Monday, July 24. 2017
Higher ed will spend every penny they can squeeze out of citizens or out of government. It is about sales and marketing, and whatever the market will bear. Higher Ed is now a business, and tries to operate like one. Example: Colleges Stop Exorbitant Price Increases After Congress Caps Student Loans
Somehow, over time, and no doubt due in part to government involvement, the historically non-commercial areas of hospital care and higher ed have become commercial enterprises.
Sunday, July 23. 2017
This hike pic from the Isle of Harris looks unchallenging, doesn't it? The pic does not show what was needed to get to that plateau - or to get down from it. As our guide said, "Be careful with your steps. This hike has consequences." Meaning a possible violent death. I'd rate the challenge of our 9-mile hike up and around Hushinish a 2, but for fear and danger...difficult to rate 8-10" rocky and unstable sheep trails along cliff edges.
Can't be chickenshit in life. Go go hi ho. It's always worth it when you get to the top.
More pics from the Isles of Harris and Lewis when I get them organized.
 There are so many rating systems that it can be confusing or misleading. And when it comes to off-trail wilderness hiking, which we did a lot of in the Outer Hebrides, you really need a guide who knows the terrain to estimate what sorts of challenges you can handle. In less wilderness areas, of course, we all get a kick out of doing off-trail explorations on our own. Not always a good idea.
Many difficulty- rating systems are based on altitude changes, steepness of grade, length, agility-requirements, and risks (eg weather, cliffs, boulder fields, etc.). Other rating systems are based on technical difficulty alone.
I'll pick one example: the famous and popular Tuckerman Ravine trail up New Hampshire's Mount Washington. Alltrails rates it as Hard on their Easy/Moderate/Hard system. But what does that really mean? 9 year-olds prance up it with daypacks. What it means is that there is a substantial altitude change, variable weather (foolishly-unprepared people have died of exposure up there but it would be difficult to be that stupid), and high rocky steps at times, but it is a relatively easy hike if you are in good health and cardio condition. It's a 7-hr hike up to Lion's Head and back down - what Europeans call "hill-walking." In the European system, the Tuck hike probably would be rated in the 2 range on their 1-5 rating system.
Several of our Hebrides hikes would be rated Hard (if you sometimes have to be on your hands and knees grasping rocks and heather to get up the steeps) in some US systems, but all were around level 2-2.3 in the Euro system. I like that Euro system which takes into account your fitness level and the hike's challenges.
In my view, though, those Euro ratings - "Easy" to "Expedition-Level" - do underestimate the challenges. The Euro level 2 to 2.3 range is plenty for me. On level 3, I suspect that I would be a slowpoke in a group. People do not like to have to wait for the slowpokes. On straight steep uphills, off-trail, with unstable footing, I need a minute to catch my breath every 20-30 steps. I call that "admiring the scenery" or "taking a picture."
Since we're talking about hill-walking - all-terrain hiking - and not technical mountaineering, we are mostly talking about stamina and cardio conditioning. Strength is not a major factor but mental and physical stamina are.
Trailmaster posts about two common American rating systems in Choosing a Difficulty Level for Your Hike is a Key to Wise Hike Planning
Here's another piece about different rating systems for hikes and mountain bikers: TRAIL DIFFICULTY RATINGS SIGNS
And yet another to rate hikes you have taken: Hike Evaluation Calculator
Photo is from the popular hill walk/climb, Breakneck Ridge Trail in the very pleasant village of Cold Spring, NY. It's a 6-mile hill walk but the first mile involves lots of scrambling and a 2000-foot altitude change which is why some people rate it at a rather high - too high - 3 because anybody in decent shape can do it.
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
139:7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
139:8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
139:9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
139:10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
139:11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,"
139:12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
139:24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Saturday, July 22. 2017
Prologue
Below, I have the now-infamous Marc Morano 'Climate Hustle' documentary that so unnerved the delegates at the Paris climate accords in December of 2015.
Will he do perp walk? Morano ‘WANTED’ posters for being a ‘Climate Criminal’ go up in Paris on eve of ‘Climate Hustle’ premiere
Climate criminal Marc Moreno looking guilty, as he should
Luckily, Mr. Moreno skipped town just before the storm troopers arrived.
France Puts 24 Climate Activists Under House Arrest Ahead of UN Talks
Three of those concerned, who are in their late 20s, are suspected of belonging to the "radical opposition movement", according to information obtained by AFP.
Close one, Marc!
Before we get to the video, allow me to set the background with a few relevant links and quotes. You're welcome to skip ahead and watch it, of course; I'm just posting the following to show that the claims made in the documentary are hardly unique.
Continue reading "(We've been...) Climate Hustled"
No One Hates Your Transgender Child. We Hate What You Are Doing to Him
How fentanyl is making deadly drugs even deadlier
Loving a Borderline
Idleness kills manliness
How Capitalism Averted The Bee-Pocalypse
The Man Who Got Americans To Eat Trash Fish Is Now A Billionaire
The 20 most in-demand jobs that pay more than $100,000
World War II Military Surplus 1911’s Coming To Store Shelves
Ice cover in Greenland is steadily increasing, in defiance of rising carbon levels and even greater levels of green rhetoric.
Claremont McKenna Punishes 7 Students Over Blockade Of Heather Mac Donald Speech
California College Chancellor Wants To Abolish Algebra Requirement, Calls It A ‘Civil Rights Issue’
How bad is grade inflation?
Minnesota Schools Adopt Transgender Toolkit for Kindergartners
An Immigration Horror Story
I think the real problem is that he’s embarrassed them by solving the problem quickly, easily, and cheaply. That is unforgivable.
Food Stamp Use Falls to Lowest Level in Seven Years
Political Intolerance Is Rising
Media Spins Positive Trump Poll as Negative
Where did white voters back Hillary Clinton?
Clinton Scandal Only Deepens — So Why Is Trump, Not Hillary, Targeted For Investigation?
Latest Deep State Leak Proves Obama Was Spying on Trump Campaign Early On
MUELLER EXPANDS HIS PROBE AGAIN - It’s all Russia, Russia and Trump, Trump -- all the time.
Mike Pompeo: Russia Interfered In The 2016 Campaign — And Campaigns Before That
[Fill in Name of Government Program] Would Have Worked Had the Right Person Been Running It
Gorka: America is back with the first 6 months of Trump
President Trump Kills 16 Regulations For Every New One, Crushing 2-For-1 Goal
Netanyahu Unbound
Slovenia’s Side of Melania’s Story: How the First Lady’s Upbringing in Communist Eastern Europe Shaped Her Fight for Freedom in America
Amsterdam to punish unsuccessful dating attempts
Sweden: A Failed State?
The Red Cross and the Holocaust
Iran’s terrorism goliath - The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps terrorizes its own people and casts a dark shadow over the world
They run small-group hiking and biking tours in the Highlands. Their guides are the best.
Not expensive. Group sizes are 2-8 people. They will expect you to be in fair physical shape, regardless of age.
Also, if you ever do find yourself out there, here's a cool day trip from Skye: GO TO ST KILDA
Friday, July 21. 2017
Labeled as "boot camp" and "toning" for women, it's really just progressive calisthenic routines and is just as good for men, and for any age. Calisthenics don't care about gender. These sorts of cali routines combine cardio, so doing this sort of program for several weeks covers both, while keeping your muscles in use and building stamina and agility.
Doing it daily in a group, or with a group of pals, works best but anybody ought to be able to follow this path which begins fairly easy, about an hour daily, and ramps up in challenge but not in time spent.
For each week, you would do the routine 5 days. It doesn't require a gym or any special equipment besides hand weights. If you start now, you should be "well-toned" and fit by Labor Day: Get Toned Fast
Right here and now I issue a challenge to some of our guy readers who are sarcastic or dismissive about structured fitness to give this a 6-week try at 5 days per week, and then get back to me with a report. Nothing to lose, and no need to tell anybody it's a girl program. Mr. Bliss is doing it with me, before work each morning, as a summer break from his usual gym routine.
When I first encountered this program, I had to check out what they meant by some of the terms on Youtube. Try the Turkish Get-Up. I'd advise against the crunches. Do V-ups instead.
h/t Q&O
Thursday, July 20. 2017
What most people want from fitness, probably only second to looking good/feeling good, is Stamina.
I like that word better than "endurance" which sounds painful and tedious, while "stamina" connotes an energetic or even joyful get-up-and-go attitude while including the ability to keep going when the going gets tough, pushing the point of fatigue further out while taking some pleasure or satisfaction in a strenuous or stressful life.
The older we get, or the heavier we get, the more difficult it becomes to maintain or build physical stamina. Unfortunately, it requires psychological stamina (ie, the talent to seek or invent, engage, and push through difficult challenges and opportunities. The most common adaptation for those lacking that talent is old-fashioned self-discipline) to build or maintain physical stamina. As the experts say, the day you "don't feel like" exercising is the day your body and mind need it most.
"I don't feel like it ..." is one of the most insidious, anti-life, anti-energy phrases ever invented. Why not try "I wish I hadn't been born on this planet with this annoying gravity and all these interesting and difficult things to do"? Unless they are clinically depressed, there is no cure for low-energy or relaxation-oriented people for whom inactivity or passive activity is the default setting or the desired state. Indolent is just the way they are made. Some people are naturally vigorous, some indolent, and most somewhere in-between. It's a Bell Curve of a partly-genetic and partly-cultural personality trait and it is quite obvious in what people do when given the choice.
I am on board with the Maggie's Fitness Doctrine that strength is foundational, but that strength is just a tool for building functional physical conditioning to apply to the average active and athletic American life. (Average Americans, unlike Europeans, are prone to engage in sports and/or challenging exercise.) Decent strength makes general conditioning exercises - cardio and calisthenics - more possible, more forceful, more energetic, and more enjoyable. Strength itself is great for schlepping stuff, but the general conditioning reward of strength is to be able to be more fully-engaged in all the cool things life offers - including physical chores, adventures, sex, and sports.
This is why I believe that a couple of half-hours of cardio HIIT, and a couple of hours of intense calis, are the best plan for building stamina for life for ordinary people. For beginners, get those muscles woken up with weight-training, hard and and grooving, and then move on to the challenging moving that really applies to living this brief and precious life to the fullest.
My personal test to assess people, including myself, on the Vigor-Indolence Scale is below the fold -
Continue reading "Stamina and Psychological Stamina"
 How did dogs become our best friends? New evidence
´Let them eat food off the floor, play in the soil!´: It IS important to expose your children to germs to boost their immune system, expert urges
At age 111, America's oldest veteran is still smoking cigars, drinking whiskey and loving life
The Royal Family's dress code uncovered
Why Americans Are Having Less Sex
Perfect: Listen, Area Boss Gets It
USA Today: People Might Be Upset By Lack Of Women, Black People In ‘Dunkirk
Green Cronyism Gone Wild: It Looks Like The State Of California Is Bailing Out Tesla
What Facebook Can Learn From Company Towns - As the technology firm plans to build a village in Silicon Valley, history suggests what can sustain a company town long after its founders are gone.
No Justification for Importing More Low-skilled Labor, Study Claims
The Myth of Technological Unemployment - If the nightmare of technological unemployment were true, it would already have happened, repeatedly and massively.
The Mother of All Disruptions - Yes, robots are coming to the workplace, fast—and yes, America will change.
These Technologies Are Changing Farms in Some Surprising Ways - As agriculture adopts recent advances in automation and data science, farms will become super-efficient — and perhaps a bit lonely.
My University Treated Me Like a Criminal Over a Joke
Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence
The English Language Is Under Attack. We Must Defend It.
Contrarian:
Fifteen posts into this series -- and I certainly hope that you have read all of them -- perhaps there are still a few of you out there who continue to believe that this whole global average surface temperature (GAST), "hottest year ever," "record warming" thing can't really be completely fraudulent...
WaPo’s Latest Worries About How Somali Community Will React To Police Shooting
Epstein: The Single-Payer Siren
Ronald Reagan has the answer to GOP’s ObamaCare riddle
The Left’s ‘Hamburger Problem’ Is Not Going Away
Josh Barro is a recovering ex-Republican who is now a member of a niche political group: the non-crazy Democrats. He coined a cute phrase — “the hamburger problem” — to describe the relentless politicization of everything by progressives and Democrats. He writes, “Democrats’ problem isn’t that they’re on the wrong side of policy issues. It’s that they’re too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat.” He cites nonstop Democratic hectoring on, inter alia, the team name of the Washington Redskins, the way men sit on subway trains, and even some Americans’ choice not to abide by China’s one-child standard as the reasons why the party is today as electorally wobbly as Rocky Balboa in the 15th round. Yet the GOP’s success puzzles him still, because so many core Democratic cultural ideals (notably, gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization) poll more and more strongly.
...
When John Stuart Mill called the British conservatives “the stupidest party,” it stuck. Today the Democrats are the Annoying Party. The Left thinks Americans are picturing Mary Poppins when they talk about the nanny state; in truth, they’re thinking of Nurse Ratched. The prospect of a new set of nuisances being dreamed up and lashingly enforced by Hillary Clinton is what led voters to roll the dice with an Atlantic City grifter.
Elizabeth Warren Attends Martha’s Vineyard Fundraising Dinner Hosted By Big Bank Executive
About erasing history:
It would be far better to teach the vital lesson that good men, well-meaning men, brave men and women, can be dreadfully wrong by our current standards and understanding. Charlemagne’s world is not the post-modern European Union. Neither was that of Cortez and De Soto. We need to be studying these men and women in order to remember that they did great things in terrible ways, they did what we today consider heinous things in the name of what they believe to be a great good, that they were not perfect and neither are we. Napoleon was a great man. A great and terrible man, because the wars he unleashed on Europe and his exporting the ideas of the French Revolution led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, people left homeless, and sowed the seeds for troubles that were and are still bearing fruit. So do we erase Napoleon from European history? Or do we learn from all his complexity?
While Nation Is Focused On Healthcare, The WH Press Corps Continue To Push Russia Conspiracies
Taxing Hospitals Is a Lousy Way to Fix Health Care- Higher hospital profits were a feature of Obamacare, not a bug.
Fmr. U.N. Amb. Power Emerges As Central Figure In Obama Unmasking Investigation - Congress demands answers on why Obama officials demanded classified intel that harmed Trump
Pavlich: Clinton’s Russia dirt
Tucker Carlson Calls Out Dems For Double Standard On Russia
USPS broke law in allowing workers to boost Clinton campaign, watchdog says
New Documents Suggest “Puff Pieces” On Dem Sen. Kamala Harris Due to Major Spending With PR Firm
Palestinians: Another Lopsided Deal
Palestinian Authority’s 2017 Budget Shows ‘Huge Increase’ in Funding for Terror Payments
Mosul and Urban Warfare
The city is severely damaged, with neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Its people have endured sustained terror.
Blame ISIS for the terror and ruin. ISIS commanders relied on beheadings and torture to control the population. They obliterated numerous shrines and historic sites in the region, with the biblical city of Nimrud a special target. Why? Erasing history ISIS leaders deemed "un-Islamic" was a key political policy.
UNESCO is an Immoral, Anti-Semitic Organization - Decent Countries Should Leave
Wednesday, July 19. 2017
I would file this report in the "Correlation is not Causation" file: An active sex life improves brain power in older adults
From Kimball's Populism, X: The imperative of freedom
Consider the different careers of the terms “democracy” and “populism.”
Do you know any responsible person who would admit to being opposed to democracy? No one who does not enjoy a large private income would risk it. But lots of people are willing to declare themselves anti-populist. The discrepancy is curious for several reasons...
Related from Coyote: For the Record, I Fear Pure Majoritarian Democracy as Well
In my mind, there are at least three founding principles of the United States that are far more important than the right to vote.
...
Government is our servant. The central, really very new concept on which this country was founded is that an individual's rights do not flow from government, but are inherent to man. That government in fact only makes sense to the extent that it is our servant in the defense of our rights, rather than as the vessel from which these rights grudgingly flow.
 Like many fans of 'NCIS', a big chuck of my interest in the show went out the window when Michael Weatherly left a season ago. It just wasn't going to be the same without our lovable ol' Tony.
Just to get us into that Tony mood, I'm going to include a couple of clips from his NCIS days, then we'll move on to his new show.
What's interesting is that Weatherly played a multi-faceted persona on the show, sometimes being sentimental, and sometimes comedic. Here's a short clip that puts both facets on display.
Gibbs has received (yet another) medal of achievement, doesn't even bother to attend the ceremony, so Tony accepts it in his stead, as usual.
More on this interesting story below the fold.
Continue reading "Whereupon Michael Weatherly morphs into Jason Bull"
"Enjoy every sandwich."
- Warren Zevon's advice to fans as he was dying of cancer
Tuesday, July 18. 2017
An oral surgeon, technically. He likes to do implants, which I of course enjoy having done - and paying for (Mrs. BD asks me which will be first, a new roof, or your teeth? She should have married a guy with better tooth genes or, perhaps, a better guy in general but I used tricknology to fool her into overestimating my virtues and underestimating my flaws. It's what all guys do to acquire desirable gals, so their ultimate disappointment is inevitable.)
His political incorrectness would get him instantly fired anywhere but in his own office, but his female assistants just get a kick out of his bawdiness and Trumpism. We always talk about weight lifting and hiking and a little about sex. Conversation becomes a bit one-sided once my mouth is full of cold stainless steel tools of torture, but I am getting the hang of it over time. I wish he were a bit slower, because yanking a bad tooth before the novocaine has taken full effect is unnerving, but getting out of there faster is preferable for me. Why does it help so much when that sweet Filipino gal puts her hand on my shoulder when the going gets tough? Filipino Magic. Wonderful people - the best.
He recently completed his 6th muti-day hiking and camping trip in the Grand Canyon with his brother, a buddy, and uncle. No wives signed on. 45-lb packs. I suggested that it might be time to try a new place, and he said they would, having done all the basic GC trails including the worst one which scared the crap out of him. Maybe the Indian Trail. Like me, he is acrophobic but does it anyway. (Lots of people hate heights, so it's really normal. Even when I am snorkeling somewhere, and there is a steep drop-off on a ledge or reef, it gives me the creeps but I generally conceal my fears as much as I can. It's a guy thing.)
Isn't facing down your fears the thing that builds the "can-do" in a person, whether male, female, or gender-confused? One of my greatest fears is walking into a dental office, but I take the valium he gives me, then man-up and walk in with a flirt with the sweet gals and a fresh joke ready - ready to act cool...like a mass-murderer to the execution room.
There's nothing new about McCloskey's manifesto, but it makes clear some Maggie's Farm political issues.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- Albert Einstein
 Late due to extended delightful dental fun
There Is No Human Right to a Big Mac
EVANGELICAL FUNDAMENTALISM AND CATHOLIC INTEGRALISM IN THE USA: A SURPRISING ECUMENISM
Monday, July 17. 2017
Our group of 8 assembled at the Inverness train station, and proceeded by van through the mainland Highlands to Skye.
Highlands, where they cut down all the trees centuries ago:
Like many or most of the place names in the Hebrides, "Skye" is Norse. And speaking of languages, 60% of Hebrideans speak "Gallic." That's the Scottish Gaelic. All signs are in "Gallic" and English. Luckily, they also speak a strange form of English which is possible to understand at times.
Once over the new bridge to Skye, we took a 2-hr warm-up hike during which the weather changed from fog to drizzle to heavy rain to peeks of sun. A good intro to island weather. Not for sissies.
Lotsa stuff below the fold. We do it for you -
Continue reading "Skye and Outer Hebrides photo travelogue, #2 of 3: The Isle of Skye "
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