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.
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.
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?
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.
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.”"
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.
Let’s put it this way: if this sort of thing had gone on under President Trump or even George W. Bush, the Times would have announced the news in front-page headlines so large it would have taken two strong men just to carry the letters to the press room. An enormous collection of Times reportage on the subject—with a black cover and some title like “The Path to Tyranny”—would have been on the bookstore shelves within the month.
For some strange reason, the destination that formed in my mind for this shopping excursion was “CostCo.” A vague mention of a friend about the “great deals on small televisions” put it in my mind like a BuyMe earworm. This small mental disorder was even stranger since the last thing I need in my life is another, smaller television. On second thought, the absence of a real need was probably why I really wanted one. In America, as noted above, if you don’t need it, you gotta have it.
On the border between the two areas was a vast shopping mall in which both the hamburger- and organic, gluten-free-bread-eating classes, worried about the state of their bowels in thirty years’ time, were catered for, though the mall mainly attracted the typical British shopper, that is to say insolvent in pursuit of the unnecessary.
These wonderful guys miss the extent to which shopping is recreational for many people. Don't despise the recreational shoppers. Looking at stuff and buying stuff can be a lifestyle. I think it has been thus since the dawn of urbanism. Or even before that. Much as I hate shopping (including going to the market for bread, cookies, and vegetables), I find the sheer abundance of Costco to be a real kick. So you go home with 4 months worth of toilet paper. That's not a bad thing.
40:21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
40:23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
40:24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
40:25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
40:26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.
40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?
40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
40:29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
40:30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
40:31 but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
I could not fit one of those killer Cardio/Calisthenics classes into my sched this week, so I did my own thing for an hour. Actually, it was 75 minutes. I admit I did have to stop and breathe a few times, which the classes do not really permit because they try to keep heart rate very high for an hour to kick your ass. The variety is fun. I usually vary my calis except for the jump rope and pushups which I always include.
The thing about an hour of calisthenics is that, like your cardio/HIIT, it needs no more than a 24-hr recovery so you can do them the day after your weights day. My preferred sequence is Wts Mon, Calis Tues, Cardio Weds, Wts Thurs, Calis and/or Cardio Fri, Calis Sat.
After a ten-minute warm-up on elliptical, the rest below the fold:
Looks like a Dayquil day for Bird Dog. How about you? Maybe even a Nyquil nap later. Good day to feel lousy. Mrs. BD going to ballet and luncheon with a friend, and I'll organize a pile of paperwork. Or not.
My Mom, who was a vigorous and athletic woman into her 80s and a big hiker, instructed me that the best way to observe nature was to find a good spot on the edge of a meadow, at the edge of a marsh, along a stone wall, in the woods at the edge of a ridge or hill, and to sit alone. Ideally, on an edge so there is a mixed habitat.
To sit in dull, non-synthetic clothing, and just to watch and look around for an hour in an relaxed, meditative, but alert state. For hunters, this is normal in a deer stand or in a duck blind, but it can be done without a firearm too.
Do not move much except to scratch your nose. Compose yourself. No camera, no binoculars, no firearm, no dog, no friend. An hour sitting quietly, especially at dawn or dusk, can be an education.
Sara Carter is reporting that agents have accused McCabe of pressuring them to change the information on their FBI witness interrogation forms. If true, this will be the greatest level of corruption ever demonstrated at the top of the FBI, surpassing even their coverups for Whitey Bulger. This is perjury, and suborning of perjury.
Carter says that this is the evidence that was shown to Wray just yesterday, leading to McCabe’s immediate removal from his position. If Sara Carter is correct, McCabe could be charged with crimes leading to 20 years in a federal prison.
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Love vs. Lust: 
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Looks like a Dayquil day for Bird Dog. How about you? Maybe even a Nyquil nap later. Good day to feel lousy. Mrs. BD going to ballet and luncheon with a friend, and I'll organize a pile of paperwork. Or not.
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