Thursday, September 6. 2018
 I have been using Nike crossfit sneakers (Metcons) for my workouts. I have 2 pairs, so one is always dry. No heel, minimal cushioning, so perfect for all mixed workouts. Why would they want to engage me in political bullshit?
Commenter at Ace: "NIKE is going where the bucks are - single parent black teenage males. Who else buys $300 sneakers?"
Apparently I am not their customer. $300? I would never spend $100 on exercise shoes. Just go online and get last year's model for $25-50. Problem is, now I know they do not welcome my patronage. Idiots not to want me to buy their darn sneakers because I wear mine out with an approximation of the Maggie's program. They last one year.
Exercise tip: Running shoes are the worst unless you are a foolish road-runner. They are not gym shoes, but fine walking sneakers for the elderly. They have too much of everything so there is no floor-feel. Fact is, barefoot would probably be best for everybody but gyms do not allow that.
Reebok Nanos and Reebok Crossfit are good fitness cross-training sneakers. New Balance makes a Minimus trainer. Try it. For calisthenics, weights, cardio machines, etc you want minimal shoe. Big cushioning is supposedly for running on cement, which we do not advise. If you need thick pillows on your feet, you are doing something wrong.
Political nonsense aside, what do our readers like for cross-training footwear?
 The Five Most Overrated Beers
My Eight-Year-Old Daughter Walked Her Dog Alone. Then Police Came Knocking On My Door
What are the appropriate ages for things?
" My nephew tried to school me on cultural appropriation. It didn’t end well”
Fisking Chuck Todd’s “It’s All Roger Ailes! He Made The Public Distrust The Media” Article
“A fossil-free future”… Real words from a real social justice warrior and author of The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution
Cleaning out cabinets for painters and found my old fossil collection. I will not have a fossil-free future. I love looking at fossils and hope to become an old fossil myself someday
A Facebook Engineer’s Plea for Political Diversity
Why Technology Favors Tyranny - Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don’t take steps to stop it.
The Prophet of Google's Doom
TEXAS DOCTORS at Kavanaugh Hearing Say They Saw Liberal Protesters Paid “With a Literal Bag of Cash” (VIDEO and PHOTO)
Fine writing by Althouse re Kavanugh's talk with Diane Feinstein:
K expressed empathy with DF's concerns. He was super-nice to her, and as things progressed, what I read in her face was pain — pain over wanting him to feel pain. But he's so heavily swaddled in judicial values that he's safe from everything. As a judge, he does what he must do as a judge, even when it pains him. He's pre-pained, inoculated to pain, and there's no way to further pain him. The children who die in school shootings... the women who would die from illegal abortions... these causes for empathy receive his empathy, but they do not change what he must do. His cold, dry judicial virtue is supreme and sublime, and he must, as ever, humbly submit. Feinstein was reduced to scoffing that K had learned (from Senators?) to "filibuster."
THE DEMOCRATS ARE CRAZY
The case that Trump is crazy
EU Enters "Final Stage" Of Crafting Bill Forcing Big Tech Censorship
Wednesday, September 5. 2018
Below is a speech, "Why Men Matter", given on August 13, 2018 at the Salinas Men's conference by Archbishop Chaput (Philadelphia). Although it focuses in part upon Catholic men and teachings, the message is fully applicable to any religion. Well worth the read:
"Reaching Out"
I spent the 1960s studying to be a priest, so I was exempt from the military draft. I never served in Vietnam. I can’t and don’t claim to know what combat is like. But I have friends who did serve, and no one in my generation could really avoid the war because it dominated our country’s life for more than a decade. The Vietnam War intersected with a sexual revolution and a wave of social turmoil here at home that, in some ways, remain with us today. And yet, along with the war’s bitterness and suffering, there were moments that are frozen in time because they had an impossible beauty. They can move the heart even now. I want to focus on one of them.
In your conference booklets, you’ll find a photograph with the title “Reaching Out.” I want you to study it. October 1966 saw a series of heavy firefights between American Marines and North Vietnamese regulars in the jungles and hills just south of the DMZ. This photo was snapped on Hill 484, moments after a hand-to-hand battle for the hill had ended. The man with the head wound is a gunnery sergeant, or “gunny,” the senior enlisted man in a Marine company.
Two things are obvious. The Marines around the gunny are trying to get him to a medic. And the gunny is doing the opposite – ignoring his own pain to help a wounded young Marine bleeding in the dirt. What’s not obvious is something outside the frame. The same Marines had just dragged the sergeant away from the body of their dead company commander, who had called down friendly artillery fire on his own position to keep his men from being overrun. The beauty in this photograph – what the poet William Butler Yeats called “a terrible beauty” – is the love among men in the shadow of death; men in the extremes of pressure and suffering. Not a romantic love. And certainly not an erotic love. But the loyalty-love of men made brothers by the tasks and burdens they share.
Men don’t often talk about this love, but it’s real. It’s the love that enables a man to sacrifice his own life in service to someone or something more important than himself. It’s the love that takes the male of our species and remakes him into a man. And that leads us to our theme this afternoon: why men matter.
It’s an odd question to ask, isn’t it. Why do men matter? In a healthy time and culture, we wouldn’t need to ask, because the answer is obvious. The role of good men is to provide, to protect, to build, to lead, and to teach, both by our words and by the example of our lives. None of these things is exclusive to men, of course. Women can do all of these things in their own way, with their own particular genius. But men have the special responsibility to create a secure and just society where new life can grow and thrive to ensure the human future.
The trouble is, we don’t live in a healthy time and culture. We live in an on-going civil war in this country over the meaning of sex, gender, family, marriage, human nature and whether our lives have any higher purpose at all. And that makes the sound of any sane voice all the more precious.
Continue reading ""Why Men Matter""
 I'm not commenting that Nike's Kaepernick ad will hurt them financially. So far, it has hurt them (in their stock price) but people are people and will buy things for a variety of reasons. Using Kaepernick as a 'theme' is, however, polarizing on many levels. For some people, the ad may spur sales. For many others, the ad will lead them to spurn the brand. If we look back at the Chick-fil-A and In 'n Out 'boycotts', we're resolved to recognize boycotts which are designed to exact retribution will often result in exactly nothing to harm a firm.
The difference with Nike was their ad is not a perceived slight. It's deliberately offensive. Nike raised the stakes in the marketing wars, and I don't think what they did will benefit them. This wasn't just a misguided statement or an ill-conceived donation. This was taking the Social Justice Warrior mentality and turning it into and ad. It's big question - can social justice be branded? Can the "revolution" of Progressive Thought be promoted in an ad campaign. I'd say no, and the fruits of this campaign may have people talking about Nike...but Nike doesn't need people to be talking about them in this fashion.
Let's start from the beginning. Kaepernick and other players have the right to kneel during the anthem. We all do. Excoriating them for this is silly, uninformed, and ignores the right to free speech. So set that aside. Let's discuss the real problem, which is the outcome of that decision to kneel, because that's where Nike messed up. They took a relatively benign issue, and amped it up on steroids.
The NFL has a Game Day Operations Policy it chose to not implement, which stipulates players which do not stand for the anthem MAY be fined. Not enforcing this has hurt the NFL's image and proved it to be a business at the mercy of its employees' political views. Try breaking YOUR employers' policies and see what happens. Good luck with that. But, hey - it's the NFL, and these guys are "STARS". So yeah, I guess if you have no backbone, you can ignore your own policies and assume everything will turn out fine.
Continue reading "Nike - A Massive FAIL"
 Yes, to a degree, but it's an uphill battle. Sarcopenia is an effect of ageing. Combined with a non-vigorous life, muscle and bone loss is natural decline.
Over 50 or 60, many trainers would make a goal of simply maintaining what you have, but more aggressive trainers like to find out how far "mature" individuals can take their strength efforts.
As with all aspects of fitness, "use it or lose it" applies. I would be in the category of those who advise people not to give up on strength-building in later adulthood. Advancement is much slower than when 30, and you will not build much visible muscle, but you can be stronger anyway.
The trick is heavy weights and low reps (ie 8 or less). We're talking men and women. High reps are better than doing nothing, but they are not strength-building.
One piece of advice: Over 50 or 60, two days/week of powerlifting is enough.
Some links:
8 Strength Training Moves Women Over 50 Should Do
Getting older doesn't mean giving up muscle strength. Not only can adults fight the battle of strength and muscle loss that comes with age, but the Golden Years can be a time to get stronger, say experts at the University of Michigan Health System
Simple test asked 50 to 80-year-olds to sit on the floor and stand up with as little support as possible
Building Stronger Bones
Can You Regain Muscle Mass After Age 60?
Weight training is the only type of exercise that can substantially slow, and even reverse, the declines in muscle mass, bone density, and strength that were once considered inevitable consequences of aging.
... because proper strength training doesn't apply stress directly to joints, it is ideal for people with arthritis; indeed, rheumatologists often recommend it. Although it cannot reverse arthritic changes, lifting weights helps alleviate symptoms by strengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that surround joints.
Friend just back from trip to Slovenia and Croatia (and a bit of Istanbul). This is Lake Bled. I'll post some more of their pics later.
Tuesday, September 4. 2018
The fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock is creeping up on us, and the 49th anniversary passed with barely a mention. That's probably how it should be. Maybe not, though. Woodstock is viewed differently by many people. For some it was a political event. For me it was purely music and culture. Regardless of how it's viewed, the history is deep, it resonates with different generations, and it was full of lessons. It was a turning point.
I was only 7 at the time. I remember it as 'an event'. At the time, I remember some vague political commentary surrounding it, I was too young to really care. The only thing I was aware of was visiting my cousins in the nearby town where they lived, and thinking the dirty hippies were scary.
Several years ago, I moved closer to the empty nest phase of life, having dropped my second son off at Syracuse (followed in dad's footsteps) for his freshman year. I had fun regaling him with my past life experiences. It was a period of time when past lives were looming. Mrs. Bulldog and I had been married 22 years, and only 2 had been sans children. That's a big gap, and if you've had kids you know what I'm talking about.
A former co-worker, who had been unemployed at that time, landed a job that started in September. He asked if I wanted to take a trip up to Bethel and see the Woodstock museum. I asked my wife if she had any interest, she didn't, so I signed on with him and one other former co-worker to take in some cultural history. Another bit of a past life.
Continue reading "Woodstock at 49"
 I had a Dunkin with our roofer boss at 7 this morning when I got back from my calisthenics class. 64 year old Irish-Italian guy from Springfield, MA who needs no exercise classes because his entire day is physical. Physical, with lots of subtle skills too. Bending copper to fix a roof cricket is not easy geometry.
I asked him how he knew how to do so many things after he told me he had put new brakes in his ageing F-150 over the weekend. I have a special admiration for practical skills because I am a bit of a klutz with most machinery other than Farmall tractors and chain saws.
An American story. High school then 4 years in the US Army. They put him in a mechanical company, repairing broken things. After that, 6 years in a Massachusetts sawmill spending a lot of time, again, fixing broken things and maintaining machinery.
Got in too many fights with the boss, so got a job in a junkyard, retrieving good parts from junked trucks and cars. After 4 years of that, was offered an auto mechanic job by somebody he knew who knew him to be a hard worker. Became a master mechanic. Always did tree work on the side, and still does. Then his brother-in-law offered him a partnership in his roofing business. He had already done his own roofs, so he jumped at a chance to be a business owner. When that guy quit the biz because it was "too hard," the business was his. He has good crews to supervise but he does all of the tricky stuff and the copper work.
He is a perfectionist. This morning on a second story roof ladder he decided to add some aluminum edging under his new copper flashing to completely protect the crown molding on our dormers. Waterproof, paintable glue to hold it in. "That crown will be good for 200 years."
His life advice: Learn how to do as many things as you can. That way, you can always be useful.
His results: Bought his first house at 25. Has 5 kids who he likes. Bought two houses on his street, both as wedding gifts for his married kids. They are very happy to be near family. Married once. Also has a shack on Cape Cod that he is renovating, and a house in Florida. Grows tomatoes and fruit trees. Claims he will never retire but admits the day might come when he'll have to just be a boss instead of doing 3-story ladder work. Not yet, for sure. Says God blessed him.
Yes, he has a Trump 2020 bumper sticker. He is deplorable.
 Height, size, and tennis
Dozens of elephants killed near Botswana wildlife sanctuary
HERE’S WHY NYT’S LATEST ATTEMPT TO SCARE READERS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING IS A ‘WASTE OF TIME’
It's gonna be hot today. Climate change.
Gov't Spends $18 Billion On Jobs Programs, But Can't Tell If They Work
Job training comes from getting a job. In this economy, jobs are going begging
Pretending Fragility To Conceal Aggression
One of the oldest mind games in the world
Uptick in Racism in Public Schools Is All Trump's Fault, Educators Say
What racism? All I ever see is reverse racism.
New York City Public Schools Discriminate Against White Kids
Corporate Suicide Watch, Nike Edition
PAPADOPOULOS COURT FILING REMINDS US WHY SESSIONS NEEDED TO RECUSE HIMSELF
OK. So Sessions was a bad choice for the job
Media Obituaries Didn’t Give Us ‘The Full McCain’
Why did he get the royal treatment? The US has lots of war heroes
Who’s afraid of Steve Bannon? Cancelling the former White House strategist might win back the respect of New Yorker readers — but it won’t help in their quest to explore ‘Ideas’
The primaries show that Trump Republicanism is still on the rise
U.S. DEFUNDS UNRWA
About time
PIGS IN PALESTINE: ANTI-ISRAEL LEFT SPREADS ANTI-SEMITIC BOAR LIBELS - Who let the pigs out? According to the Left, the Jews.
Czech PM: We don’t want to live in Africa or the Middle East here. We must fight for our values.
Monday, September 3. 2018
This day, September 3, holds some level of significance for the U.S. Not only because it happens to be the day we celebrate Labor Day, or the unofficial end of summer, with barbecues, beach time, yard work or laying in hammocks. Today, in 1777, at Cooch's Bridge, the official US flag (the one Betsy Ross presumably created) was raised in battle for the first time at Cooch's Bridge. A minor skirmish, a loss for Continental forces, but a holding action to slow the advance of British and Hessian troops through Delaware. It also is known as the Battle of Iron Hill, and was the only military action, outside of naval affairs offshore, which took place in Delaware.
The American flag took on many forms prior to, and after, its introduction. Not many are aware of the fact both stars and stripes were added in 1795 for the admission of both Kentucky and Vermont. The 15 star, 15 stripe flag was to remain the official flag for 23 years, and it was the 15 star, 15 stripe flag which flew over Fort McHenry and inspired The Star Spangled Banner. It is the only official flag which had more than 13 stripes. In 1818, an act was passed which dictated the modern conception of the flag, which added one star for each new state and left the number of stripes at 13 to represent the 13 original states. The 1818 act was passed to recognized Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), and Mississippi (1817).
Another note to consider, tangentially flag-related, is that Sept. 3 is also the day on which the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the Revolutionary War in 1783. The treaty was ratified by Congress on January 14, 1784. Benjamin Franklin had pushed to gain all of Canada in the negotiation, but failed in that regard. However, he gained enough land to double the size of the existing land controlled by the newly formed nation, leading to the addition of many new stars on the flag.
Is Safetyism Destroying a Generation?
Weight-loss pills can help. So why don't more people use them? (h/t Instapundit)
Why New York City Stopped Building Subways - Nearly 80 years ago, a construction standstill derailed the subway’s progress, leading to its present crisis. This is the story, decade by decade.
Netflix has spent years crushing movie theaters – turns out, it kind of needs them now
New York Alt-Weekly Publishing Legend The Village Voice Is No More
What the nonreligious get wrong about religious people
Pope Declares ‘Emergency’ Not Related To Pedophile Scandal
Williamson: The Psalmist And The Sex Doll
Prof touts 'ecosexuality' as 'environmental activist strategy'
Claim: Weather Catastrophes are “Pearl Harbour” Opportunities to Implement a Carbon Tax
University of Kansas Hosts 'Feminist Parenting Group' to Explore 'Strategies for Raising Intersectional Feminist Children'
DSA SOCIALIST CANDIDATE JULIA SALAZAR LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING
Editing out the American flag
National security goals in McCain's wake
‘OUTRAGED’ Americans Disgusted With Hyper-Politicized McCain Funeral
Is bashing Trump the fraternity's new secret handshake?
Roaring economy isn't lifting Donald Trump approval rating. He has only himself to blame.
President Trump Keeps Winning – Everything Else Is Just Noise…
Another kind of camouflage. Dazzle Ships
Sunday, September 2. 2018
James 1:17-27
1:17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
1:18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
1:19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;
1:20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.
1:21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
1:22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.
1:23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;
1:24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.
1:25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing.
1:26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.
1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Saturday, September 1. 2018
As I toil towards my goal of unloading 2000 books from the Maggie's HQ, it's tough not to flip through each one in case you might change your mind. My books are part of me, it seems. That is stupid.
Take Emerson. I open a random page. No, dammit. I can not understand the guy and I never could figger out what he was getting at. Not blaming him because as far as I can tell he is a deep thinker and his essays remain widely appreciated. "It's me, not you."
My Dad loved him, but I have lower IQ than my Dad. I blame my mother's side: rich practical business people.
Just three of them jump to mind, but there must be many more examples where changing geography left cities built on sea-going commerce sitting on silted rivers, and further from the ocean.
I am thinking of Florence, Seville, and Pisa. Oh - Pompeii was a seaport too, which is partly why it was so full of whorehouses. Whorehouses and temples and fast food joints - that was Pompeii. Here's The lost harbour of Pisa revealed
Classic visit to Pisa (which is actually a charming antique town like San Gimignano or Siena): Grab a slice of pizza, take a selfie in front of the bell tower, then get back on the air-conditioned bus.
Other examples of cities which were once important seaports?
The Bizarre Story of Britain’s Last Great Auk
How a plan to save Kenya's rhino left 11 dead in historic blunder
New Zealand council plans to ban all pet cats in bid to protect native bird species
Let's hope the world follows that example
How America Killed Mass Transit - Streetcar, bus, and metro systems have been ignoring one lesson for 100 years: Service drives demand.
NYT: Overtourism’ Worries Europe. How Much Did Technology Help Get Us There?
Story of bombshell charges against Pope more surreal by the minute
David Warren: What to do about the Church
Postmodern leftism even lays waste to the Catholic Church.
When was the Church entirely pure and holy?
Dem Socialist Candidate’s Brother and Mother Say She’s Lied About Her Upbringing
She's a cute little liar
Good quote this week from Marco Rubio:
Politics today is a lot less about ideology and a lot more about the disconnect between the people who make our laws and the people that live underneath them. If you want to understand 2010, 2014, 2016, and I believe, future elections, you have to understand that there’s an enormous gap between what public policy elites – people in government, the media, and academia – are focused on, and what everyday people care about. And they’re not lined up.
So I think there’s a sense across the American political spectrum that the people in office spend all their time fighting for things that don’t matter in the real world. And the things that matter in the real world aren’t getting enough attention. And so, they want to send people that are going to blow it up, that are basically gonna force change in the status quo, and the more the established figures in politics attack you, the stronger it makes you in the eyes of people that want to see something different.
Weiner Laptop Scandal, the Mueller Witchhunt, the Clinton Foundation and China Hacking Hillary’s Emails All Have One Thing in Common
The Case for Sessions' Resignation Grows
“THE BIG MONEY IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS NOW ON THE LEFT”
Is South Africa quietly planning a genocide?
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