Tuesday, June 28. 2016
Lyme, CT is a quaint little village, perfectly located on the Connecticut River but close to Long Island Sound. I love this 1789 farmhouse and its easily-manageable 6 acres. It's for sale. I want it. Good for boats and birds and plenty of hunting nearby. Perfect.
And, with our friends, church, kids, and complex lives, I would never have time to get there. A shame we can't have everything we like. Even billionaires can't, because time can not be purchased and it is a rare item.
Monday, June 27. 2016
 Inside Silicon Valley’s Robot Pizzeria
Narcissists Get More Dates
PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid - How PowerPoint has killed the art of rhetoric
Bill Maher: Liberals Don't Know Jack About Guns
Alaska rafting deaths highlight response challenges
No it doesn't. Wilderness adventures are not meant to be safe.
At UNC, 'Christmas vacation' is now a microaggression
The Orwellian Charge of the Campus Bias Response Team
Paglia: Transgenderism as a Symptom of Cultural Collapse
Feds: Schools Must Grant Mentally Disturbed Boy Unfettered Access to Girls’ Locker Room
Maine's First Lady Takes Summertime Waitress Job to Pick up Cash
Exercising your right to own firearms now lands you on a federal database in Hawaii
Once Again Obama Argues We Need Illegal Immigrants Because They “Make Our Beds”
The House unveils its Obamacare replacement plan—and have you heard about it?
(George) Will to Irrelevance
Everything Is Broken - Cynicism is the cancer at the heart of this election year.
Despite Market Turmoil, Britain Was Right To Brexit
Brexit’s success is unsurprising
EU To Launch Kettle And Toaster Crackdown After Brexit Vote
The EU's olive oil rules
From Crooked Cucumbers To Powerful Vacuum Cleaners, The Barmy EU Rules Britain Is Now Free Of
Shop starts selling meat in pounds and ounces after Britain voted to leave the EU
The Certainty of even More and More Disturbing Power Grabs by the EU
Moonbat Reduced to Tears by Brexit
"When
asked 'Where are you from?' almost no one would answer 'Europe,'
because after 50 years of assiduous labor by the eurocrats, Europe
remains a continent, not an identity."
Basta Ya, Brussels! British Voters Reject EU Corporate Slavestate
Brussels simply went too far. They cross the line moving from an economic union to a political subordination of Europe. Now eight more countries want to hold referendums to exit the EU – France, Holland, Italy, Austria, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, and Slovakia all could leave.
Conrad Black: A fresh start for Europe
This is not a vote against Europeans or even against Europe, nor will it divide the U.K. as the ungracious Remainers are saying. It is a vote for Britain to be governed by the British and to co-operate closely and fairly with the European countries. It is not really a vote to leave, but a vote to renegotiate for the next two years. Gove and Johnson are broad-minded, fair-minded modern Thatcherites, and they will strike the right balance between defence of British domestic interests and retention of good relations with the European powers. Prime minister Edward Heath threw Britain’s lot in with Europe, and put the Commonwealth over the side. Thatcher bet on the special relationship with the U.S., and she and Ronald Reagan were the principal victors in the Cold War, but that relationship couldn’t survive the last two American presidents. Britain has come full circle.
Abbas Goes Off Deep End, And Even the NYT Can’t Overlook It
'move jungle to uk' - Calais mayor sparks furious row after demanding that squalid migrant camp be moved to Britain
Sunday, June 26. 2016
Cook up a batch of couscous. Thin slice or matchstick a bunch of zucchini and/or summer squash. Chop up a bunch of fresh mint - enough to make it minty. Whisk some fresh lemon juice with olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix together, serve at room temp.
To make it even more Sicilian, include some chopped pistachios and there you have the classic Sicilian ingredients: couscous, lemon, mint, olive oil, and pistachio. All it's missing is pignolis - but a recipe is either pignolis or pistachios - not both.
You want measures? When you cook Sicilian (or Italian, for that matter), you eyeball it and taste it. Just keep it light, not soggy with oil.
Now back to my gardening chores. Damn weeds, I live to kill them. Need to water the tomatoes again and tie them up again too, trim the wisteria, and shave the boxwoods. That's how the gentry become rednecked on a beautiful cloudless day like this - proud bitter clingers.
Luke 9:51-62
9:51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
9:52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;
9:53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
9:54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"
9:55 But he turned and rebuked them.
9:56 Then they went on to another village.
9:57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."
9:58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
9:59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
9:60 But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
9:61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."
9:62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
The writer Francine Prose traveled with three generations of family to one of her favorite places on earth and wondered: Can you ever go back again?
Saturday, June 25. 2016
I refer to the Fitness Triad frequently. Maybe I should trademark it unless somebody else has.
Our modern notions of fitness go back to the ancient Greeks, and probably back to the earliest hominids for whom fitness was necessary for survival. In modern times, what I call "Fitness for Life" is more self-preoccupied, some might call it narcissistic, than fitness was for the farmers, hunters, shepherds, ironsmiths, builders, masons, and soldiers of the past. Modern fitness efforts are simply about staying as physically fully-functional for as long as you can for ordinary life activities and for play.
Sooner or later, something will strike you down, cripple you or kill you but, until then, why not give life your best shot? I know we all want to be strong, to look good, and to remain vigorous and competent for whatever comes our way.
The Triad is Strength, Cardio, and Calisthenics, but Strength is the foundation of the triangle because the best use of the other two depends on it. Proper nutrition - having neither too little physical structure, nor excess fat - is a separate topic.
Continue reading "The Fitness Triad"
 If you are from New Jersey, do you term this food-like product Taylor Ham or Pork Roll?
How Dunkin' Donuts changed the dictionary
Shaidle: Is This Pope Catholic?
WSJ: The Book of Job’s Big Question - Why are innocents made to suffer? One reading might see Job as a devastating text.
Walmart has a problem that's threatening profits — and it's driving police nuts
Climate and Human Civilization for the Past 4,000 Years
To please Muslims, Shall we burn our books and empty our museums?
Report: Released Criminal Aliens Committed Nearly 10 Times More Crimes Than Obama Admin. Told Congress
NY DEM Charlie Rangel – Law Abiding Citizens Don’t Need Guns – But He Does
Even Some Liberals Disgusted by Congressional Sit-In Farce
Coyote: Government, Arrogant Ignorance, and the Power of Incentives
Stockman: In Praise Of Ignorant Politicians…..Unschooled In Beltway Delusions
“Absence of legitimacy is the EU’s main feature."
Britain Exits, Democracy Lives, And Everything Has Changed - A dispatch from liberated London.
HOW BREXIT WILL CHANGE AMERICA AND THE WORLD - Britain is free of global government. America can be next.
Brexit and Trump v Clinton got you down? The good news is we still know how to fix things.
Sessions on Brexit: "The interests of powerful international corporations, media, special interests, and leftist international forces are not coterminous with those of our people.
How Immigration Fueled the Brexit Result
FLASHBACK: UK Prime Minister Cameron Warns Brexit From EU Could Lead to WORLD WAR
Worldwide popular revolt confirmed by Brexit vote:
Britain is leaving the European Union. But that reality doesn't begin to tell the story of the larger historical forces at work that are reshaping global politics, the global economy, and global culture and have been for much of the last decade...
Why Brit Islamist supported Remain
Hillary IT Guy Pleads The 5th 125 TIMES In A 90 Minute Deposition
Right thing to do
Revolting: Sheryl Sandberg is now part of Lena Dunham’s Girl Squad
A big group of major business leaders just endorsed Hillary Clinton
The bad moon rising over Hillary
Friday, June 24. 2016
Brits vote to leave the Borg. Elites horrified, peasants pleased. Regular folks like Nigel. Farage's life's work comes to fruition with stunning Brexit vote as he lauds a 'new dawn' for Britain outside the EU and calls for new bank holiday to mark UK's 'Independence Day.'
Have a whiskey on us, Nigel.
Thursday, June 23. 2016
Reviewed: Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False:
Though an exceptionally short book, Mind and Cosmos is nevertheless, in one respect, extraordinarily ambitious. Nagel proposes not merely a new explanation for the origin of life and consciousness, but a new type of explanation: “natural teleology.” If psychophysical reduction is implausible, as Nagel has always insisted, then no materialist neo-Darwinian explanation will ever be satisfactory. The apparent alternative, a theistic-intentional account (i.e., intelligent design by a divinity), does not appeal to Nagel. He simply lacks, he explains, any sense of the divine. His interest is in the territory between the two: a secular account that allows for the emergence of mind as mind...
How Subarus Came to Be Seen as Cars for Lesbians
For More Children, Puberty Signs Start at 8
I blame climate change
A Scientist, A Sprinter, And A Sumo Wrestler Attempt To Cross A Human-Sized Cockroach Trap (video)
Reporter goes to shop to buy gun - gets rejected because he's a reporter because of domestic violence
Unfair “Fair Housing" - The new Obama administration policy to “deconcentrate” poverty is a threat to communities.
Butler won her award for writing:
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
Shock Report: Blacks Commit 11 Times More Homicides than Whites in America
Mostly other black people
Scott Adams: Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA
Honor and politics
Politics is not an honor society
House Dem: Constitution was designed to increase government power
Sheesh
No Fly, No Buy' Means No Freedom: New at Reason - If the government can take away our natural rights to travel and self-defense, can other fundamental rights be far behind?
If the government secretly can put an American's name on a secret list and, as a result, his liberty is lost, then there are no freedoms—just government-granted privileges. And if it can do this to the natural rights to travel and self-defense, can other fundamental rights be far behind?
TV Reporters Laugh At Hillary For Avoiding Questions
Anatomy of the terror threat: Files show hundreds of US plots, refugee connection
Afghan War Rules Leave U.S. Troops Wondering When It’s OK to Shoot
Wednesday, June 22. 2016
No, it's not a request for donations.
What the heck is this tree seen in bloom on a walk with Mrs. BD and pup last weekend? Small tree growing on a riverbank, and last year's seed pods still hung on it looking like vanilla beans. Large almost grape-looking leaves.
Tuesday, June 21. 2016
How the buffalo (bison, to your foreigners) survived to become the US national mammal:
In the early 1800s, there were more than 30 million buffalo in North America, ranging in massive herds from Alaska to Mexico. By 1890, only about 500 animals were left. By the early 1900s, there were only about 30 genetically pure animals surviving in isolated areas, such as private ranches and the Yellowstone caldera.
Well, the bison ecological niche was replaced by herds of semi-domestic cattle but sheesh - I thought people were the national mammal.
Why extremely rare events keep happening all the time
Father’s Day in the Ghetto
Husband Bashers Anonymous
Overcoming The Fear Of Death - A physician confronts his own mortality.
Researchers fail, once again, to find educational gains from public spending on preschool.
From 2006, The Howard Zinn Fabrication Show
Higher Ed: As the old saying goes, you can’t make up stuff this good.
Boris Johnson: Please Vote Leave on Thursday, because we'll never get this chance again
How the Democrats Are Disarming Us By suppressing the truth.
David Brooks @NYT: We must let the terrorists in or they will kill us
Root cause of Orlando massacre? “White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism’ Among Reasons
Why did the White House just humiliate Loretta Lynch?
The Insidious Power of the Media Disinformation Campaign for Hillary Clinton
Hundreds of migrants closed Calais
Denmark: Refugees Hold Protest March: Demand Right to Summer Vacation
Cues From Kerry: Dissent Is No Longer the Highest Form of Patriotism
Allen West: “National Security Strategy based on Obfuscation, Denial, and Lies”
The Imperialism of Western Guilt - Bernard Lewis is the rare Western intellectual who doesn’t view non-Western peoples as too inept to make their own mistakes, let alone pay for them.
Is Israel a Pariah? Not According to Its New Friends
Monday, June 20. 2016
New research suggests that fish are smarter and more sentient than we ever knew
The FDA's Foolish War on Salt - The 'voluntary' crackdown lacks scientific support
Scientists claim wood fired pizza is bad, saying baking it is ‘damaging to the urban environment’
Fact-Checking Snopes: Website’s Political ‘Fact-Checker’ Is Just A Failed Liberal Blogger
Wrecking Pomona:
Pomona junior Steven Glick, admits being taken aback when he arrived in Claremont from his home in Chicago for freshman orientation. “The first day, we got together in groups to go over everyone’s list of triggers and their preferred gender pronoun. I was shocked, couldn’t believe these were real things that people actually did, but it immediately drove home that that’s the way it is at the school, the accepted set of norms.” Still, he says, since he avoids liberal arts classes and hangs out with fellow economics majors and athletes, the political correctness affects him less than it otherwise might; and, while it’s safe to assume that every new acquaintance will lean left, the militant activists remain a minority. This was apparent in the reaction to the editorial. “All we said was, ‘Hey, not everyone supports these protests,’ and we got a lot of support for saying it. Because some people actually do want to be able to talk freely about these kinds of issues.”
It is quite a story about "How we wrecked Pomona"
Protesters Think University With 97 Percent Women Has ‘Toxic Rape Culture’
Cutting ‘liberty’ out of the history taught to America’s kids
Scandinavia: The American’s Left’s blond-haired, blue-eyed fantasyland
Why Can’t the Left Distinguish Conservative Christians from Islamic Terrorists?
Democrat Lawmakers Hold Meeting to Discuss Right Wing Terrorism
"Partial Transcript" Of Orlando 911 Calls Will Have References To Islamic Terrorism Removed
Why Liberals Support Muslims Who Hate Everything They Stand For
Why do Jews and Asians support Dems so strongly?
Why they hate me: From President Obama and Hillary Clinton to Senate Democrats and the media, there is nothing out of bounds when it comes to what a progressive liberal can accuse a Republican of doing.
Liberal Favorite Trevor Noah Explains Why Liberals Are Wrong On Watch Lists
Falsehoods Fly Over the AR-15 - Automatic rifle? Wrong. Assault weapon? Wrong again. The truth about the firearm liberals love to hate.
Lone Wolves? Known Wolves? What's the Difference?
NRA Hits Hillary Clinton in Powerful Ad after Orlando ISIS Massacre: “Stop Talking!” Your Words Expose Your Ignorance
Trump the Entrepreneur
How The DNC—And Media—Conned Us Into Clinton
Textbooks at Canadian Islamic Schools: Kill the Gays
British Sniper Takes Out Two ISIS Bombers With One Shot
From ferrets to fish...New EU laws that are ruining Britain
Is Europe doomed by migrants?
Make EU migrants 'wait THREE years for benefits', say Britons
SWEDEN: Up to 70% of ‘Child’ Migrants Are Actually Adults
Three Islamic Terrorists Disguised as Migrants Arrested at Austrian Refugee Center
"We shall not take anyone in´Hungary tells EU it´s full and it doesn´t ´need´ immigration
Enforcing 'God's Commandments': Heightened Mass Executions in Iran
Sunday, June 19. 2016
 Might be my favorite. They can sing like crazy, but most of the time they are rarely seen and skulk in thick underbrush on edges. At the farm, for many years we had a pair nesting in a giant overgrown forsythia in the middle of a field. Stick nests with a little soft lining.
Brown Thrasher
 Most people do not care about it. Just look around - it's obvious. That is because, unless your daily work involves manual labor, in the modern world most of us do not use our bodies in the ways for which they were designed.
We are designed to be hunter-gatherers and warriors, which entail day-long physical activity and often required lengthy periods of inadequate nutrition and starvation (which is why human fat cells are such sponges for hoarding carbs). The hunter-gatherer activities involve endurance, and the warrior activities entail strength and athleticism.
All of the people who do not care about their fitness have a strong case. In Western civilization, hunting is recreation, gathering is done at the market or the backyard garden, and we play sports for fun and hire our warriors. Speaking of warriors, last night I watched a live match between McEnroe and Jim Currier. Gosh, what beautiful and powerful games they still have in their late 50s.
But why would any ordinary man or woman want to spend discretionary time imitating primitive hunter-gatherer and warrior exertions? Well, they mostly don't. Furthermore, they know that fitness, except in the case of overweight and obesity, has little correlation with health or life-expectancy.
Here are the reasons Mrs. BD and I devote a mere 5 or 6 hours per week for structured physical conditioning (trying to compact a full day's activity into a brief time via intensity), and generally try to keep our weights at a fit and youthful level. It's about quality of life:
- we feel better, look better, and have more energy without any excess fat on us. Fat fatigues. And a sloppy appearance makes a poor impression in our Anglosphere culture.
- becoming stronger makes us more functional in every way.
- we want to be at our best for sports
- a body is a gift, and deserves decent stewardship
- we want to get a head start on fending off the physical deterioration of age
- tough physical exertion to exhaustion is good for our heads
- the discipline required is a good life challenge. Progress is stressful and unpleasant, and the rewards are slow to come so it's a good test of delayed gratification. Is it rewarding to lift up 200 lbs without spraining a muscle? Yup. It's a cool feeling of masculine competence and it has many practical applications.
- and for us dads, we must consider what sort of condition the mothers of our kids would appreciate in us. Chances are they appreciate good attitude, high energy, a bit of visible muscle, and a trim physique.
Psalm 32
32:1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
32:2 Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
32:3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
32:4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
32:5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
32:6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
32:7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah
32:8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
32:9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
32:10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the LORD.
32:11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
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Photo: If you know what that is called, you're old 
Bluegrass Legend 