Friday, February 24. 2017
 The Eastern Grey Squirrel is a familiar rodent across the eastern US. They are far more abundant in parks and suburbia than in their native woodlands where, I suspect, there is less food and more predation.
I watched a pair mating yesterday morning on a branch next to my driveway. It was a sweet, if brief, physical encounter preceded by some tender play. I felt like a voyeur.
We have a few of the melanistic variant around here. Yes, black.
Common as they are, there are things you don't know about them.
Thursday, February 23. 2017
Signaling, for better or worse, is an important part of what humans do in societies. Signaling can convey what one wants to be, or what one is. Educational signaling is an interesting case.
I have always said that, as a rule of thumb, your education can get you your first job, but that, after that, you are mostly standing on that first job.
 Our dogma is that general Fitness for Life (as compared with more specific exercise goals) entails a balance of strength-training, calisthenics for muscle-use, agility, balance, and endurance, and some cardio intervals for heart strength and endurance. Plus decent nutrition to support the program goals.
Contrary to some biases and misconceptions, strength training is not mainly for muscle-head gym rats. It's for everybody's fitness if they don't do a manual labor job. It fights the deterioration of age.
Even people whose work entails plenty of lifting can benefit from strength training. If you do not learn the correct ways to exert your body, you can easily injure it or wear it out. Weight training teaches how to move things safely.
There are three basic categories of lifting: Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting.
Pure Bodybuilding focuses on muscle definition and appearance. Bodybuilding emphasizes individual muscle development over functional groups. General, functional strength training usually needs to include some more isolated muscle groups to work towards larger muscle groups, but does not focus on muscle definition.
Powerlifting is about developing power (defined as strength X speed). The fundamentals are squats, bench, deads, overhead press. Perhaps pull-ups.
Olympic tends to be a more technical sport. It is totally cool, but it's not for me.
General strength fitness training for ordinary people is a hybrid approach borrowing from all three types, but always including Powerlifting (which takes a lot of time with the necessary rest minute between sets). For example, a week's worth of my strength training often includes some sets of most of these: bench, deads, barbell squats, pull-downs, pull-ups, rows, press-downs, dips, curls, overhead press, hamstring curls, inclined bench press, sometimes leg press. Mrs. BD does some Olympic lifts too (amazing to me) but my shoulder can't handle them.
From the article:
Weight Training for Fitness and Health -Most people weight train to improve health, fitness, and appearance, and to prepare for sports competition. Here are examples.
- Fat loss, weight management and body shaping for health and appearance.
- General fitness, including strength, balance, aerobic fitness, blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol and bone density management, and psychological well-being.
- Fitness for participation in other activities like sports and the military and related physical fitness requirements.
- Disease management including type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis and heart and lung disease.
I caused my husband's heart attack. In the middle of lovemaking I took the paper bag off my head. He dropped the Polaroid and keeled over, and so did the hooker. It would have taken me half an hour to untie myself and call 911, but fortunately the Great Dane could dial.
Joan Rivers
From various places:
Trump admin lays out new approach to illegal immigration
I think this sort of enforcement of the laws will have a strong deterrent effect. A reminder that the US has immigration laws.
 As Powerball Lottery Hits $403 Million, 12 Things Not to Do If You Win
I'll follow that advice if I win - which I expect to
Dental Association Pushes Nonsensical Argument Against Dental Therapists
Scientists Say They’ve Discovered a Hidden Continent Under New Zealand
The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
Very few things make sense to me
WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A TRANS?
Gender-Affirming Bathroom Policies ‘Quackery,’ Medical Experts Say
RETURN TO NORMALCY: Trump Readies Reversal Of Transgender Bathroom Lunacy In Public Schools
Chinese students protest Dalai Lama as grad speaker, call choice ‘controversial, disrespectful’
WHY PROFESSORS OBJECT TO BEING RECORDED
We often recorded lectures, usually to listen to again later
Betsy DeVos v. the Education Monopolists - Establishment critics try to pound Trump’s education secretary into submission.
Why Judge Gorsuch is a regulatory skeptic
The Dark State of Political Correctness - Dealing with the canard that President Trump is an anti-Semite.
Z-man:
Donald Trump is supposed to be the 12th invisible Hitler, returning to impose a dictatorship on America. The trouble is, Trump sounds like a Jewish guy from Queens and his kids converted to Judaism when they got married. So far, his most enthusiastic supporter among world leaders is the Prime Minister of Israel. They ain’t making Hitlers like they used to. This comes after the nation twice elected a black guy president. The unhinged hatred of white people that has carried the Left for generations has descended into madness.
How would Leftist Milo be treated?
The Embarrassing Confusion of the ‘Women’s Strike’
Progressive Populism: Socialism’s Latest Marketing Campaign
Small Businesses Are Positively Giddy Over Trump, Survey Data Reveals
Dear Clinton Voters: You're Confusing Me
VDH: Trumps’ critics, left and right, aim to bring about the cataclysm they predicted.
DC hates him. He's not one of them
GOP’s Hold On White Working Class Traps Liberals With An Electoral College Nightmare
Trump Is Beating the Media at Its Own Game
Americans overwhelmingly oppose sanctuary cities
Arizona Sheriff Releasing 400 “Criminal Illegal Immigrants” Every 10 Days
Wednesday, February 22. 2017
 Happy Birthday, George Washington.
Via Boudreaux:
The problem of teaching a beginning economic course as a highly technical exercise is an extremely serious problem. The introductory course is the only chance most students have to get an understanding of the benefits we all receive from the amazing economic cooperation made possible only by the markets. And few students gain that understanding from the highly technical presentation they get from many introductory courses. But these students do get clear presentations about market economies in many social sciences and humanities courses that are taught by teachers who have less than an introductory level of economics themselves. What many of them do have is a naïve view that markets are based on exploitation and injustices that can be corrected by government.
Sure, there are plenty of issues to think about in the world and in the US. What Brooks misses in his condescending op-ed is that Trump was elected as a last-ditch effort to address the very things Brooks is upset about. We hope Trump can do that. Hillary would not and could not.
One thing Brooks does not suffer from is Toxic Masculinity.
DHS Orders Breathtaking Crackdown on Illegal Immigration
So it's breathtaking to enforce existing laws? If people do not like existing laws, then change them. I am in favor of changing them.
Mika said it, finally: ‘OUR JOB’ IS TO CONTROL ‘EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE THINK’
Well, Mika, you aren't doing a very good job controlling me but maybe it's because I only occasionally listen to you.
Alexander of Macedonia is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than anybody else of his time.
Will Cuppy
David Cassidy: Dementia at 66 Not Uncommon
Why cities win and cities die
I Spent 20 Years Behind the Wheel of a Big Rig
The Ivy League must be abolished!
Billions Wasted: Structures Built For 2016 Olympics In Brazil Are Now In Ruins
Moving the Olympics around is stupid. I'm for permanent place in Greece
Milo's Mini Apology Tour
The Screwed Generation Turns Socialist - The Depression and WWII shaped the greatest generation, and postwar prosperity shaped the Baby Boomers. Millennials, battered by capitalism, move ever leftward.
If The US Won't Defend Market Capitalism, No One Will
‘Climate Change’ Could Bring Fish Wars!
Curry: Computer Predictions Of Climate Alarm Are Flawed
Ivanka Trump’s Perfume Soars to No.1 Bestseller on Amazon Despite Boycotts
Mar-a-Lago 3, Camp David 0.
LEFTIES FREAK OUT OVER THAT TRUMP MAY CUT FUNDS FOR "PISS CHRIST" AGENCY
Tucker Carlson Mocks Lunatic ‘Refuse Fascism’ Organizer Who Claims “Trump Is More Dangerous Than Hitler”
That gal is a piece of work. "We must resist for humanity."
The ongoing Oroville Dam crisis has received modest national attention, in part because the press hasn’t figured out how to blame it on Trump.
Trump’s Immigration Guidance: Dreamers and Parents of U.S. Citizens Are Safe for Now; Most Others Must Go
In a fundamental shift from Obama, the Trump position is that simply being an illegal alien is unlawful and serious; thus, any additional indication of outlaw behavior is sufficient to warrant deportation.
Democrats in disarray
San Diego Bishop Calls On Catholics To Become Social Justice Warriors Against Trump…
Reporting? Liberal Media Have Much More in Mind Than That
NYT Botches Mexico City’s Sinking Story
The arrogant thinking of liberal sports writers
Conrad Black: A Purblind Press, Unable To Admit Error, Boycotts the President
The Definitive Guide to Repealing & Replacing Obamacare
This Politician Makes the Most Sense on Illegal Immigration
From the UK: The Stop Trump protests are the ultimate virtue signal
Lose weight fast with Socialism: Venezuelans lost 19 lbs. on average over past year due to lack of food
How Sweden became an example of how not to handle immigration
Rioting erupts in immigrant-dominated Swedish suburb
Tuesday, February 21. 2017
Pull-ups and Chin-ups are perhaps the most frequently-used measure of men's fitness, and some form of them belongs in any fitness regimen. What's the difference between the two?
If you are in bad shape, you will not be able to do many, or even one. That feels pathetic and unmanly to most guys. I recall that my Dad had the habit of morning pull-ups and push-ups well into his mid-70s before work (worked until 76). He kept that part of his Basic Training going. He was naturally wiry and strong anyway.
Only the fittest women can do any because they have less native upper body strength and tend to have a higher fat/muscle ratio. Many middle-aged guys find their paltry pull-up counts to be deeply humiliating, and rightly so. Weakness is shameful for most guys, even more so than ignorance, for evolutionary reasons. In fitness training, humiliation and failure are always on the agenda. That builds character, victory does not.
One good test to assess your pull-up potential is to jump up to a bar and see how long you can hang with your chin at bar level. That is, in fact, a good strengthening exercise in itself for beginners. Count the seconds that you can hang up there before slowly collapsing.
Chin-ups and pull-ups test primarily back muscles, and secondarily arms and core. Three sets/wk is plenty. The technique is not to muscle one's way up with your arms, but to lift your chin to the bar by driving your elbows down with full power.
As far as I'm concerned, pull-ups can be viewed as either weight-training or as calisthenics. It's a body weight, multi-muscle group stress and, if 15 reps gets easy, just put on a weight vest to keep it challenging. Here's how to Do More Than One Stinking Pull-Up
Are kipping pull-ups cheating? It depends. Certainly anybody would prefer to do more dead-hang pull-ups if they could. They are hard. All exercise is agonizing, though, if done right. No pain, no gain.
Is Neuroscience the Future or the End of Psychology? Some think the science of the brain will replace psychology altogether.
It's a discussion about reductionism. Things are usually more than the sum of their parts. Dimensions of the soul do not lend themselves to measurement. No cosmic chemist could have predicted that a combination of hydrogen and oxygen would give me a hot after-tennis shower.
Robert Merry has the best political analysis I have read on the 2016 elections. One quote:
... the country was at an inflection point. It desperately needed a new brand of politics that could break the deadlock and set it upon a new course toward its future and destiny. In such times, a gap inevitably emerges between the political establishment, guided by the lessons of the past (increasingly irrelevant lessons, as it happens), and the electorate, always ahead of the establishment in seeing the need for new political paradigms, new dialectical thinking, and new coalitions designed to bust up political logjams and set the country upon a new course.
The electorate is always ahead of the comfortable establishment because the electorate lives in the real world. Voters used Trump to mess up the status quo which had worked well for the wealthy, the press, the bureaucracies, the dependent class, and the politicians but not for the regular people who had been held in contempt. It was a legal insurrection, and today's protesters represent the tired old establishment. Interesting times. I wish Trump and his folks the best of luck.
Studying literature at Harvard is a lot like learning about women at the Mayo Clinic.
Roy Blount Jr.
Monday, February 20. 2017
It's streamable or whatever via Amazon. Detective series, based in Shetland Islands. It's called "Shetland."
Mrs. BD and a daughter say that the protagonist, Jimmy Perez, is their dream male. They both binge-watched it on their laptops, and I am certain now that I must be inadequate by comparison. Bummer.
 It's a practical course in management of any organization, large or small: Caplow's How To Run Any Organization.
There is no need to learn from your mistakes. Better to learn from the mistakes of others.
Many used copies at Amazon.
Sunday, February 19. 2017
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George Washington: