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.
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Labor Day was meant to be a celebration of labor unions I guess. I do not love government unions, but I have no problems with unions. Free association.
In the end, I respect work of any sort. We sedentary workers have to workout in gyms etc. to try to remain mentally and physically fit for life. It is difficult and unpleasant, but afterwards you feel wonderful. Or not.
A new calisthenic for y'all: Inchworms. People call it a warmup or a rest, but I do not. It's a bitch of an exertion if you do 10 per set:
It is Labor Day in the US, a federal holiday to celebrate unionization. For most people, just a day off towards the end of summer. I am working this morning, and so was the nice cleaning gal at my gym. And the regular folks at Dunkin.
For Biden, a staunch believer in bipartisanship and compromise, this was a huge conceptual leap. The party of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan has devolved into a menace to American democracy. Imagine what any of those men would think of today’s GOP. And weep.
Reagan is not the devil anymore?
Lori Lightfoot, an extreme left-winger, presides over a sanctuary city. So she should be happy to get a few busloads of illegal immigrants, right? Wrong!
Best pizza I've ever had, at least recently. Pupette and I took Mrs. BD out to a fancy Italian dinner for her birthday but I just ordered the pizza there. Not ordinary pizza.
Very thin crust pizza, like a cracker, burned black on the bottom as I like it, with melted chunks of goat cheese and chunks of peanut-sized chopped and sauteed white truffle, (no sauce), cooked over firewood, then sprinkled with some dandelion greens and thinly-sliced fresh figs and the whole thing splashed with hot white truffle oil.
The smell of it was a meal in itself. I usually prefer a pizza bianco with wild mushrooms, but I suppose I am, unfortunately, a pizza snob. This was better than that.
Mrs. BD had their beef carpaccio as an antipasto. It was as good as you can get in Todi, but without the view. Pupette had their tuna carpaccio with dill and cucumber as her antipasto, then ate half my pizza with a bottle of Moretti. She lost 15 lbs. on her 14 hr/day film job, need to fatten her up before she returns to school.
Truffle oil - and truffle - is one proof to me of God's existence. My hope is that Obama or Bernie will make truffles free for us all, when Utopia arrives. I can't wait.
Pic is a beautiful White Truffle. Cost around $125./ounce.
That is actually "Shrimp-Shrimp", because "Scampi" is the Italian term for cooked shrimp or prawns.
In Italy and Sicily, it's just "Scampi." Not a common item over there though. More common are mixed seafood things with shrimp or prawns, squid, clams, fresh anchovies, cuttlefish, etc.
14:25 Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them,
14:26 "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
14:27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?
14:29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him,
14:30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
14:31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?
14:32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.
14:33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Readers know that the Soft-Shelled Crab (ie moulting Blue Crab) in all of its forms is perhaps my favorite food. My friends and I would catch them at the shore with bacon tied to string and bring a bucket of them home to Mom. She'd steam the hard-shelled ones, and sautee the soft-shells.
I love the soft-shells fried, sauteed, in a sandwich with mayo, Chinese-style - or anything. A perfect combination of juiciness and crunchiness, and you just eat the whole darn thing feathers and all.
The Aug-Oct migration of the eastern Monarch butterflies from the US and Canada to one small area in central Mexico is, to my mind, more remarkable than the march of those cute penguins in Antarctica. (Those west of the Rockies fly to southern California.) As they pass through New England, I see them fattening up on my buddleias (photo yesterday), but they have been around the milkweed in the meadows all summer. And that's why birds never eat them - they ingest a nasty flavor from the milkweed and birds won't touch 'em.
Breaking the Cycle of Privilege . Administrators at Bunker Hill Community College noticed that their paid internships weren’t reaching minorities and women in the numbers they intended. Here’s how they fixed it.
Just as the male sexual drive and violent impulses can overwhelm their conscience and their ability to think and act rationally, emotions can do the same thing in girls and women: overwhelm their conscience and their ability to think and act rationally.
14:1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
14:7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.
14:8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host;
14:9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.
14:10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.
14:11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
14:12 He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.
14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
14:14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
CORRUPTION
The Origins of Woke -
Best pizza I've ever had, at least recently. Pupette and I took Mrs. BD out to a fancy Italian dinner for her birthday but I just ordered the pizza there. Not ordinary pizza.
That is actually "Shrimp-Shrimp", because "Scampi" is the Italian term for cooked shrimp or prawns.
Readers know that the Soft-Shelled Crab (ie moulting Blue Crab) in all of its forms is perhaps my favorite food. My friends and I would catch them at the shore with bacon tied to string and bring a bucket of them home to Mom. She'd steam the hard-shelled ones, and sautee the soft-shells.
Nebraska Pumpkin Grower 
We're restoring oyster reefs to New York Harbor through public education initiatives
Even in a bad tomato year people get plenty of Cherry Tomatoes.