Maggie's Farm

Image via Am. Digest's Let’s Review 25: Baby It’s Cold Outside Edition

A lovely winter nor'easter today. Dark skies. Got in my hour with trainer anyway this morning. A mainly bench press and deadlift day. Haven't lost electric power so it's a normal work day for me. Kids love our winter nor'easters - "Snow Day!" Dads go to work.

Rap overtakes Rock as most popular pop music 

 Are Canadian Pharmacies the Solution to America's High Prescription Drug Prices?

I use them 

 THE ZEALOUS FAITH OF SECULARISM - HOW THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION BECAME A DOGMA

 “OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO F---ED UP”: INSIDE SILICON VALLEY’S SECRETIVE, ORGIASTIC DARK SIDE

Nerds trying to catch up with fun

 The Earth Could Become A Desert Without The Paris Climate Agreement Or Something

The Nonexistent ‘Right’ to Disrupt Free Speech on Campus

Mao Again:

The Cultural Revolution was largely perpetrated by young people told to feel oppressed by their country’s past. Social justice could be achieved only by the destruction of the weight of Chinese culture. Their slogan was “Smash the Four Olds”: old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.

Via AVI

The more government attempts to regulate businesses, the more those will in turn attempt to influence its decisions. (Paraphrase of Bowdoin Political Science professor Jean M Yarborough.)

Metrics and Their Unintended Consequences - The best intentions combine with imprecise data for perverse effects in health care and education.

The problem with metrics is that the docs and hospitals that take on the toughest cases come out looking the worst

Poll: Voters Show Massive Support for Trump Immigration Policies

 DACA illegals can’t speak English, study shows

 New York & Co. are paying the price for being Deep Blue

Fusion GPS' 'Fake Investigation' — And Hillary Clinton's Real Russian Collusion

Sultan:

 The original civil war was fought by farmhands and factory workers, freed slaves and young boys turned soldiers; the new civil war is being fought by lawyers in blue or gray suits not with bullets, but with bullet points.

 The Arab World Abandons Palestine

The Arab world never gave a damn about Palestine, except as a pawn 

 5 Things to Know About the Iran Protests and How Badly the Liberal Media Botched the Story

 Former Afghanistan captive Joshua Boyle charged with sex assault, forcible confinement

He was no hostage 

 Germany Cracks Down on Social Media Thought Crime

" The European Union is ignoring this trend and soldiering on with what Brussels calls “more Europe”, which often means more interventionism and central planning. And citizens are not happy with this."

Rippetoe is the pro, and I am just an educated amateur but I'd rather see this particular client engaged in a balanced fitness program along with some "nutritional" aka eating guidance. Still, the results are impressive: From Heart Patient to Lifter

But can he run (not jog) a mile? Readers know we favor a balance of HIIT Cardio (total 1/2 hr/wk), Endurance "cardio" (1 hr/wk), serious weights (2 sessions/wk), and calisthenics (2 sessions/wk) for full functional fitness. I doubt that Rippetoe would argue with that, but he is mostly a weights guy. I don't know about our readers, but I find a one-hour calisthenics class to be more challenging - and more satisfying at the end - than anything else I do. They get you jumping and moving like a 16 year-old. The endorphins make you feel like you can take on the world, but you can hardly walk or talk. That tells you that you have done something hard.

Age is no barrier to any fitness pursuit. The body is made to adapt to demands. The discipline to make those stress and dietary demands is the hardest part, but it builds character. No pain, no gain.  Best not to wait until you are scared into it by a nasty problem.

There are sins I have entirely given up. Not, however, because I am so holy, but because I got sick of committing them; and tired of the associated self-loathing.

David Warren's post titled Protomartyr 

Photo:  Sanctuary State Signs Pop Up on California Highways for the New Year

Life of a High-End Mover

The guy gets no respect 

 2018 Will Be the Year Feminists Target Little Boys

Nobody's Ready for the Killer Robot - A Q&A with General Robert Latiff on the ethics of warfare in the autonomous future.

Alarmists Trumpet ‘Global Warming’ amid Record Cold Temperatures

... all weather behavior—whether colder or warmer—becomes a confirmation that man made global warming is real. Or, as Dinesh D’Souza tweeted, “Since heat & cold are both taken as confirmation of global warming, what, if anything, can disprove this supposedly scientific hypothesis?”

New York City to install 1,500 barriers to prevent vehicle ramming attacks

I hate what loony Moslems have done to American life 

Fed employees GET “MINIMUM WAGE” OF $100K - The bureaucracy that rules over us keeps getting richer and richer.

 'Mapping the Swamp' report finds 30,000 feds earn more than any governor

 American and Southwest are Bonusing All Employees $1000 Because of Tax Reform

The Russian Collusion Narrative Was, As FBI Agent Peter Strzok Explained: “An Insurance Policy”…

 Congressional investigators find irregularities in FBI's handling of Clinton email case

Duh 

2017  has Only Been the Apocalypse for Democrats

 The Left’s 2017 Trump Predictions: An Array of Calamities That Never Happened

Re Trump:  “The Word They All Used Was: ‘This Guy Is Insane’”

 US to Withhold Funding from Palestinians Until They Agree to Join Peace Negotiations

Why does the US give them our money in the first place? 

AfD politician 'censored' under new German hate speech law for anti-Muslim tweet

Is there a German totalitarian gene? 

Moslem  ASSAULTS ON POLICE OFFICERS HORRIFY FRANCE

 “Yet those who threatened to KILL Fawstin are not banned.”

Steyn reviews the Muslim problem in Europe 

 DEFYING THE HIJAB IS THE SYMBOL OF IRAN'S FREEDOM MOVEMENT

 The uprising in Iran: ‘This is what revolution looks like’

 Diplomacy or Driving a Hard Bargain? Lessons from the Negotiation that Led to the Iran Nuclear Deal

Iranians Shatter a New York Times Myth - The people haven't closed ranks behind the regime.

Trader Joe's just released shelf-stable French fries to satisfy all your snacking needs

In Pursuit of Liquid Gold - There is big money in drug testing. That means urine, and bills that can top a quarter-million dollars for a few months of tests for a single patient.

Autonomous vehicles are about to collide with the American way.

Why Tax Hospitals? It’s a Medicaid Shell Game - Providers pay the state. The state pays providers, then collects matching funds from Uncle Sam.

D ata: Trump Admin Reduces Refugee Admissions by 70 Percent in First Year

 Baltimore Pastor On The City’s Homicide Rate: We Need Police To Come Back

 New York City’s Crime Rate Is Way Down, So Let’s All Fight About Why It Happened!

 After Saving Many From NYC Fire, Soldier Died Trying To Rescue One More

Z-man's 2018 predictions

What Trump DIDN'T do in 2017: President's hysteria-prone critics must be sorely disappointed

CONGRESS HAS A BLACK CAUCUS RACISM PROBLEM - The vicious cycle of racism and thievery in the CBC must be broken.

Fractured West - In Oregon and elsewhere, rural residents increasingly balk at Democrats’ progressive governance.

 Not So Fast With That Trillion For Infrastructure

 Was A Drunken Conversation Really All The Probable Cause The FBI Needed To Investigate A Presidential Campaign?

Transparent DOJ and FBI Desperation: New York Times Attempts “Trump Operation” Justification…

As the Dossier Scandal Looms, the New York Times Struggles to Save Its Collusion Tale

 How the Trump era is changing the federal bureaucracy

Trump Really Is Draining The Swamp

Althouse:  "And the NYT runs the story on New Year's Eve Sunday."

VOX vs Trump:  Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump’s New York Times interview is a scary read. The president of the United States is not well.

 Bret Stephens: Why I’m Still A NeverTrumper

 The Trump Effect: Business, Anticipating Less Regulation, Loosens Purse Strings

 White House Press Secretary Triggers Haters With Shotgun Photo

Tax Reform’s Warning Shot for Universities - The GOP puts liberal academia on notice.

 One of President Macron’s Climate Defectors Speaks Out

The Islamization of Britain in 2017 - "I think we are heading towards disaster."

 Deadly Protests Continue In Iran

Iran cuts off internet access in several cities as mass protests continue

 Jihadist Group Blows Up Oil Pipeline In Iran, In Midst Of Protests

 Pence Promises U.S. Support for Iranian Protestors

 Iranian Protests Resonating In Russia, Caucasus And Central Asia – OpEd

 Migrant slavery in Libya: Nigerians tell of being used as slaves

German Jewish Leader Warns That Jews May Require Police Protection As Anti-Semitism Escalates

Our local Sharp- Shinned Hawks have been daily visitors at our bird feeder. They are picking off innocent sparrows daily.  It's a circus out there. Sparrows smash against our windows trying to escape. That's why Mrs. BD terms it a Sharpie-feeder.  That's fine me with me because I am a carnivore too, and I like meat rare.

And each morning around 3 AM I hear our neighborhood hoot-owl - a Great Horned - establishing a nesting territory. They have already mated, will lay their eggs in January in the snow and frigid weather in an old crow's nest. That's how they roll, and it works.

The film The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the real-life story of Antonina and Jan Żabiński, a Polish couple who were the directors of the Warsaw Zoo, one of the largest in 1930s Europe. The Żabińskis risked their lives during World War II to save over 300 Jews and underground resistance fighters by providing them with shelter in the zoo’s bombed-out animal enclosures, and in the basement of their villa home. 

 The Zookeeper's Wife: Interview with Teresa Żabiński below. Proof to me that ordinary people can make life better for others if they decide to. Not through politics - that never works because the game of politics is just about power. Mercy and care is through personal action and it doesn't need to be heroic.