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.
In many areas, there is no limit on Snow Goose hunting. Gosh, I have had a few times in Manitoba when they came into our field like a blizzard. Just before dawn, before it's legal to fire your shotgun, a few begin descending on you like big moths in the dark but when dawn breaks they come in by the hundreds or even thousands.
It is thrilling.
I recall one amusing moment when one flew out of the back of the truck. I guess he was only grazed and escaped his doom.
I don't have a good photo of me with my buddies with a pile of Snow Geese. It's just as well because it can look like an unsporting massacre. I have chowed down on plenty of them, and used them in Cassoulet too. The only issue is that the breast meat can be tough unless prepared properly. That applies to all wild geese including the delicious Canada Goose.
It's "Kwik-Trip - A Revolution in Travel." Who would not like to push a button on your phone and be transported near your favorite restaurant in Epernay for luncheon or dinner, and, after dinner, stroll around town until ready to be transported back to your home?
Our killer, but not entirely original, idea is a high-tech travel app which will only require an in-home transporter dome and transporter domes located in desirable travel and dining locations, but this could eventually be scaled to travel anywhere we can build the domes. We haven't worked out all of the bio-engineering details yet because of the molecule issues, which is why we need investors. If possible, we'd like to avoid that Cinderella pressure to get back home.
Molecular transport talents do not come cheap and one of the challenges is the time frame. Molecular patterns change over hours, and transport reassembly accuracy is important to most people. Right now, we feel three hours (including a nice dinner) is about all our models can handle. We have good computer models.
What's the elevator pitch? It's Time and Hassle. It is not very expensive to fly to Paris and take the train to Epernay, and then hike through the charming area to your restaurant, but who has time for that if all you want is a nice lunch with a pal, your spouse, or business associates? And do you really want to mess with the Paris airports? They suck big time.
We are looking for visionary investors to get in on the ground floor who have deep pockets, a sense of adventure, and tolerance for risk and the opportunity for long-term profitability. We are also considering government Green grants to support our early development, and have received some verbal interest from many Western governments as our app could eventually eliminate the need for carbon air travel. On request, we can provide our provisional business plan to credible investors.
Bob Dylan Discusses Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Iggy Pop, Amy Winehouse & New 'Triplicate' Album In Rare Interview. A quote:
Did a young Dylan feel like rock and roll was a new thing, or just an extension of Ellington's groove?
"Rock and roll was indeed an extension of what was going on – the big swinging bands – Ray Noble, Will Bradley, Glenn Miller, I listened to that music before I heard Elvis Presley. But rock and roll was high energy, explosive and cut down," says Dylan in the most extensive answer of the 8,000-word interview. "It was skeleton music, came out of the darkness and rode in on the atom bomb and the artists were star headed like mystical Gods. Rhythm and blues, country and western, bluegrass and gospel were always there – but it was compartmentalized – it was great but it wasn’t dangerous. Rock and roll was a dangerous weapon, chrome plated, it exploded like the speed of light, it reflected the times, especially the presence of the atomic bomb which had preceded it by several years. Back then people feared the end of time. The big showdown between capitalism and communism was on the horizon. Rock and roll made you oblivious to the fear, busted down the barriers that race and religion, ideologies put up. We lived under a death cloud; the air was radioactive. There was no tomorrow, any day it could all be over, life was cheap. That was the feeling at the time and I’m not exaggerating."
With all the many problems facing the biosphere (man being its parasite in chief), the arrival in the Dutch parliament of the Party for the Animals is a small step forward—but it is not enough. Everyone knows (or ought to know) that man could not live for a day, for a second, without bacteria. I therefore hope and expect before the end of my life to see the emergence of a Bacterial Liberation Front, to save bacteria from the ravages of antibiotics.
On a summer day in the month of May a burly bum came hiking Down a shady lane through the sugar cane, he was looking for his liking. As he roamed along he sang a song of the land of milk and honey Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won't need any money
Refrain: Oh the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain, At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the Big Rock Candy Mountain
There's a lake of gin we can both jump in, and the handouts grow on bushes In the new-mown hay we can sleep all day, and the bars all have free lunches Where the mail train stops and there ain't no cops, and the folks are tender-hearted Where you never change your socks and you never throw rocks, And your hair is never parted
Oh, a farmer and his son, they were on the run, to the hay field they were bounding Said the bum to the son, "Why don't you come to the big rock candy mountains?" So the very next day they hiked away, the mileposts they were counting But they never arrived at the lemonade tide, on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning, Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said "Boys, I'm not turning." "I'm heading for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains;" "So come with me, we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains."
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there's a land that's fair and bright, The handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees, The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks And little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too, And you can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin, And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in There ain't no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks, I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
This song was written and performed by Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock in the 1920s. The only other hobo/bum/homeless song that competes with this one is Roger Miller's country version of King of the Road - not as good as this song, though.
Apparently Jews and Christians are fair game in the West, but not scary Muslims. Why is that?
I will disparage such monsters as much as I want. In fact, as polite a person as I try to be, I will disparage anybody any time I want to. That is part of being a free person. Sad that Canadians might be too nice to be free. Can they see that enforced "nice" might not be a good plan?
"Athleticism" is a measure of physical functionality or functionalities, but everybody's graph has a different shape.
Genius Trainer and I were watching some NCAA reruns on TV while I was resting between deadlift sets, and we talked about the role of "quickness" in basketball. We separated the dancelike but predatory quicksilver moves in elite basketball players from speed, which is an entirely different quality, and proceeded to break down athleticism into components (some more valuable for some endeavors, some for others) during other between-set rests as we worked the weight up for 5 sets.
We came up with quite a few: power (= strengthXspeed), pure strength, speed (running speed), agility (rapid precision of bodily position. balance, and posture), quickness (of instant movement, acceleration/deceleration and directional changes), explosiveness (power bursts), situational awareness (mental), overall physical endurance, stability, mobility, flexibility, and all kinds of eye-hand and other sorts of coordination talents which are difficult to put into words.
I don't watch basketball but I used to enjoy playing it quite a bit in high school because it took a lot of movement and total concentration, despite basically sucking at it. Like everything in life, you can train all of these things but biology is foundational and you can't shine sh-t.
Elite basketball players, it seems to me, have the largest collection of athletic components.
Legend and anthropology hold that some American Indian cultures believed that, if you rescued somebody, saved somebody's life, or prevented them from disaster, you were indebted to them forever. That is, the saver was beholden to the saved.
My fantasy is that the issue is that you postponed their arrival to the Happy Hunting Grounds.
In Western culture we tend to see it the other way around because of a Christian foundation, or because we want to see this life as heaven (?), but as an American physician who works for nobody - not government, not insurance, not a hospital - except my patients, I see it both ways. If I get you out of big trouble, you sort of own me as long as you want to.
I was reading pretty well at 5 with phonics. Mom taught me to read. Expecting school to teach a kid to read is like expecting government to be your doctor.
... it appears that at least one person has perjured himself over this and that one person is FBI Director Comey. There’s no way to square his testimony with these new revelations. The best he can do is split hairs and claim he was not part of the spying effort. Of course, there’s no way to touch him as he runs the FBI. In fact, there’s no way to investigate any of the intelligence organizations. This is the point where many of the robot historians of the future will say the American political class murdered itself.
As long as people are still free to criticize Christianity, I'm cool. Christianity is used to it. Christian guy or gal might feel hurt or insulted, but all they will actually do is to throw in a prayer for your soul. They won't scare the crap out of you the way the Canadians are askeered of their Muslims.
‘No European…can walk safely on the streets,’ Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan Warns Europe
I only have two kettlebell exercises in my miscellaneous assortment of Calisthenic circuits: Swings and Farmer Walks. Sometimes I do walking swings and sometimes stationary.
I keep the weight to a level when I can keep good swing technique with sets of 10-15. It is more demanding than it looks. As in any exercise, technique is key to avoid injury and for best gain. For Farmer Walks, I use the heaviest I can hang on to for a minute or two while maintaining strong posture.
We aren’t a nation that has a cost-growth problem; we’re a nation that had a problem a couple of decades ago, when we failed to keep costs from outpacing the hog-wild inflation of the 1970s. Which means that we can’t even hope to get our costs down in the future, relative to other countries, by switching to a more government-driven system now, as many people have suggested when I pointed this out.
Let me repeat Josh Barro’s point that health care is 1/6th of our economy but nobody wants to spend 1/6th of their income on it. When health care spending was lower as a share of GDP, we had the luxury of setting up a system dominated by third-party payments, without the insurance companies or the government imposing difficult restrictions on what procedures could be approved or what doctors could receive in compensation. But health care spending has gotten to be too large a fraction of GDP to be handled that way. The system is bound to change, and the change is bound to feel uncomfortable to many people.
Nationalism was the centerpiece of the rise of liberal democracies because liberal democracy was built around the liberation of nations. Liberals in Europe and America did not deny that, but they simply could not grasp that the nation cannot exist unless the people feel a common bond that makes them distinct. The claim was that it was legitimate to have a nation, but not legitimate to love it inordinately, to love it more than other nations, to value the things that made it different, and above all, to insist that the differences be preserved, not diluted.
if America and Europe are becoming more insular to guard their welfare states, Canada is becoming more exclusive. All of this flies in the face of using the welfare state to create a "just society" full of compassion and caring communities. Indeed, in their effort to use the welfare state as a vehicle to create a new spirit of cosmopolitan socialism, liberals have only fueled a resurgence of the mean-spirited tribalism that they'd wished to purge.
Far from making all of humanity hold hands and sweetly sing kumbaya in a newfound brotherhood, welfare statists have ironically produced new fissures and divisions for nativism to prey on.
"To Europe, America has always been a bad man." That is insightful. They like to condescend to us God-and gun-loving barbarians and only love us when they need some rough guys. Otherwise, they only want American dollars and banks.
Europe: Another day, another Muslim atrocity in Europe. Can those people ever learn from experience? Can they learn the real meaning of multiculturalism, which is that cultures are deeply different and often conflicting?
His op-ed is partly right, partly wrong. His naivety about human nature, especially late-adolescent/young adult nature, is where he gets things wrong. Opinion writers tend to be naive about the college youth, and take them far too seriously. Perhaps they identify with them. College administrators are even worse castrati.
For a subgroup of kids that age who are in fancy schools and usually lack jobs, creating mayhem, especially when cloaked in some imitation of higher virtue (but is also fun when it is not cloaked in anything as in mayhem in Fort Lauderdale or Nassau), it's an attempt to unleash their warrior, reckless natures without fear of being shot by an enemy. It is a sort of play warfare, really. Paintball.
In almost all of human history, it would have been real clubs or arrows or spears or bullets at their age. No safe spaces for anybody.
Can I earn distinction among my peers by shutting down Charles Murray? Seems rather pathetic to me but these are bubble-wrapped kids with the Teenage Diseases. Some of their profs, for sure, never recovered from their own by avoiding the Big World Outside the bubble.
In elite schools, this play war is mostly for kids who didn't make the sports teams. In non-elite schools there is little of this foolishness because there is a diploma to be earned and they have side jobs or their parents are stretched to pay for them to have a positive experience to graduate with a supply of useful skills and enough socio-cultural tools to maybe handle a managerial role and a mortgage at some point.
Were I a college president (which I would not mind being), I would have any disruptors expelled and/or arrested (which is just one of many reasons I am not a college president).
Who was it who said recently that what America needs is a Good War? With a co-ed, or, should I say, pangender draft. There must be people worth suppressing more than a refined, gentle, scholarly grandpa like Murray. Where is the heroism in war against Grandpa?
The people who have an explicit legal obligation to work not on our behalf but on behalf of their shareholders do a pretty good job of giving us what we want; the people who vow to work on our behalf do not. That is a paradox only if you do not think about it too much, and not thinking about it too much is the business that politicians are in.
If capitalism – which is to say, human ingenuity set free to follow its own natural course – is a kind of social machine, then politicians are something like children who take apart complex machines without understanding what they do or how to put them back together. (At their worst, they are simply saboteurs.) When they rail against capitalism, automation, trade, and the like, they resemble nothing so much as those hominids at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, shrieking hysterically at something that is simply beyond their comprehension.
Of course, most politicians really do know better. They are just bullshitting people, which is their mission if they want to keep their easy job.
A sample post on that site about being rich: Scraping By On $500,000 A Year. Of course, as he points out, what is a rich income depends entirely on where you live, how you live, and your attitude towards life.
In many areas, there is no limit on Snow Goose hunting. Gosh, I have had a few times in Manitoba when they came into our field like a blizzard. Just before dawn, before it's legal to fire your shotgun, a few begin descending on you like big moths in the dark but when dawn breaks they come in by the hundreds or even thousands. 
Bob Dylan Discusses Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Iggy Pop, Amy Winehouse & New 'Triplicate' Album
Participating In Your Office’s March Madness Pool
On a summer day in the month of May a burly bum came hiking
David Rockefeller 
Behold The Big Bend - the incredible U-shaped New York skyscraper