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.
Here's the latest. I always use a baby aspirin anyway. Maybe it is magical thinking. I have seen many people with clots after long flights: Long Distance Travel and Blood Clots
- The Eastern Chipmunk supposedly hibernates, but I see them venture out on warmer winter days in the 40s (F). Their extensive burrows have bathrooms and food storage rooms. We have lots of them around probably because we have few big snakes here. Yes, they take bites out of my tomatoes but I like the little buggers.
- What is the home range of the Common Crow? It depends on whether they live in urban, suburban, agricultural, forest, or plains habitats. Crows are adaptive. According to one study, their home turf in urban areas can be under a half square mile, and in more open areas up to 15 square miles. Crow tribes' home turfs overlap somewhat, and many tribes often travel to share winter roosts.
When they want to, they will wander far from their home turf but might run into trouble from other Crow tribes defending their turf.
If, at a given time, three-quarters of the consumers prefer to buy the Acme brand of widgets to any other brand, then Acme Inc. will be said to ‘control’ three-quarters of the market, even though consumers control 100 percent of the market, since they can switch to another brand of widgets tomorrow if someone else comes up with a better widget, or stop buying widgets altogether if a new product comes along that makes widgets obsolete.
Should this apply to Google? Is Google a "utility"?
9:2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,
9:3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
9:4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
9:5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
9:6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
9:8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9:9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2 Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4 Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world Rule 7 Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient) Rule 8 Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie Rule 9 Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t Rule 10 Be precise in your speech Rule 11 Do not bother children when they are skateboarding. Rule 12 Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
It pained and embarrassed me to be out of step with my magazine and literary colleagues, with the bronzed and almost universally “antiwar” summer denizens of Martha’s Vineyard (including Feiffer and the fiery Lillian Hellman), and with many of my dearest friends back home in Ipswich, including my wife. How had I come to such an awkward pass?
Our best and brightest, with the most impressive resumes and degrees, not the “decadent, lazy, spoiled, whatever” of Middle America ran up $20 trillion in national debt. Our best failed over a decade to achieve 3 percent economic growth. The supposedly smartest warped the health care system. The brightest could not translate overseas interventions into a strategic or cost-to-benefit advantage. The anointed eroded the border. The most knowledgeable gave us state nullification of federal law. The purportedly most ethical weaponized the IRS, the FISA courts, the DOJ, and the FBI, undermined the idea of free-speech in the university, and politicized everything from the eroding NFL to the increasingly irrelevant Oscars...
Instapundit (Harvard Law grad) has often claimed that it is not the college education which is of value to employers. Rather, it signifes that the person is probably reasonably smart and reasonably diligent, so that filters out lots of people.
Of course, this does not apply so much to STEM students.
However, as higher ed reaches lower into the IQ and diligence levels, the significance of the degree is diluted. WHY COLLEGE FOR ALL IS A BIG MISTAKE
FISA-gate may become a more worrisome scandal than either Watergate or Iran-Contra. Why? Because our defense against government wrongdoing — the press — is defending such actions, not uncovering them. Liberal and progressive voices are excusing, not airing, the excesses of the DOJ and FBI. Apparently, weaponizing government agencies to stop a detested Donald Trump by any means necessary is not really considered a crime.
I enjoy them greatly. It's like being back in college, except that his thinking is so far-ranging that it doesn't really fit in a syllabus. OK, he gets minor things wrong sometimes but so does everybody. One heck of a talker, and it's a delight to listen to a genius talker.
One of my favorite Petersonisms is "The university should be the most intellectually unsafe and dangerous place in the world." Right, same as church. Another: "You can't fix your own car and you've never held a job but you think you can fix something as complex as society?" I have found a few things which have been useful refreshments to my own thinking in Peterson's rigorously systematic approach to topics, so here they are:
1. His focus on "levels of analysis." He often says "It depends on which level of analysis you subject this to."
2. His insistence on multivariate analysis of data. Yes, that is scientific but civilians often don't think that way. We civilians find it easier to think "One cause, one effect."
3. His confidence and comfort in the ideas of the transcendent and of the ineffable.
4. His repeatedly asserting the role of "framing" and "narrative" in perception and thought. Presenting people with new frames is threatening and disturbing. It is something that Psychologists and philosophers do for a living.
5. His talking about Logos, the Word, at the beginning, which creates order out of chaos. The world is made of meaning, not matter. Meaning illuminates the world. "Let there be light."
6. "Abstraction is sometimes more useful and real than material reality. Look at the power of numbers."
7. His "tragic" view of humanity: We are weak, flawed, ugly, short-lived, malevolent, foolish, and live in or with suffering - but we aspire for the stars, in our own ways, nonetheless. Or we do not.
Do you find his talks illuminating and, if so, how? Put in the Comments, please.
Here'a a ten year-old Peterson talk on art, dance, chess, and music. For a master of words ("The divine gift"), the guy has huge admiration for things that can not be put into words, meaning beyond reason:
If we're talking about building lower body strength and power (as opposed to endurance, agility, etc), then you really need to do things like barbell squats and deadlifts. Men and women, all ages. Walking and running do nothing to improve lower body strength.
For ordinary "functional" fitness, lots of people skip the weights and do body-weight lower body strength workouts. These are the basuc things you need to hike up hills all day. Body-weight Lunges and Squats . And although Stair Machines are usually considered a cardio/endurance activity, they are a body-weight lower body muscle stressor for sure so I consider them cardio/calisthenic if done at a good intensity.
Predictably, I come down to my usual recommendations: Do all of it: Weights for strength and bone, cardio for heart, endurance, and stamina, and body-weight exercise/calisthenics for everything.
This 15- minute set of leg calisthenics with no breaks from Mindy looks good and tough. I would find it challenging at the least. Feel the burn. An hour of calisthenics like this will make you feel great the rest of the day.
" Ms Schaefer, who teaches performance art to those less gifted than herself, is a recipient of the Boston ICA’s 2015 Foster Prize, and has been described by the ICA’s senior curator as “amazing,” “compelling” and yet inexplicably “underfunded.”"
FBI and DOJ Officials Broke The Law And Tried To Decide The Election - an Annotated Timeline(h/t reader)
Two points were missed there. First, the info that Carter Page was an FBI agent/spy, and, second, the fact that Loretta Lynch has no grandkids to discuss on the tarmac.
I’m basically a kid. Sure I’m 55 going on 56, and I am starting to feel the aches and pains which we associate with age. Herniated and bulging discs make moving difficult sometimes. I have to watch what I eat and work out regularly to keep weight off. I miss the days of eating as much as I want, and as indiscriminately as I did. Bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, a whole pizza. Those days are memories. But one thing keeps me young. Sports. I love sports of all kinds.
I played soccer and beach volleyball in my youth, but really enjoyed being team statistician for basketball. I love numbers, and sports are about numbers. Sabermetrics got me back into baseball after all the scandals and negative stories of the 80's and 90's caused me to lose interest. When you get right down to it, sports are a great combination of the things I love. Physical activity, competition, and data.
But one sport has always been my favorite. Football. Never played it, always loved it. Especially one team in particular, where the team is mostly religion.
The city I grew up in has a rich history, and is a great place to visit. Even after my family moved when I was 10, I continued to love the city and its teams. Starting my career, I landed in New York City, making it nearly impossible to get (at least unbiased) sports information. I then married into a family of New York sports fans. I affectionately call ours a mixed marriage. Believe me, there is no love lost between New York and Philadelphia. Twice a year, at least, my wife and I have difficult days. I have had to root for her (not her team, just her happiness) in the Super Bowl twice. Very painful....but it’s what we do.
So I am fully aware of her pain this past weekend. I did not ask her to root for my team, and I know she struggled. Marriages have their rocky moments. Pun intended.
Over the years, the 800-acre Plum Island in the outer part of Long Island Sound has been the site of several forts, and in recent decades, the site of the federal Animal Disease Center.
The latter is moving to Kansas, and for ten years the feds have wanted to sell the mostly-wild island to the highest bidder (most likely developers). Perfect place for a high-end resort with a helicopter pad and a links golf course - but...
There are very few precious plots of undeveloped coastal land in southern New England, and most of those are so frequented by people that they are unsuited for nesting shorebirds or breeding seals, etc.
The feds just want the $, and NY State seems uninterested. My preference would for the island to become a NWR or something like that. Or for the Nature Conservancy to buy it (but they aren't buying much land outright any more).
My other choice would be for somebody conservation-minded to buy it as a private preserve as Louis Bacon did with Robin's Island and as Hank Paulson did with Little St Simon's Island in Georgia (11,000 acres, 32 guests). We love to visit LSS.
Two things I've been wondering about: 
The sun 
Love vs. Lust: 
Image from