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.
They have one heck of a job, especially in Atlanta. Not that piloting is easy either. I would fly anywhere with this guy. He's a retired F-16 pilot and exudes competence.
If interested in walking or biking adventures in Europe (or in the UK, which is thankfully no longer Europe), you can do it the expensive way with Backroads or the cheap way with Macs.
Mac (obviously) started out doing Scotland walking trips, but has expanded all over. We're using his service for our Hadrian's Wall hike this summer. (They book your B&Bs and shlep your luggage. The daily hikes are on you.)
3:1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
3:2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready,
3:3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?
3:4 For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not merely human?
3:5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.
3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
3:7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
3:8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.
3:9 For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building.
Art is mostly fraud perpetrated by narcissistic academic quacks on a public easily gulled. They should be prosecuted. This is as true of literature as of painting and sculpture. If modern sculpture were placed in a junkyard, art critics couldn’t find it. Most of what we are told are great works are great works only because we are told that they are.
Consider the Mona Lisa, for mysterious reasons regarded an epochal detonation of artistry. Why? She is an excessively round woman who looks as if she is about to spit. We have to be told that she was an astonishment and marvel. Otherwise we would rate her a a pretty fair effort for an art student somewhere in Nebraska...
At one time Americans cherished freedom. While some still do, it’s obvious a large portion of the population prefers comfort provided by others, don’t want to hear ideas and opinions they don’t agree with, and are happy to see the liberty of others restricted, and even eliminated, if those restrictions are holding back freedoms they don’t care about, such as the right to bear arms. They have also grown “apathetic about their freedom,” writes James Bovard, “because most of the media continually assure them that Big Government is nothing to fear.”
For St. Valentine's Day, consider how your lover (or lovers) feel, regardless of age. It's good to be appealing to a lover unless you are a billionaire.
A great exercise to add to your conditioning routines (any sled is fine). It's a total body exercise:
h/t Powerline. Take him or her out for a fancy romantic dinner tonight. It is required, no matter how long you have been together. A week, or 30 years. Obvious. Anybody who sticks with us for over a week deserves something special. Not trinkets, just a special time. Just my opinion.
It seems as if the official Maggie's Farm view is that government should be put into humble shopping centers and abandoned buildings in odd places rather than in grandiose, imperial-style rockpiles.
I am all in favor of grand public building, though. Just not governmental. Grand Central Terminal, for example. Public places which uplift the spirits of the common man or woman and government structures which humble our public servants.
We posted about conditioning and related topics last week. We talked about measuring progress. I'd say that if you can get through my Friday morning fitness class, and if your body weight is right for you, you are in decent condition. But when you begin, you plain suck and hate yourself because you are not in good condition.
Newbies have trouble at first, but the ones who stick with it religiously make good progress.
That class is cardio and endurance, but those things are important. A 4-minute rower sprint is a bitch. I can not sprint for 4 minutes, have to pace myself.
So although it's difficult to put a number on fitness class performance, you can get a sense over time about how you are doing/surviving a class. Or you can compare yourself with others, which is a bad idea but difficult not to.
At my gym, the classes are free. Usually it's 50/50 guys and gals in early morning. They kick your ass, start the day right. Give it a try for a few months, and see what happens. I do one or two weekly, and count it as my calisthenics. Difficult to call it "fun," but there is some comaraderie.
If it could somehow be measured, people's capacity for fantasizing about everything and anything would probably be represented by a bell curve, with the most inhibited and rigid on the left tail and the most free-wheeling on the right tail.
Sometimes attempting to turn fantasies into reality is a good idea, sometimes unwise or self-destructive. Mistaking fantasies for reality is rarely practical.
I have long held ambivalent feelings about Lincoln. Freeing slaves, good. Overpowering the federal government, bad. Killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, bad.
I do not idolize any human. Monuments in Washington disgust me. We are not the Roman Empire.
Why It’s Delusional To Think Higher Education Is Free From Indoctrination. If academia shapes up to be the ideological opponent of more than half the population, conservatives will treat it as an enemy.
My vegan hell - 
Who was 
We posted about conditioning and related topics last week. We talked about measuring progress. I'd say that if you can get through my Friday morning fitness class, and if your body weight is right for you, you are in decent condition. But when you begin, you plain suck and hate yourself because you are not in good condition.
I have long held ambivalent feelings about Lincoln. Freeing slaves, good. Overpowering the federal government, bad. Killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, bad.