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.
Facebook has offered "myPersonality" for a decade. Since they seem to be in the personal information business, your data might be useful to them.
If interested, you can do that myPersonality test here, away from Facebook. Not very illuminating to see I came out as Traditionalist. In fact, probably only interesting to marketing people although it is used for social science research too.
Once you get past his bit about his (14-minute) anger with the Linfield College administration's dismal treatment of him, he delivers a stimulating sermon on life, including topics of the "impartial brutality of reality"; the need to make life more difficult; the necessity of hitting walls in order to grow; that the meaning of life is in reducing suffering; the necessity of self-doubt and humility for spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth; the dangers of isolation/insulation; the idea that to learn and develop, an old part of you has to die; and "black truths." And more.
It's a sermon with too many themes, but is there anything "controversial" enough to be banned here? "How do you radically justify your miserable existence? Start with yourself."
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
51:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York is 14 years older than our country, dating to 1762. The parade’s line of march is traditionally led by the honor guard of the 69th Regiment of the New York State National Guard, the storied “Fighting 69th.” And therein lies a tale.
Democrats, who are all over Twitter at the moment defending McCabe, are making a huge mistake. They will be embarrassed when the details come out. The Office of Professional Responsibility is not a partisan adjunct of the Republican Party or anything close. Furthermore, it was the Democratic Party that called for the Inspector General to investigate. He was appointed by Obama. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
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The real draining of the Swamp has finally begun. Jeff Sessions may have quietly been engineering it in ways his critics, even Trump himself, didn't realize. It is time for every concerned citizen to keep up the pressure. At moments like this, it's easy to be cynical and think, oh, this is a good moment, but it will go back to business as usual soon.
The guy lied to government officials. Regular people would be jailed for that - see Martha Stewart. Anyway, he's too young for retirement.
The true villains are the intellectuals who proposed a loosening of social mores, launched a parade of excuses for a long list of destructive behaviors, denied agency (and therefore full humanity) to the West’s euphemistically-named “poor”, built bureaucracies that reward the most irresponsible citizens with the greatest largesse, and otherwise indicted faceless society for the failures of individuals. Daniels uncovers the foolishness with elegance and wit.
Everybody knows what ingredients can result in unfortunate lives regardless of money: bad luck, bad genes, low IQ (half of the population is below average), addiction, maladaptive, annoying, (or intolerable, eg sociopathic or impulsive) character traits, poor judgement, unappealing appearance, mental illness, poor social awareness, low-functioning parents, poor child-rearing and lack of a father, etc. etc.
As we reiterate here, a stable bourgeois life is tough enough for most, even if lacking in those obstacles. Everybody is insufficient, and everybody stumbles. I know people with beautiful fulfilling lives, but have never known anybody who has not endured grievous troubles or terrible years. Peterson keeps saying "Life is suffering." No, but it has its share of it. You can count on that. Tragedy is unavoidable.
In the Mueller sham investigation, now that it has all but fallen apart, Mueller is now crossing a red line by digging into the President's business dealings as far back as 20 or more years ago in an effort to ruin him financially and thus force him from office. At least Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds Grassley, Graham Cornyn and Tillis are calling for a special counsel to investigate the investigation. I think it's time for PDT to shut this down, before it gets any closer to the midterms.
Your Right to Free Speech, Like My Right to Self-Defense, Isn’t Open to Debate - Rallying to call for restrictive laws is a whole lot easier than getting people to submit to them.
She's the young assistant teacher in Canada who got in trouble for showing a 30-second TV clip of Jordan Peterson in a class. A lefty who was mugged by greater lefties. She is smart and charming too.
All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy. The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-"acting white" rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants. These cultural orientations are not only incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and reciprocity among Americans. If the bourgeois cultural script — which the upper-middle class still largely observes but now hesitates to preach — cannot be widely reinstated, things are likely to get worse for us all.
There are so many things today one hesitates to preach, or even to utter. You can get in trouble. Crazy world in which it can be dangerous to say obvious things.
"The same people who insist that buying a gun at a store, which at a minimum requires a government-issued ID and background check, is too easy will also tell you that requiring an ID to vote is an impossibly high hurdle to expect average people to overcome."
• For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
• Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general.
• Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
• You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistines” have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-fat diets.
• Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
• True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.
If you feel too shy or timid to take fitness/athleticism classes (get over that - timid and shy are bad habits for life), you are stuck with doing your calis and HIIT on your own 2 days/week if you follow the Maggie's balanced fitness ("Functional Fitness For Life") advice of 2 days powerlifts and other heavy weights, 2 days calis/cardio, 2 days mixed cardio).
Every few weeks, I will cut a day out for recovery if I feel I need it. That's an age factor, I think. However, consistency is key.
Two years of that program will get anybody of any age, gender, or condition into decent fitness - with the appropriate nutrition for weight-gain or loss. Physical renovation, literally. Lean, no bulging muscles but just solid strength, endurance, and athleticism. I am towards the northern region of middle age, so I can speak to this with some authority. Not to mention a deplorable history of intermittent tobacco abuse.
Re the calisthenics component, right now I take one cross-train class/week (basically no-rest cardio/calis, lots of burpees, rowing, mountain climbers, and jumping around), and a mixed calis/HIIT session I do on my own for 75 minutes/wk on Sat. morning.
Typically I do 3 circuits of each group of four exercises until my time runs out. I see many guys and gals doing similar sorts of circuits on their own at the gym, but classes push the cardio and sweat harder than many will do on their own.
Below the fold, the typical circuits I use after a 5-minute elliptical warm-up and calf stretch. It's not classic HIIT, but it works in the same way. I do classic HIIT weekly on the treadmill - 30-sec sprint, 2 min slow walk.
This is classic old-fashioned "exercise" (asterisks for the things I consider HIIT) --
Articles like that are so misguided and cynical that it makes me sad. Clearly there are hundreds of sorts of education, some formal and some informal, some practical and some impractical.
I learned the Bible in Sunday school, in college, in church, and in a men's study group. Enriched my life greatly. Never helped me get a job.
Regardless of the reasons (calling Trump a moron probably didn't help), the firing of Tillerson was done in a shameful and appalling way. Tillerson is a far better man than Trump. Maybe not the right guy for the job, but Trump picked him.
If you work for Trump, do not expect to be treated in a civil manner.
Toon stolen from 
25 
Irish ancestry 
Why are