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.
Famous quote to Stalin from Lavrentry Beria, head of Stalin's secret police.
I continue to recommend the (depressing) Three Felonies a Day by Prof. Harvey Silverglate. You can count on it. You are a felon. There are 6000 federal crimes (including owning an owl or eagle feather), and nobody knows all of them until somebody looks one up to pin on somebody they decide to target. That's not counting the 40,000 pages of federal regulations.
Feel free to confess in the comments for your trivial crimes which might be past the statute of limitations.
The old idea of the virtue of a low-fat diet is in the dustbin of history. There is no correlation between dietary fats and heart disease. However, there is a high correlation between being overweight and heart disease - especially "pear-shape" (abdominal) fat. Indeed, being overweight or fat correlates with many diseases: heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, several cancers including breast cancer, arterial disease, joint ailments and arthritis, Alzheimer's - the list goes on and on. Humans were not designed for dietary abundance, but for caloric scarcity.
That is about dietary fat. If you are concerned about hyperlipidemia, let your doc treat it if it concerns you. There are many alternatives for that.
To lose body fat, only a low carb diet works. Your body converts all carbs to sugar and then stores the excess sugar as fat. Dietary fat doesn't make people fat. Everybody knows what carbs are: sweets, fruits, dessert, root vegetables, juices, beer, grains, grain products eg pasta and bread, beans, corn, etc. The comfort foods.
To gain or maintain weight, eat plenty of everything including apple pie, ice cream, beer, Big Macs - and 70-100 gms of protein daily if you do heavy exercise (eg weights).
Can you lose weight with an hour of daily exercise? It depends on the intensity of that hour, but it's not a realistic effect for most. Still, it is worth doing for countless other good reasons including mental well-being and energy. Intense exercise tends to reduce appetite, so there's that too.
Nack was a towering figure in the history of sports journalism, a literary wordsmith and tireless reporter whose distinctive and soaring prose is revered by his peers and generations of younger writers. He stands among the best sportswriters in the history of the genre, and in many ways, among the best writers of any kind. When he stopped typing, he was a giant personality, full of endless good charm, disarmingly well-read and all times, given to entertain...
And here's Nack's reminiscences of his favorite horse, Secretariat: Pure Heart
Damasio does not view consciousness and culture as resulting from some additive ingredient unique to human beings: reason, logic, or language. In this story, a form of awareness appears in all animals equipped with nervous systems. Differences in animal mental life emerge with increasing anatomical complexity. Human beings are sophisticated, feeling, affective, social body-subjects who may speak, write, make art, and build technologies, but we share the homeostatic impulse with all other living things.
At 8PM tonight in Israel sirens will sound and all stop whatever they are doing, drivers pull over and exit their cars, and stand silently for one minute. Israel prepares to remember 23,646 fallen soldiers and 3,134 terror victims.
That number may not sound very high to an American. However, proportionate to population it would be as if the US lost almost 800,000 in WWII alone, versus the 291,000 combat casualties the US suffered in WWII, almost triple the casualties for Israel.
Details: Meet at Dunkin' Donuts, 64 Fulton St. in Manhattan, 3 blocks south of the Brooklyn Bridge. Well, it's Dunkin' Donuts or Ruben's Empanadas. Maybe it's both. I'm fairly certain there's a DD there, Google Maps is never wrong. Ever. I'm guessing we meet at 9:30 and get started ASAP. We'll leave a trail of donut crumbs for stragglers.
Weather report says high of 53, partly cloudy. Perfect for a 10-12 mile hike with some beer and pizza. Come one, come all. Exciting Brooklyn!
I have made one update, but the map was tapped out...so on to two maps (which Bing interestingly allows and Google does not). We are always open to suggestions for additional stops. At this point, the hike is about 12 miles long, close to 4 hours of walking without stops. We will have stops, however, so let's call it 5 to 5 1/2 hours right now. Maybe 6 with a stop for lunch. The map looks like this. It's a brisk stretch of the legs, and we finish at a chocolate shop (and distillery - Widow Jane's) near the Water Taxi back to Manhattan.
I believe (hope) this will be the biggest one yet. I got confirmations from people I know around here (6 people), and many have expressed great interest. I am sending them reminders, as well.
Remember - wear comfortable shoes and clothes, prepare for the weather, and if you have anything you'd like to see - suggest it now so we can add it!
Also, give us a heads-up if you want to come. No need to use your name, but we'd like to anticipate rough numbers. Right now, I've got 14 that I am 100% sure of.
“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
I was asked this weekend "In what ways are Trump's policies any different from Bill Clinton's, and how is Trump's character any more reprehensible than Bill Clinton's?"
I replied that their policies were similarly moderate, and that Trump was not a rapist.
Rats can do it, but adult humans have no capacity for growing new brain nerve cells (neurons). The idea that humans could do that (with exercise, etc) has been a hot topic for over a decade.
We know many scientific studies are false. But we usually find this out one-at-a-time. This – again, assuming the new study is true, which it might not be – is a massacre. It offers an unusually good chance for reflection.
And looking over the brutal aftermath, I’m struck by how prosocial a lot of the felled studies are. Neurogenesis shows you should exercise more! Neurogenesis shows antidepressants work! Neurogenesis shows we need more enriched environments! Neurogenesis proves growth mindset! I’m in favor of exercise and antidepressants and enriched environments, but this emphasizes how if we want to believe something, it will accrete a protective layer of positive studies whether it’s true or not.
I’m also struck by how many of the offending studies begin by repeating how dogmatic past neuroscientists were for not recognizing the existence of adult neurogenesis sooner...
3:12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?
3:13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.
3:14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you,
3:15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
3:16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
3:17 "And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
3:18 In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.
3:19 Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,
Probably a pointless gesture. I hope it is a parting shot. Re the commentariat, however, I consider that if Trump sent the bombs it would be "Insane warmonger Trump playing Wag the Dog," and if he didn't it would be "Proof he's working for Russia."
I see no compelling US interest in Syria. Assad is just one of 50 terrible rulers, but Syria probably needs him. And I do not care what Russia does. That crappy country is destroying itself anyway.
Powerline: "For someone who grew up in the era that I did, it is hard to believe that the FBI has fallen so low. "You get the impression that today's FBI is filled with liars with political agendas. Not good. Was that always the case? I suppose it was with J Edgar Hoover...
We await the FBI's IG report, although we still wonder how the FBI can inspect itself.
Dog Arrested 
A
Acts 3:12-19
Last Man Standing: