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.
I know people who use meditation to settle their minds. I also know people who use prayer in a similar way. Smart guy Robert Wright (The Moral Animal) seems to have become enchanted with a secular Buddhist form of meditation.
There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad equipment.
My sister
There is no such thing as "waterproof."
Our Hebrides guide Craig MacDonald. (In Scottish, the "Mac" is de-emphasized and the "Donald" is emphasized, because the Donald is the real family tribal name).
Jared Kushner’s Mideast Peace Push Is Going Nowhere. That’s Why Israelis Love It. -‘Past administrations jumped into the peace process pool,’ says an Israeli official, praising Team Trump’s go-slow approach. ‘There’s no water in this pool, no reason to jump in.’
I think you want to rely on the power of conservative ideas and sort of hope they spontaneously erupt into a conservative paradise via a right wing Big Bang without you actually having to fight for them. After all, fighting is messy and unseemly, and you also have to ally yourselves with … those kind of people, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. It’s so embarrassing having to explain them to your liberal peers. Many of these misbegotten normals are baffled by fancy sandwiches and stuff.
Because of the eminent importance of Diversity, we at WMBriggs.com, like at Google and every other major entity, will be hiring a Diversity Enforcer. So that when anybody claims to be troubled by what is written here, we can point to our black female lesbian Jewish Enforcer (who will be paid very, very well) to show how devoted we truly are to Diversity. And then you’ll leave us alone.
12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.
12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,
12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.
12:6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;
12:7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;
12:8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
A pal invited me to do some 5 AM salt water kayaking yesterday, the plan being to do some sunrise drone photography over the water and to get a couple of hours of exercise. He built a landing platform on the bow of one of his kayaks. Admit it - that's a cool thing to do.
Paddling out in the dark, startling the night herons - wonderful of course. The beauty of kayaking is no noise, no sails to mess with, no concern about the water depth, and you get good exercise. In the dark, it feels magical.
Unlike duck hunting (also an early start around here), it's not frigid and sleeting when you set out on the water.
Anyway, this darn drone (the Solo) has about 20-25 minutes of power and it is damn fast. We put it up to around 3000 feet and sent it off about 2500 feet (around 1/2 mile) across the water when it lost contact. However, since it tracks GPS satellites, it automatically returns to its launch area when it loses contact so you easily regain control when it comes back into range.
The thing has a gimbel and GoPro camera connected to your iPhone. Video or still shots. It only takes a minute to see why the military loves these toys. There are various regulations about how these toys can be used, many of them sensible. There's never a problem over water, if you keep the altitude below aircraft.
Sunrise, yesterday morning, around 200 feet above Long Island Sound:
For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic.
We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been the case. And we have always regarded them with a mixture of pity, and to be truthful, some amusement, because it has struck us as so strange that people would allow a situation to develop where they would be afraid of what words they used. But we now have this situation in this country. We have it primarily on college campuses, but it is spreading throughout the whole society. Were does it come from? What is it?
First off, if you're having problems with the Flash videos, read this.
The other day I noticed a link to an article titled Why Pluto is No Longer a Planet. The article was quite interesting, then I watched the accompanying video, then went over to YouTube, searched for 'space' and watched a number of space videos. While some were way over the top ("Why Black Holes Could Delete The Universe" e.g.), some of them were quite interesting, so I collected the best of the bunch for your viewing pleasure. Given Bird Dog's post of the Voyager link this morning, the timing couldn't be better.
Pluto
Like many, I was outraged when I heard that a room full of dusty old codgers in Prague, Czech Republic, had suddenly decided to rewrite history. But, as the following video explains, there was a pretty good reason for the decision. Nor, I admit, was it left up to just a few dusty old codgers.
A billion years from now, when our sun has flamed out and burned Earth to a cinder, the Voyagers and their golden records will still be sailing on—perhaps the only remaining evidence that humanity ever existed.
A mean storm on the Texas coast. We are all thinking of y'all down there. Too serious of a storm, it seems, to facetiously blame it on Al Gore's new movie.
This tune's been going through my head again. The lyrics are incoherent on top, so how come it fits together so well that you can memorize them in five minutes, and it can stick in your brain forever? Thus, perhaps, the Nobel prize.
There must be an adaptive aspect to that. It explains why body-builders and getting-in-shape exercisers (those who are not in the fat or overweight category, but just a little 5-6-lb pudgy with undeveloped muscles) need to force-feed themselves their five small meals (large snacks instead of "meals") daily to support their fitness-building. Over months, some of those fat pounds can be replaced by solid muscle pounds in other places.
Overweight people, on the other hand, have many weeks or even months of survival energy stores already on board and really only need several 30-gm doses of protein daily if they are embarking on a strenuous daily fitness program because body fat is a fine energy source. Certainly not three regular American meals/day if they want to get in fighting shape. We have discussed the various forms of eating (ritualistic, social/recreational, impulsive/emotional, false hunger, etc.) here.
In the first case and in the second, we see that subjective "appetite" can be a trickster for adults. I could build an analogy to sexual instincts, but I won't. Goals, logic, and discipline are powerful human tools. Perhaps our most powerful.
Side note: If you enjoy difficult fitness training, you have a problem. Like grammar school, you are supposed to hate almost everything about it. If you don't hate it, and if it isn't mentally and physically painful and aversive, try a new program. If you hate it, but feel glad you did it afterwards, great, because that is life's deal in most ways. If your daily life is strenuous physical work, you can ignore all of this.
When young, we would scream "Shark" at the little kids in the pool. "Snake" also works. Try it. It works well, amusing effect. It's also a political strategy.
The pompous media has never understood why much of America does not embrace their liberal values. Most members of the press are too insular and dogmatic to ever conceive of any intelligent beliefs beyond their own.
How to 
Toon via
A pal invited me to do some 5 AM salt water kayaking yesterday, the plan being to do some sunrise drone photography over the water and to get a couple of hours of exercise. He built a landing platform on the bow of one of his kayaks. Admit it - that's a cool thing to do.
Make DIY cold brew coffee—
Wine