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.
Today, literary scholarship is home to some of the most impenetrable gobbledygook ever put on paper. The main culprit is easily identifiable: literary theory. Literary theory, a school of criticism with little hold outside the universities, has captured whole colleges and threatens to extinguish students’ love of reading. Imagine the dejection a student about to begin university, eager to read the best that has ever been written, feels when they are told to examine some heavy tome of unreadable theory. It drains all the fun from reading.
'I made a big mistake': American ISIS bride who called for terror attacks at Memorial Day parades and has married three jihadi fighters begs the US to let her go back to Alabama
My entire daily program is designed and updated (and monitored - "Whatcha do yesterday?") by my genius trainer. I do what I am told by him. As Mrs. BD says, he is the only person I obey besides God.
My current program is 2 days of heavy weights with trainer, one day of accessory weights mostly by myself, one or two conditioning classes at the gym (tough and fun in a sick way) or replace one of those with an hour of my own calisthenics, one day of endurance cardio and one day of misc HIIT cardio. Everything is progressing nicely but slowly of course. I'm not 18 anymore.
Speaking of which, have you noticed so many people checking their iphones at the gym? They aren't looking at texts. They have their exercise plans du jour on their phones, and are checking what their next circuit should be. Luddite that I am, I write them on paper.
But to my issue of 5 vs 3 sets of resistance work.
My approach with the powerlifts is one light warm-up set of 5-8 reps, then 5 working sets of 5-8 reps of increasingly heavy weights. 5 is my favorite number, but some days my boss pisses me off by making me do 8s. When we go near my max, say, with deads or barbell squats, only 3 reps. My modest one-rep goal is 300 for deads. I am not a big strong dude.
With accessory resistance work which I do on my own once weekly, I generally do one warm-up and 3 working sets. It's partly a matter of time (because 60-90 seconds rests between sets), and to fit in everything on my list with 60-75 minutes. It's rare than I can fit in everything on my plan.
What sorts of things do I do on my accessory weights days? It's below the fold -
The Cholesterol Controversy - Why is cholesterol so much more controversial than the other cardiac risk factors? A review of cholesterol’s troubled and contentious history might help us understand where many of the cholesterol controversies originated… and why it’s time to let them pass into history.
People get her wrong. She's not dumb exactly- she's just trying to move the Overton Window. Already has, in fact. Not dumb, but wrong about everything. Being wrong doesn't matter for the purpose.
The MSM requires fake hate. There is darn little real hate these days - except for the fake hate haters. The fake hate haters are consumed by hate. Lots of Trump haters and America-haters out there, but darn few gay-haters or Black-haters other than crazies.
McCabe told Scott Pelley that he was concerned Donald Trump was a “national security threat” which was his reasoning for opening a counterintel investigation into Trump.Again, McCabe says this based on ZERO evidence.
Purgatory, it seems, is the place for purging of sin and evil through penitence and painful self-awareness, and embracing virtue. A beautiful seven-story mountain. In some ways, Purgatorio is begging us to take purgatory today rather than later.
6:17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.
6:18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.
6:19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
6:20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
6:21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
6:22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
6:23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
6:24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
6:25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
6:26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."
The current socio-political meme is that men are pigs, sometimes but rarely aggressive pigs, when it comes to desire and sexuality. As somebody who is privy to male fantasies, I have no doubt about that. As Freud taught us, human apes are civilized and restrained at great cost.
But what about women? Wholesome women are libidinal too, if less aggressively so. All or most honest females will admit their needs for romance and exciting sex lives. It's biological that both men and women want sexual satisfaction as often as possible. Because of culture and moral demands, many keep it safely in the fantasy realm.
It's a challenge for women to keep their men charmed and enchanted by them, and vice-versa. Worth the effort, though. Besides trying to remain interesting and fun, it never hurts for guys and gals to look good naked.
Friends just got back from Palm Beach. I've only been there once, for a lunch of stone crabs (which are overrated).
It's a narrow barrier reef, just a few feet above sea level but nobody seems worried about that at all. There is a beautiful, tony estate area of the island with magnificent tropical and subtropical gardens like Casa Phippsberger:
From what I gather, few people go to the beach there. There are heated pools. In winter, the sea is too cool for most people to swim (about 55 degrees F).
Three species of Asian Carp have invaded the Mississippi watershed. They are destroying the native ecosystem but, like most invasive species, there is no way to get rid of them.
Ingrates. Most sensible places would welcome 125,000 good jobs for their people. For the good of my city, I am deeply disappointed by the political idiots. No giganto biz wants to put up with that sort of BS when everybody else wants them.
While he was not considered a generally 'good' mayor, Robert Van Wyck certainly is an integral part of the city. I've taken the Van Wyck Expressway many times, but I've never wondered who Van Wyck actually was.
A Tammany operative, his scandals eventually cost the group power. Robert was the first mayor elected after the consolidation of the five boroughs.
On Valentine's Day 1899, he signed a law renaming Western Boulevard. Western ran north of Columbus Circle, and his law changed its name to Broadway, thereby extending the famous thoroughfare. Today, Broadway runs all the way north on the west side, then turns east at Inwood toward the Spuyten Duyvil, across into The Bronx, and up into Yonkers (where it becomes South Broadway). At 178th Street, it becomes Route 9.
Robert A. Van Wyck (1849-1918) was born in New York City and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1889. In 1897, Van Wyck became the first mayor of Greater New York after the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898. During his term in office, Van Wyck renamed Western Boulevard north of Columbus Circle “Broadway” in 1899, extending one of Manhattan’s most famous streets. On March 24, 1900, Mayor Van Wyck began another New York institution by breaking ground in front of City Hall for the city’s first subway.
An expressway bearing Van Wyck’s name was built to connect John F. Kennedy, then Idlewild, Airport to several of the main east-west thoroughfares that run through Queens. Initial construction of the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678) was completed in 1950, and the road was officially opened on October 14 of that year. The construction of the Van Wyck Expressway required the impressive engineering feat of elevating the Long Island Rail Road switching yards and terminal in Jamaica, Queens (at 1,100 trains a day one of the busiest railroad junctions in the world), up into the air to allow for construction of the roadway underneath
“W.E.B. Griffin” — 
My entire daily program is designed and updated (and monitored - "Whatcha do yesterday?") by my genius trainer. I do what I am told by him. As Mrs. BD says, he is the only person I obey besides God.
The Cholesterol Controversy 
The current socio-political meme is that men are pigs, sometimes but rarely aggressive pigs, when it comes to desire and sexuality. As somebody who is privy to male fantasies, I have no doubt about that. As Freud taught us, human apes are civilized and restrained at great cost.
By Paul Fussell, not new but interesting and amusing: 
New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators. The Elon Musk-backed nonprofit company OpenAI 
You Can Limit Death’s Financial Costs, if Not the Emotional Ones,