Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
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Saturday, October 28. 2023Saturday morning linksCosmology’s crisis challenges scientific realism Academic job openings Pittsburgh public schools to ponder racism ’embedded’ in its math curriculum Test Scores Are Plummeting Despite California Spending Wildly on Education. State officials seem to delight in how much money they "invest" in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Weiss: Four Stories about Parenting - Grizzly dad Steve Rinella wants you to raise adventurous children, the virtues of being a young mom, and more. Stuart's Saturday Miscellany Involuntarily Committing the Violently Mentally Ill Is the Only Solution VDH: Premodern Diversity Vs. Civilizational Unity - Old immigration once enriched America, but our new version is destroying it AMY KLOBUCHAR, CENSOR Failing the Hamas Litmus Test - The inflammatory Al-Ahli hospital hoax shows that much of the Western media remains compulsively addicted to dangerous and self-defeating war journalism. IDF: Hamas Uses Al-Shifa Hospital as Main Terror Base The deranged defence of Hamas on campuses across the West is fuelling a counter-revolution that could finally loosen the stranglehold of wokeism It's almost like there's a conspiracy against Trump... Carlson Warns Against Biden’s $105 Billion Foreign Aid Request Friday, October 27. 2023A Spritz and some CicchettiScenic Venice? You betcha. Food in Venice? Fugettabout it. As someone close to me who knows Italy well commented, "Great food in Venice? No chance." I even tried the Venetian classic, Pork Liver (this was made with suckling pork liver - sheesh) with onions. Barely edible: It's far better in our favorite place in NYC. Mrs. BD tried a seafood lasagna, and was not charmed by it. I tried one pasta - crabmeat. Just not good. OK, the fancy places can do a nice filet of fish. The Asian tourists (lots of them there) seem to go for spaghetti, but I don't recommend that. Yeah, we tried very high end, regular tourist, and local dinners (7 or 8 pm, of course). Our fancy old and interesting hotel had lavish breakfast spreads with all cheeses, scrambled eggs and bacon, tons of pastries, cakes, and salumi. I'm just not a breakfast person unless you mean a double espresso from the workingman's joint at 5 AM, watching all the boats come and go and maybe sneaking a cigarette. I prefer NYC pizza (and maybe New Haven pizza) to Italian, so ignored it. We tried quick daytime breaks for cicchetti and, for me, beer or a spritz (Aperol is the main spritz). Beer was good. Interestingly, I could get not Bud Light. Just kidding - places only have one local beer so you only ask for the size you need. Do not go for a Grande - it's like a pitcher. Cicchetti are little snacks presented on fried polenta, toast, or bread. They could be like bruschetti, and pretty uninteresting, but with stewed octopus or creamed baccala are ok. Pickled sardines, some pancetta. A little fried baccala makes me happy enough. In my view, the best Italian food is in Siena. Wonderful and surprising, even in the little trattorias. Doubt I'll be back there again, though.
Friday morning linksWild New Physics Theory Explains Why Time Travel Is Impossible Mount Washington weather Bad grammar is so maddening it activates the 'fight or flight' response within the human body, study finds ‘Climate Change’ Will Soon Have Us Growing Corn In The Yukon Almost Half Think Hotcoldwetdry Is Someone Else’s Problem The Latest On Global Warming Is … There Is No Global Warming, Part II CDC Confirms Only 3% of Eligible Americans Have Taken COVID Booster Shot – FDA Confirms May Slightly Increase Strokes in Those Over 85 ‘I Was Fired for Setting Academic Standards’ A Spat Over Teaching Evaluations Roils a Department Beware Of Media Narratives On Both Left And Right Southern Poverty Law Center Union Endorses Hamas. SPLC now thinks hate groups are great. Especially if they're killing lots of Jews. Joel Kotkin: Samuel Huntington was right — cultural and religious clashes are driving war today UN Warns It May Cut Aid to Gaza How Hamas Exploits Foreign Aid Argentina's problems Thursday, October 26. 2023Thursday morning linksImage via Moonbattery Curiosity rover finds new evidence of ancient Mars rivers This Incredible Flip This Old House Hunters Wife Swap Fixers Physics Lab Gives Lesson in Diversity When Everyone Gets an ‘A,’ What Does an ‘A’ Mean? Physicist Discovers He Has No Free Will: Chooses To Write Book To Say He Cannot Make Choices The fall of Scientific American - This once objective magazine now regularly panders to trans-activist pseudoscience. Greenland’s Tipping Point Cancelled? Claims Of A Runaway Melt Are Overblown Do We Really Know That Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cause Significant Climate Change? The Latest On Global Warming Is … There Is No Global Warming Staple a Green Card to Their ‘Kill the Jews’ Signs Cooke: Face It, the New York Times Wanted the Hospital Story to Be True Cornell professor who called Hamas attacks ‘exhilarating’ takes leave of absence Is This the End of History? Germany's Chancellor Says the Country Must Begin Mass Deportations of Illegal Aliens A New Peace Proposal: A Protectorate on the West Bank Governed by a Coalition of Major Powers Wednesday, October 25. 2023Crowds in the Magic Kingdom
Venice itself has only a 50,000 population, but 4.5 million tourists/year. Here's Piazza San Marco last week. Interesting point: that bell tower, the Campanile, was build in 1912. Yes, 1912, as a replacement for previous towers. Venice has tons of towers, most of them leaning because it's all built on a swamp. Most of Venice is 16th and 17th C - it was indeed a Magic Kingdom (but a very wealthy Republic with its own Mediterranean empire) for over 500 years.
Wednesday morning linksAt Harvard, there are 2,600 more administrators than undergrads America's pharmacy deserts: Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens will shut more than 1,500 stores due to crime and competition - leaving MILLIONS without access to healthcare Blackstone CEO Says Remote Staff "Don't Work As Hard" Groupthink on the March Trust in News Media Continues to Plummet ACLU Announces Lawsuit To Protect Black And Transgender Prostitutes’ Right To Give People HIV Latest migrant poll should scare the hell out of Democrats How DSA lost me, make Nikki Haley the one and other commentary A Record of Pure, Predatory Sadism - Officials in Israel screened footage of the Hamas attack for the press: “What we shared with you, you should know it,” one official said. Highly debatable Tuesday, October 24. 2023Victor Davis Hanson talks about his lifeTuesday morning linksAirport Hacks Every Smart Traveller Should Know New Paper Claiming Biological Sex A Fiction Has Normie Academics Pretending To Be Shocked The Poster Boy For the Death of San Francisco Is Serfdom Humanity’s Default? The Bankruptcy of the Victim Ideology Weiss: A Political Reawakening? A mass emergence from the woke slumber. The Day the Delusions Died - A lot of people woke up on October 7 as progressives and went to bed that night feeling like conservatives. What changed? NYT: A Week Later, Hamas "Fails to Make Case" that Israel Struck Hospital How the Democrats betrayed the Jews -The sick thrill of antisemitism has a price BY DAVID MAMET Why Jews are abandoning the left - The reaction to Hamas’s atrocities is driving a wedge between Jewish voters and their traditional political home. On Double Standards and Deafening Silence - A Nazi sympathizer at The New York Times. Listening to voices from Gaza. Plus: Larry Hogan, Shaun King, and more. Biden’s 2023 Flood: One Migrant for Every American Newborn Monday, October 23. 2023Derivation of the word "sniper"From a little bit of personal experience, I can tell you that these birds are difficult to hit.
Monday morning linksJellyfish as a human food source has been touted as a solution to the increasing populations of these gelatinous invertebrates, but are Mediterranean diners really ready to have jellyfish for dinner? Why Don DeLillo deserves the Nobel Anti-obesity drugs’ side effects: what we know so far. Recent studies evaluate risks associated with drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro. Dr. Becky Kennedy Wants to Help Parents Land the Plane. A conversation about grocery-store tantrums, the virtues of disappointment, and the gap between good kids and bad behavior. The 3 Things Every Couple Fights About, According to Esther Perel How to Wreck Your Marriage Stuart's Saturday Miscellany The Long, Sad History of American Attempts to Build High-Speed Rail "The left has always attracted certain people who relish the struggle against oppression primarily for the way it licenses their own cruelty..." Nearly half of Biden voters want government to regulate speech
Minneapolis’s prosecutors always knew George Floyd died of natural causes CBP Releases September Monthly Update - Highest Ever Number of Illegal Border Crossings Billionaires who have pumped millions into Ivy League schools back out over failure to condemn the Hamas terror attack on Israel: Harvard and UPenn face losing hundreds of millions in future endowments The media and the Gaza hospital hoax Guilty Until Proven Innocent - Casual blood libel in your local paper. Plus: NATO, Jon Stewart, McGriddle Wars, reparations, and much more. Failure to Condemn Hamas Americans overwhelmingly back Israeli INVASION and occupation of Gaza by a margin of two to one Matti Friedman: My Phone Says 2023. It Feels Like 1948. When the Hamas men stormed the border, they removed any pretense about the issue at stake. Not a state alongside Israel. Not even the existence of Israel. But the existence of Israelis Response to Hamas horror shows the feminist movement has lost its moral compass When the Misinformation Comes From Inside the House - Plus: the power of a bad idea. And the college donor revolt continues. Sunday, October 22. 2023Captain CookFrom today's LectionaryMatthew 22:15-22 22:15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 22:16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 22:17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" 22:18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 22:19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. 22:20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?" 22:21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." 22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. From Marcella's marketWe stopped by the marketplace in Venice last week. Marcella Hazan frequently wrote about her daily morning visits to this only fish, vegetable, fruit, and meat market in town. I'll have more Veneto pics. Friday, October 20. 2023Books that keep you laughingWhat books or authors can keep you laughing out loud, even if you feel grumpy? My personal top two are Carl Hiassen and the Jeeves books. Also, Peter deVries. What about you?
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Sunday, October 15. 2023More Jump ropeSingles are excellent, serious cardio. Often, people who get their singles under good control aspire to do double-unders. It's natural ambition. Where there is some air conditioning in summer, I like jumping for cardio. I enjoy working on my variations, but I still can't get consistent doubleunders.
Billy Joe ShaverFrom today's LectionaryExodus 32:1-14 32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." 32:2 Aaron said to them, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." 32:3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 32:4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 32:5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD." 32:6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. 32:7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 32:8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" 32:9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 32:10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation." 32:11 But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 32:12 Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" 32:14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. Saturday, October 14. 2023Is our reality real?Our perceptions are real to us, and good enough for daily life. Can humans know real reality? I doubt it.
Are protein supplements worthwhile?
In other words, a long walk, a jog, a mile swim, and banging manageable weights around for a while do not require a dose of 20-30 gms of protein afterwards (whether in ordinary food or as a supplement). People in serious training programs probably do need 20 or so gms of protein within an hour or two after, and the easist way to get that is in some sort of protein shake. Very few people want solid food after a tough workout. This makes sense to me: ARE PROTEIN SUPPLEMENTS GOOD FOR HEALTH? HERE'S WHAT EXPERTS SAY Saturday Verse: William ShakespeareHamlet, of course. Only the most joyful people have never had such thoughts. When WS made enough money to retire comfortably, he did. No, this is not an appeal to suicide. To be, or not to be: that is the question: Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; Friday, October 13. 20239 Things That Happen When You Abandon Your Workout RoutineWe have posted on this topic in the past: 9 Unexpected Things That Happen When You Abandon Your Workout Routine Use it or lose it.
When did you last hear this song?
Still a useful bookF*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All lifes Problems No, not all of life's problems, but plenty of them.
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