Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page
Categories
QuicksearchLinks
Blog Administration |
Monday, April 5. 2021Sounds of early Springtime amphibian marsh courtship, repostedMrs. BD and I took a 5-mile woodsy hike last weekend and passed many vernal pools and small ponds with the early springtime chorus. Like owls, you hardly ever see these critters but they let you know they are there in April. Mating calls of common early Spring frogs of vernal pools and shallow marshes: The tiny Spring Peepers dominate the chorus. Man, have I loved that sound since earliest childhood:
And the mating trill of Mr, Toad: Bufo Americanus: Monday morning linksIs the legend of Murray’s Cheese only a myth? Warnock: ‘Meaning Of Easter’ Transcends Resurrection Of Christ, People Can ‘Save’ Themselves With Good Works Um, no. That's not the religion. Not that being useful is not a good thing. Transexuals: “A Certain Madness Amok” In Canada, trans “justice” has gone haywire. California teachers’ latest demand: Free child care Woman: I Am Fat Because Racism Made Me Fat… Trees just might be racist, Portland, Oregon Board of Education Director worries Democrats finally have a chance to remake the economy the way they've hoped for decades MLB requires photo ID to pick up tickets from Will Call, but boycotts Georgia for voter ID law THE GREAT LIBERAL DEATH WISH ENTERS A NEW PHASE Is Matt Gaetz in trouble? The Stephen Kruiser Top Five List of Things I Won't Be Apologizing For Sunday, April 4. 2021Spring in New England: A Beaver PondLarge natural fresh-water ponds with marshes are scarce in the northeast US. If you know of one, where is it and what is it like? I've seen a few in MA, but most were post-glacial and have since filled in as bogs or wetlands or grass, if not trees. With the return of the beaver populations, fresh habitat is available for all of these critters. I like man-made marshes too. Funny - I've never seen a Mallard in a tree before. Canadian LoggersHappy Easter
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 15:2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain. 15:3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 15:6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 15:7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 15:8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 15:11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. Saturday, April 3. 2021A trip you'll likely never takeDeep into the Libyan Sahara. This is from a few years ago. A few thousand years ago, the Sahara had much more water - lakes and swamps. Can you blame the guy for being enchanted by his translator?
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
14:48
| Comments (7)
| Trackbacks (0)
Elderflower CordialIt has an interesting and pleasant flavor. There is no alcohol in it. All you do is to put a splash into plain bubbly water, with some ice. Very refreshing. Easy to order online. Saturday morning linksThe mystery of the refugee children in Sweden who won’t wake up. Hundreds of children have succumbed to a mystery illness that can keep them in a sleeplike state for years. I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup (h/t AVI) US Military Goes 100% Woke On Transgenders, Will Even Pay For Transition Surgery Teen cheerleader's Snapchat brings Supreme Court clash over schools and free speech VDH: Is Racism Moral Now? Biden Infrastructure Bill Includes $20 BILLION To DESTROY Highways For Being Racist. Administration claims “long-standing and persistent racial injustice” in infrastructure Barone: Too much risk aversion is too risky Friday, April 2. 2021BearsThe narration is a little cheesy, but you can learn anyway.
Friday morning linksImage via Bookworm Beat 3/31/21 — the illustrated edition Only an opthalmologist? No Opening Day Without Von Tilzer! The Jewish Tin Pan Alley composer who wrote ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ had never been to a ballgame Rand Paul Humiliates Dr. Fauci AGAIN Over Double-Masking Thomas Frank against Cancel Culture Activists Try To Thwart Effort To Name School After “Oppressor” Barack Obama The Disintegration of the ACLU Cuomo Ordered Aides To Conceal Nursing Home Death Numbers While He Negotiated $4M Book Deal: NYT Biden Quietly Hands Over At Least $60 Million To Palestinians Surely they will put that to good use... Entire Migrant Families Being Released Without Court Dates Or Papers 40 Years After Reagan, A Big Bet On Big Government Thursday, April 1. 2021English Weapons and Warfare, 449-1660I learned a lot from this book. I learned about the difference between castles and the later forts, the evolution of gunpowder use in the 1400s, the evolution and then disappearance of armor, the Hundred Year War, throwing down the gauntlet, siege warfare and assault warfare, the use of cavalry, the role of peasants and farmers in warfare, the reasons many tried to avoid being knighted, and why Henry Vlll was a great king. And lots more about their Civil War. It was a bloody history, over all those years, for no good reasons. I suppose it has been like that everywhere. Power, money, land, glory. Bringing salt to market
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
14:30
| Comment (1)
| Trackbacks (0)
The great tricksterTry making plans, and see.
Thursday morning linksLet's Celebrate the Federal Government on April Fools' Day How humans develop larger brains than other apes Scott Adam's podcast: Did CDC kill people due to fear of fat-shaming? At Yale, Cancel Culture Consumes a Celebration of Eli Women Update On Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn Litigation Yankee Go Home Stay out of politics, Facebook and Twitter Facebook Removed Video Interview With President Trump Citing His Ban On The Platform As The Reason… Mostly Peaceful Mayhem - Turning a blind eye to violence in Miami, the New York Times previews its post-Floyd-trial coverage. VDH: The 10 Radical New Rules That Are Changing America Race and False Hate Crime Narratives 9 Crazy Examples of Unrelated Waste and Partisan Spending in Biden’s $2 Trillion ‘Infrastructure’ Proposal Wednesday, March 31. 2021How much HIIT is right?The NYT warns about doing too much. I don't think that is much of an issue for 99.99% of people. People who do Soul Cycle and similar programs, if done daily, might exceed those sprint warnings - if you believe them. Still, sprinting is like flying. It feels good. As we have discussed before, HIIT is true Cardio exercise, meaning that it is designed to stress, not just use, the heart muscle. The goals are to improve or maintain heart function and to increase your odds of surviving your first unfortunate "cardic event" by developing collateral blood supply. As we have also discussed here, it is sprints which have this effect. Exertions commonly grouped as "cardio" - like biking, swimming laps, jogging, rowing - are worth doing to maintain general endurance but do not get the heart rate to the 70-90% max that efficiently stresses the heart to the point of heart muscle development. Same idea as curls for the biceps. Assuming you have a well-balanced fitness program (weights, calisthenics, and both types of cardio), two 20-minute sessions/wk of HIIT is good. Most calisthenics circuits include bits of HIIT too, such as speed rope, heavy ropes, or row sprints. Obviously, all of this depends on age and level of fitness. What is a typical 20-30-minute HIIT session? It's 30-60-sec. all-out sprints followed by 60-80 seconds of slow recovery. Rinse and repeat. The sprints are anaerobic. The way I do it is to include sprints in one weights recovery day, which is like an hour of treadmill jogging, fast-walking, or elliptical, interspersing sprints in it. It keeps it interesting. On another day, I do 20-min of HIIT and then 30 minutes of weights or accesssory weights. You do not need to monitor your heart rate, because you know dqrn well when you are going all-out. What is cardio? And what is the difference between cardio and high intensity interval training? And why is there a place for both? That piece is reasonable, but seems to assume that the only fitness exercise anybody does is "cardio." That is surely better than nothing but it is not a balanced fitness routine.
Stop on the Next Urban Hike?Funny to be mentioning the Urban Hike. It's been a long time. We were trying to plan out an Upper Manhattan/Bronx hike last year (much more technically difficult than it may seem), but if we do get to have a hike again, maybe it will be in the fall of 2021. I hope so. I'm thinking movie sites or movie-related sites - which could be very engaging. I told Mrs. Bulldog that I had found this and decided it was a place we had to visit. Normally, Mrs. Bulldog isn't very interested in this sort of thing, but one thing made me realize she had to go with me. Untapped New York struck a chord today, by publishing this little item, which we could have "visited" on the last Urban Hike. Those of you with us on that hike may remember standing on the hillside of Coogan's Bluff, just north of 155th Street, which leads to Macombs Dam Bridge, and hearing the brief commentary about walking down to the Polo Grounds from that spot. The Urban Hike is very much on my mind and I hope we have a chance to run another one this Fall (and then get back on a Spring schedule in 2022). Movies, and movie-related, sites may be a fun source of material. Any thoughts or suggestions from our regulars - or from anyone hoping to join? Wednesday morning linksCNN analyst Asha Rangappa wants gov’t to punish all the ‘goobers’ who still believe in stuff like ‘individual ‘freedom” during the pandemic CDC Director: Our Data Shows Vaccinated People Don’t Carry COVID Doom: Hotcoldwetdry Threatens Potato Chip Production! Virtual school resulted in ‘significant’ academic learning loss, study finds Therapy via Text Message For The First Time Ever, Less Than Half Of Americans Are Members Of Churches, Synagogues, Or Mosques A “New Deal” For Indian Country? Schools gone woke: a view from America. In a warning to teachers around the world, one American teacher opens up about the invasion of woke orthodoxy in the education sector Trump Education official asks Biden lawyers to strike down college programs that exclude men, whites Big Media and Big Tech Collude to Control Thought Defending free speech is now racist As Democrats Claim Voter ID Is Racist, New Poll Shows Nearly 70% of Blacks Support It BIDEN HITS THE DISHONESTY JACKPOT WITH CLAIMS ABOUT GEORGIA VOTING LAW Tucker Carlson: Unsafe Cities, Divisive Mainstream Media The Real Legacy Of George Floyd's Death After Sixty Days Biden Is Drifting Into Surrealism Rich and Entitled Allies Don’t Need US Support. Why should we protect stable allies who won’t protect themselves? Nobody believes China Tuesday, March 30. 2021Best Deadlift tutorial I've seen
My new weights trainer is more of a high-rep guy (8-12) than my previous guy was (more 5X5). I think it's because it's what he feels I need for right now. All I can say is that he makes it damn difficult. And no, I do not really need to use a mask in my gym. People fake it. A video is not really a substitute for a trainer who can critique your form right at the moment, but this guy is good. Best mental trick: Push the floor away from the bar.
Four and twenty Blackbirds
They all enjoy my birdseed. The Blockchain and Why It Matters
I know many who follow Maggie's may be unfamiliar, at best, or skeptical, at worst, of Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency. But there is a lot of promise in the technology, and the tokens (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) are modern versions of 'value transmission' which are not unlike money. They represent the value of the technology. So, to understand why cryptocurrencies are important, it may help to understand the technology. Here is a brief video which explains the tech behind the currencies. Not all blockchains are the same, that's an important thing to remember. Improvements are made almost every day on all the different kinds of blockchains, and their uses. It's my personal opinion that the next 'big' one may be Cardano, as it has solved many issues behind the concept of 'smart contracts'.
Continue reading "The Blockchain and Why It Matters" Tuesday morning linksGalápagos tortoises: 185 babies seized from smugglers Top Paid LA Lifeguards Earned Up To $392,000 In 2019 Study suggests high vitamin D levels may protect against COVID-19, especially for Black people "Right Now I'm Scared" - CDC Director Chokes Back Tears As She Fearmongers "Impending Doom" UK Government Minister Says People Should "Call Out" Others For Hugging Their Loved Ones Was a Trump critic's 1st Amendment violated by Yale? We're about to find out. Cops investigate Virginia teachers' Facebook group for naming parents who were 'against critical race theory' and urging members to 'gather information' on them Nearly half of Americans changed sports viewing habits because of social justice If you want border security, forget about Mexico Associated Press Says It Won’t Use “Crisis” To Describe Border Situation… The Hail Mary of Power-Sharing in Afghanistan - In a multi-ethnic nation such as Afghanistan where all other types of autocracy have failed, a democratic and decentralized system of governance is perhaps the only remaining option Monday, March 29. 2021Racing basics
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
14:03
| Comments (3)
| Trackbacks (0)
Monday morning linksWhat Happened to Rules Girls? Dolphins spotted in East River — a great sign of NYC’s environmental progress It’s Official. “Vaccine Passports” Are Required In New York Turns Out What Biden Called Texas’ ‘Neanderthal Thinking’ In Eliminating Restrictions/ Mask Mandates Was Right UK Supreme Court Judge Expects People Will Be Forced To Wear Masks, Stay Home For Ten Years THE WEEK IN CANCEL CULTURE: FIRST EDITION CRITICAL RACE THEORY: THE GREAT EVIL OF OUR TIME University of Oxford considers scrapping sheet music for being 'too colonial' after staff raise concerns about music curriculums' 'complicity in white supremacy' after Black Lives Matter movement US Special Operations Command Appoints a Political Commissar to Make Sure the Whole Place Is Woke Enough to Suit the Left The Meaning of the Woke Military The Not-White Party How C.S. Lewis Predicted the Woke Nightmare THERE IS NO BIDEN ADMINISTRATION Why Trump’s White House Leaked and Biden’s Hasn’t Sunday, March 28. 2021Agatha ChristieBorn in 1890 and self-educated, she had the gift: Great Books Podcast - Episode 172: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Posted by The Barrister
in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation
at
16:40
| Comment (1)
| Trackbacks (0)
« previous page
(Page 144 of 1489, totaling 37224 entries)
» next page
|