were necessarily Trump supporters. They’d just had enough of whiny liberals and their culture of fear. We lost France a long time ago. Britain is on its deathbed. But Eagles of Death Metal are an American band and we don’t tolerate terror over here. We’ve let the multicult run the show for seven years and they failed. It’s time to take our country back and the first step is to stop apologizing.
Bernard Lewis at 100: 
Wolves (dogs) 
