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.
Perhaps they should. It is a dangerous metaphorical story about how a rich, penny-pinching and emotionally-stingy wretch becomes a re-born joyful Christian at Christmastime through the work of the Holy Spirit. Dangerous for innocent kids. Dangerous for adults too.
Weight exercises like deads, squats, and leg press stress the heck out of your lower body - hamstrings, glutes, quads, calves and all of the little accessory muscles. It's necessary strength-building until you reach your realistic goals for your maximal life functionality.
For the calisthenic component of your fitness program, though, you can throw in a few sets of lunges to make your legs burn for 24 hrs. (That is not lactate burn, it is good muscle-damage, micro-tear burn/ache). I do 3 sets of walking lunges, with or without hand weights, weekly. Even though it counts as calisthenics, I think it toughens up the legs even though it is more endurance than strength. Good pain!
Readers are tired of my preaching that calisthenics are a necessary fitness component but I will persist. Contra Rippetoe, we preach a balance of approximately 1/3 weights, 1/3 cardio intervals, and 1/3 calis (including what I term "heavy" calis like Farmer's Walk, pull-ups, push-ups, heavy ball slams, lunges with weights, weighted planks, etc) - while agreeing that real weight training is the most important and effective fitness component.
Have trouble identifying the point at which you have had enough food to live on? Tend to eat as if in a race, too fast or more greedily than most other people? Tempted to eat impulsively between meals? Feel that you have to clean your plate without thinking, or without sensing satiety? Want a dessert even when you are full or over-full (not counting Thanksgiving)? Occasionally conceal your eating habits out of shame? Feel bad about yourself when you know you have eaten more than you need?
These are the main signs of the fairly-common "binge eating disorder." You do not have to pathologize it - it could also be called a "bad habit," or, from a moral standpoint, "gluttony," one of the Christian 7 deadlies. A First World problem, but not as much as you would think: there is more overweight among the "poor" around the world these days than among the more prosperous. BED people eat as if on an anti-starvation feeding mission rather than at a social occasion with food as an enhancement.
Like many so-called "disorders," it is mainly medically-defined as such for insurance purposes but it is a real pattern of impulsivity or compulsivity, often manifest in many areas of functioning. If it's a problem, it is easily addressed. There are pills for it.
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
How many MORE atrocities before our leaders stop lying to us and admit that, thanks to their immigration policies, being mowed down while doing your Christmas shopping is simply the new normal?
“It would be very difficult for us to learn that a human being committed this deed who came to Germany to ask for refuge and asylum,” the German chancellor said in a live statement.
"Would be"? You know she is praying that Lutherans did it.
The Wisconsin governor has asked Trump to restore the balance of federal and state power. Here’s why all states should rally to his call...Democrats who fear the exercise of unbridled power by a Republican president have as much reason to want state governments kept free from federal control as Republicans do for not wanting a repeat of Obama’s constitutional abuses. We can disagree about policy issues, but we should agree on the basic meaning of our Constitution.
The options are risky because the White House knows the hacking story was made up to pacify the lunatics. They also know the Russians know it was made up. Creating a diplomatic crisis over something both sides know is a fiction – and a ridiculous one at that – is very dangerous.
We are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
A year ago, it would have been more difficult for me so I am happy about that. If I can't be overly smart, at least I can be functional in practical ways.
Regardless of the above, whether you exercise hard or make lame excuses, we all need extra mental protein and if you need more today, peruse American Digest. And not just for the Melville.
I would never recommend purchasing Cuban cigars for use in the USA as it is, or used to be, against some dumb law. However, I did happen to notice that Top Cubans has some appealing Christmas and End of Year specials right now.
By the way, when are we going to take down that dumb cigar embargo? It just hurts the poor farmers - and us scrupulously law-abiding Americanos.
Photo is a Habanos Romeo y Julieta
BTW, where is the best cigar wrapper tobacco in the world grown? In my home state, Connecticut in the US of A. Also in Massachusetts in the Connecticut River Valley.
Feeling Grinch-like this morning, and so is my trainer. I told him this morning how good it was to walk into a place without Christmas music. He said that, as long as he is there, there will never be any. We agree that it is destroyed by overuse, and that 99% of the time you hear it, it is meant to induce you to spend money you don't have. Carols stay warm and sweet and rare in church during Advent, and Chrismas songs are good for a party song-along. Otherwise, if I hear Little Drummer Boy one more time in the supermarket I might go postal.
Fading maybe, but still the most popular participant sport in the US. A fine thing about bowling is that you can join in even if you are terrible at it. Where I grew up, bowling was a routine winter Saturday night outing. Very popular for kids' birthday parties too. In summer, old Italian guys would do their lawn bowling game in the parks.
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
1:19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
1:20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
1:21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
1:22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
1:23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
1:25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
... there was never any serious argument for reelecting the Democrats, their whole campaign was to defame Trump as a sexist and a racist. There was never a jot of truth to any of it, as his cabinet appointments are showing. Trump’s popularity is rising steadily and most Americans think Obama has already gone as president. The president-elect is driving a bulldozer at 60 miles per hour toward the wreckage of decades of misgovernment and misinformation, while the departing incumbents crawl around on their hands and knees complaining that the lights have gone out. For them, they have.
Trump might be a wackjob, and I did think so, but I can't object to his employees who will do the real work. Even some of my ardent Dem friends are hopeful. Donald may have ADD or Bipolar Disorder, and is a Democrat at heart, but with Pence and Priebus in charge, and The Donald as larger-than-life figurehead, seems like a promising mix...We'll see.
“Lawmakers are overall the reason we have the problems that we have, because they think that they’re the smartest people in the world and they sit in D.C. and talk to themselves, and if you don’t sit on the cocktail circuit there you don’t know anything about anything,” said a senior transition aide. “I think they’re intimidated by a guy like this — they don’t know him and he doesn’t owe them anything.”
As far as I know, there was never any "hacked election." That is complete bullshit, a non-story. The story is the non-story. All I know is that Podesta got stupidly hacked from a phishing effort which resulted in some embarassment, and rightly so, to him and his team. All of the wikileaks info was true and accurate, and nobody disputes that.
Whatever went on - if anything - it's just ordinary spy games that all spies play. Putin is still reportedly pissed about the CIA messing with his last election. How's this:
Manhattan Project-sized effort is
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
Got
are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
What's for supper? Big 