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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Sunday, February 26. 2017Protein Powder
However, this is not really using the powder as a supplement. I's just using it as breakfast with 25-30 gms of protein. Otherwise, my breakfast would be just two mugs of coffee. Most trainers tell weight-lifters to have a dose of protein after heavy lifting. It sounds logical, but nutrition is a field packed with superstition and magical thinking. Other forms of exercise do not require a shot of protein because they do not produce muscle fiber damage. Powders as supplement would, I think, entail maybe twice-daily use in addition to normal balanced meals. Since I can't get on board with three normal balanced meals, I probably should do a second dose of powder protein to make sure I have enough daily protein. Or maybe it's all magical marketing: Protein Powder and the Promise of Transformation What's your view? Another calisthenic: Burpees
From today's Lectionary: "Tell no one about this vision..."Matthew 17:1-9
17:1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 17:2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 17:3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 17:4 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 17:5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" 17:6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 17:7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." 17:8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 17:9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." Saturday, February 25. 2017Box Jumps
With calis, it's all about the circuits or what I call the circus in which you are the performing animal. Don't forget to breathe during tough calisthenics - and everything else! We find the best way to remember to breathe during exercise is to make sure to exhale and the inhale will take care of itself. Coaches and trainers should say "Exhale," not "breathe." Oxygen is very good stuff for aerobic organisms. Box Jumps: CassouletGood winter food, traditionally made with an assortment of wild game if you have some around, with pork and pork sausage, pig fat and duck fat. We now know that fat is good for you, contrary to what you were told for 20 years, You can work around the wild game issue at the supermarket. I've made it three times, using mixes of such ingredients as wild boar, snow goose breast, wild boar sausage, duck leg confit, pheasant leg confit, etc. Never red meat, though. This casserole is white bean-based so it is hearty and a little bland. Comfort food. Here's the most challenging recipe I can find. If you use confit, though, no need to strip the meat off the legs - just serve the legs. You can google cassoulet recipes to find simpler ones. It's best served in a shallow bowl with what recipes always term a "full-bodied" red. In France and in my house it's traditionally accompanied by baguette and a cheese board of very stinky cheeses. They just go well together. Saturday links
Toon above via Zero's 78 Seconds Of Farage "Red-Pilling" Those Farage speeches are wonderful fun Sippican: When I was a kid, we lived in a neighborhood. Men, Quit Providing The Monk Who Saves Manuscripts From ISIS A Taste For Pork Helped A Deadly Virus Jump To Humans Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers' Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data VA Offers Pre-Determination of Burial Eligibility On the 23rd, 72nd Anniversary of Mount Suribachi flag raising Althouse defends Milo Crime Increasing in California After 'Prison Reform' Is Secession a Solution to Cultural War? How Local small businesses feel impact of minimum wage increase Another Hard-Left Turn Ends Democratic Party As We Know It THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEGINS - Democrats are mobilizing for total war against Trump. Now, they just need a leader—and a message. Weakened Democrats Bow to Voters, Opting for Total War on Trump TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: It’s Really A Thing. Don’t let Trump’s style blind you to his substance Obama's White House, 2009: 'Don't Pretend' Fox News Is a 'Legitimate News Organization' Democrats Attack Trump For Enforcing Their Own Immigration Law TWO DAYS After Governor Declares CT Sanctuary State – Illegal Alien Murders Mother and Kidnaps 6 Yr-Old Girl California Companies Are Fearful Of Trump Deportation Orders Or Something Best article I've seen about illegal immigration, at the leftist The Week:
Saturday Verse: John Dryden (1631-1700)I hunted down a misquote ("Beware the wrath of patient men") that was quoted in a piece linked at American Digest, and learned that it was from a Dryden epic, possibly a satirical one, Absalom and Achitophel. John Dryden was the literary giant of his time. He influenced many, especially Pope, and knew Marvell and Milton. Never read any Dryden - just one of countless holes in my education. The fragment goes like this: Oh that my Pow'r to Saving were confin’d: Lots of Dryden fragments and quotes here to get a sense of his clear, forceful style. He liked heroic couplets. Friday, February 24. 2017Maggie's Urban Hike Planning on the West Side, 2017While Mrs. BD and I are planning all of our Spring and early summer weekend day hikes from the Hudson Highlands, to the Berkshires, to the White Mountains, the Bulldog and I are working on a plan for the Third Annual Maggie's Farm Urban Hike. Hiking amongst rocks and trees is fine, but there is far more stuff to look at in the city. It will be Manhattan again because we have not tramped every inch of the wonder-filled olde island yet. We have fun with New Yorkers on these hikes, but the out-of-towners get the best intro to the real city on foot on ten-mile hikes through all sorts of neighborhoods. People from all over have joined us in the past - very nice Maggie's friends. Good fun for all, if a bit hectic. Our last hike went from the Lower East Side to Grant's Tomb, and included most of the length of Central Park. It was about a 12-mile hike. When we're done, maybe Brooklyn next. Who knows? To me, Brooklyn beyond Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, the BAM, and Junior's, is a mysterious foreign country. Oh, also Peter Luger's - everybody's favorite old-time steakhouse. Cobble Hill used to be so mobbed-up that nobody ever locked their car there. Now, I don't know. Probably all hipsters now. Did you know that if Brooklyn were still a separate city, it would be the 4th largest city in the USA? For tentative plans (no date set), we're thinking Chinatown west to Tribeca, then uptown thru the West Village (which I love as does everybody), maybe the High Line, then uptown past Clement Moore's church (Chelsea was the name of his family farm and his family owned all of what is now known as Chelsea), maybe as far up as possible. I'd love to get to Hamilton's farmhouse in Hamilton Heights. Probably would take too long unless on horseback. (He used to commute from his law offices downtown to his farmhouse, up Broadway on horseback, on weekends.) I wonder if we could get to the Cloisters. Likely not. It's not the crow's fly distance, it's the zigzags and the stoplights and the food and the bathroom stops. Washington Heights has great Dominican food. QQQHistory will be kind to me, for I intend to write it. Winston Churchill Friday morning linksNew York has always been home to young men like James Hazen Hyde. CA: The Physical Collapse Of A Social State Remembering economist Kenneth Arrow The Spread of “New Civics” Is Cause for Alarm The Bow-Tied Bard of Populism - Tucker Carlson’s latest reinvention is guided by a simple principle—a staunch aversion to whatever his right-minded neighbors believe. With Sales Depressed by Soda Tax, Philly Grocers Look to Cut Jobs as Mayor Blames 'Greedy' Soda Industry Poor babies Soros-Linked Former Clinton Staffer Behind 'Organized' Townhall Protests Hundreds of scientists urge Trump to withdraw from U.N. climate-change agency Funding for Public Broadcasting Is Just 0.01 Percent of the Federal Budget. It Should Still Be Eliminated. America’s utterly predictable tsunami of pension problems Man Who Illegally Fundraised For Clintons Made Tell-All Video Because He Feared Assassination WHY IS DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR OUTRAGED THAT TRUMP CEDED POWER TO STATES? Dear Congress: Please Take My ObamaCare Coverage, Because It’s Horrible Chris Cuomo: If a 12-Year-Old Girl Doesn't Want to See a Penis In the Locker Room, That's Either Because of Her "Overprotective Dad" or Her Own Lack of "Tolerance" If you want deranged men in sundresses in your daughter's bathroom, raise your hand. And while we're on the topic, Mr. Cuomo, do your daughters want to see your penis in your bathroom? Maybe they do...I don't know. Girls are curious critters. An uproar? Really? I don't live in DC, but I definitely didn't hear an uproar. UMich Students Demand 'No-Whites-Allowed' Safe-Space To Plot "Social Justice" Activism VDH: The Labyrinth of Illegal Immigration Chris Matthews and SPLC Fall for Hoax Even the NYT Says Is a Lie...Again Illegal immigrant butter must be banned "Fuming, Defiant" Mexican Politicians Meet With US Officials Over "Hostile" Immigration Policies Internal Secession and the Road to Ruin: Two Countries President Trump Rewrites the Media Playbook STEVE BANNON Reveals Trump Administration's Plans:
Look - A SquirrelThe Eastern Grey Squirrel is a familiar rodent across the eastern US. They are far more abundant in parks and suburbia than in their native woodlands where, I suspect, there is less food and more predation. I watched a pair mating yesterday morning on a branch next to my driveway. It was a sweet, if brief, physical encounter preceded by some tender play. I felt like a voyeur. We have a few of the melanistic variant around here. Yes, black. Common as they are, there are things you don't know about them. Thursday, February 23. 2017The 3 Flavors of Strength Training: Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting.Our dogma is that general Fitness for Life (as compared with more specific exercise goals) entails a balance of strength-training, calisthenics for muscle-use, agility, balance, and endurance, and some cardio intervals for heart strength and endurance. Plus decent nutrition to support the program goals. Contrary to some biases and misconceptions, strength training is not mainly for muscle-head gym rats. It's for everybody's fitness if they don't do a manual labor job. It fights the deterioration of age. Even people whose work entails plenty of lifting can benefit from strength training. If you do not learn the correct ways to exert your body, you can easily injure it or wear it out. Weight training teaches how to move things safely. There are three basic categories of lifting: Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting. Pure Bodybuilding focuses on muscle definition and appearance. Bodybuilding emphasizes individual muscle development over functional groups. General, functional strength training usually needs to include some more isolated muscle groups to work towards larger muscle groups, but does not focus on muscle definition. Powerlifting is about developing power (defined as strength X speed). The fundamentals are squats, bench, deads, overhead press. Perhaps pull-ups. Olympic tends to be a more technical sport. It is totally cool, but it's not for me. General strength fitness training for ordinary people is a hybrid approach borrowing from all three types, but always including Powerlifting (which takes a lot of time with the necessary rest minute between sets). For example, a week's worth of my strength training often includes some sets of most of these: bench, deads, barbell squats, pull-downs, pull-ups, rows, press-downs, dips, curls, overhead press, hamstring curls, inclined bench press, sometimes leg press. Mrs. BD does some Olympic lifts too (amazing to me) but my shoulder can't handle them. From the article:
QQQI caused my husband's heart attack. In the middle of lovemaking I took the paper bag off my head. He dropped the Polaroid and keeled over, and so did the hooker. It would have taken me half an hour to untie myself and call 911, but fortunately the Great Dane could dial. Joan Rivers Thursday morning linksAs Powerball Lottery Hits $403 Million, 12 Things Not to Do If You Win I'll follow that advice if I win - which I expect to Dental Association Pushes Nonsensical Argument Against Dental Therapists Scientists Say They’ve Discovered a Hidden Continent Under New Zealand The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Very few things make sense to me WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A TRANS? Gender-Affirming Bathroom Policies ‘Quackery,’ Medical Experts Say RETURN TO NORMALCY: Trump Readies Reversal Of Transgender Bathroom Lunacy In Public Schools Chinese students protest Dalai Lama as grad speaker, call choice ‘controversial, disrespectful’ WHY PROFESSORS OBJECT TO BEING RECORDED We often recorded lectures, usually to listen to again later Betsy DeVos v. the Education Monopolists - Establishment critics try to pound Trump’s education secretary into submission. Why Judge Gorsuch is a regulatory skeptic The Dark State of Political Correctness - Dealing with the canard that President Trump is an anti-Semite.
How would Leftist Milo be treated? The Embarrassing Confusion of the ‘Women’s Strike’ Progressive Populism: Socialism’s Latest Marketing Campaign Small Businesses Are Positively Giddy Over Trump, Survey Data Reveals Dear Clinton Voters: You're Confusing Me VDH: Trumps’ critics, left and right, aim to bring about the cataclysm they predicted. DC hates him. He's not one of them GOP’s Hold On White Working Class Traps Liberals With An Electoral College Nightmare Trump Is Beating the Media at Its Own Game Americans overwhelmingly oppose sanctuary cities Arizona Sheriff Releasing 400 “Criminal Illegal Immigrants” Every 10 Days Wednesday, February 22. 2017Not a Hallmark day
Happy Birthday, George Washington.
QQQAlexander of Macedonia is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than anybody else of his time. Will Cuppy Wednesday morning links
David Cassidy: Dementia at 66 Not Uncommon Why cities win and cities die I Spent 20 Years Behind the Wheel of a Big Rig The Ivy League must be abolished! Billions Wasted: Structures Built For 2016 Olympics In Brazil Are Now In Ruins Moving the Olympics around is stupid. I'm for permanent place in Greece Milo's Mini Apology Tour The Screwed Generation Turns Socialist - The Depression and WWII shaped the greatest generation, and postwar prosperity shaped the Baby Boomers. Millennials, battered by capitalism, move ever leftward. If The US Won't Defend Market Capitalism, No One Will ‘Climate Change’ Could Bring Fish Wars! Curry: Computer Predictions Of Climate Alarm Are Flawed Ivanka Trump’s Perfume Soars to No.1 Bestseller on Amazon Despite Boycotts Mar-a-Lago 3, Camp David 0. LEFTIES FREAK OUT OVER THAT TRUMP MAY CUT FUNDS FOR "PISS CHRIST" AGENCY Tucker Carlson Mocks Lunatic ‘Refuse Fascism’ Organizer Who Claims “Trump Is More Dangerous Than Hitler” That gal is a piece of work. "We must resist for humanity." The ongoing Oroville Dam crisis has received modest national attention, in part because the press hasn’t figured out how to blame it on Trump. Trump’s Immigration Guidance: Dreamers and Parents of U.S. Citizens Are Safe for Now; Most Others Must Go In a fundamental shift from Obama, the Trump position is that simply being an illegal alien is unlawful and serious; thus, any additional indication of outlaw behavior is sufficient to warrant deportation. Democrats in disarray San Diego Bishop Calls On Catholics To Become Social Justice Warriors Against Trump… Reporting? Liberal Media Have Much More in Mind Than That NYT Botches Mexico City’s Sinking Story The arrogant thinking of liberal sports writers Conrad Black: A Purblind Press, Unable To Admit Error, Boycotts the President The Definitive Guide to Repealing & Replacing Obamacare This Politician Makes the Most Sense on Illegal Immigration From the UK: The Stop Trump protests are the ultimate virtue signal Lose weight fast with Socialism: Venezuelans lost 19 lbs. on average over past year due to lack of food How Sweden became an example of how not to handle immigration Rioting erupts in immigrant-dominated Swedish suburb Tuesday, February 21. 2017More on your pull-ups
If you are in bad shape, you will not be able to do many, or even one. That feels pathetic and unmanly to most guys. I recall that my Dad had the habit of morning pull-ups and push-ups well into his mid-70s before work (worked until 76). He kept that part of his Basic Training going. He was naturally wiry and strong anyway. Only the fittest women can do any because they have less native upper body strength and tend to have a higher fat/muscle ratio. Many middle-aged guys find their paltry pull-up counts to be deeply humiliating, and rightly so. Weakness is shameful for most guys, even more so than ignorance, for evolutionary reasons. In fitness training, humiliation and failure are always on the agenda. That builds character, victory does not. One good test to assess your pull-up potential is to jump up to a bar and see how long you can hang with your chin at bar level. That is, in fact, a good strengthening exercise in itself for beginners. Count the seconds that you can hang up there before slowly collapsing. Chin-ups and pull-ups test primarily back muscles, and secondarily arms and core. Three sets/wk is plenty. The technique is not to muscle one's way up with your arms, but to lift your chin to the bar by driving your elbows down with full power. As far as I'm concerned, pull-ups can be viewed as either weight-training or as calisthenics. It's a body weight, multi-muscle group stress and, if 15 reps gets easy, just put on a weight vest to keep it challenging. Here's how to Do More Than One Stinking Pull-Up Are kipping pull-ups cheating? It depends. Certainly anybody would prefer to do more dead-hang pull-ups if they could. They are hard. All exercise is agonizing, though, if done right. No pain, no gain. QQQStudying literature at Harvard is a lot like learning about women at the Mayo Clinic. Roy Blount Jr. Tuesday morning links
Worship Music: What Is It Good For? I find it embarassing In photos: Dubai's massive desalination plant A book by the new NSA head: Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam Science journalism is going full leftist Education for "racial beings" Wegmans supermarket sells out of Trump wine after proposed boycott Why a Gay Liberal from New York Came Out as Conservative VA Employees Spent A Million Hours On Taxpayer-Funded Union Activities Rather Than Veterans Public servants? These Eight US States have Shrunk in 2016 Nestle Leaves California to Get Away from Anti-Capitalist Lawmakers and Activists - The exodus from the Golden State continues. NY Gov. Cuomo: I Am A Refugee, Black, Gay, Poor And Muslim… "Liberals may feel energized by a surge in political activism, and a unified stance against a president they see as irresponsible and even dangerous."..."But that momentum is provoking an equal and opposite reaction on the right. FAKE NEWS: Trump Never Said There Was a Terror Attack in Sweden – Liberal Media MADE IT UP ´Trump Trance´? Media Sure It ´Heard´Sweden Comment Trump Never Said The Press vs. the President - both unreliable The media doesn’t call the shots — Trump does Election of outsider Trump rankles federal bureaucrats It's not business as usual Meanwhile, Rioting Breaks Out In Sweden NIKKI HALEY PUTS UN ANTI-ISRAELISM IN CROSSHAIRS Monday, February 20. 2017TV series recommendation: Shetland
Mrs. BD and a daughter say that the protagonist, Jimmy Perez, is their dream male. They both binge-watched it on their laptops, and I am certain now that I must be inadequate by comparison. Bummer.
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Monday morning linksGeorge Washington: founder for all Americans Humans Aren't Monogamous by Nature Duh. By nature, we are apes. Oil – Where did it come from? Book publishers now hiring ‘sensitivity readers’ to look for ‘offensive’ material A History of the Jewish War, AD 66–74 A history professor delves into the world of Jewish counterfactual history – like what if Israel had been established in East Africa? Internet-Regulating FEC Commissioner to Resign Goodbye, fascist Jon Haidt Hopes Libertarians Can Save Us From Coddled Campus Culture - The social psychologist openly admits he wants to create a schism in academia. "I propose that we teach death ed in all of our high schools. I see this curriculum as a civic responsibility." Put it in with Health Sciences Military wife mourning fallen Green Beret in viral video is hailed as 'patriot' Fake News Rap Sheet: Last Week the MSM Was Caught Telling FORTY Lies THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF THE WAR FOR PUBLIC OPINION Are Climate Alarmists Glassy-Eyed Cultists? Democrats’ Real Global Warming Fraud Revealed Scott Pruitt’s Back-to-Basics Agenda for the EPA - The new administrator plans to follow his statutory mandate—clean air and water—and to respect states’ rights Musings Of An Average Joe: The Left's Selective Love For The Constitution, Law, And Historical Precedent BLUMENTHAL SHOULD CUT AND RUN WHENEVER ANY VETERANS APPEAR He self-identifies as a Vietnam Vet Trump Is a Lot Like the LBJ Whom Liberals Still Idolize McCain Drives Into the Ditch Every Republican is "the most extreme ever" Whiny Liberals: New York City Moms Kill Skating Party Because Trump Renovated The Rink People who feel sad when they can't find racism 'SNL' should test Trump, but how about challenging a Dem for once? Althouse on Trump's Florida rally Poll: Americans want Democrats to work with Trump After 8 Years of Campaigner-in-Chief Obama, NPR Accuses Trump of ‘Permanent Campaign’ Angela Merkel says Europe must take MORE refugees and Islam 'isn't source of terror' Why the lie? Pope Francis: 'Muslim Terrorism Does Not Exist' Why the lie? There Is No Solution in Afghanistan Sunday, February 19. 2017Fun with string instruments'64 Impala drift missile
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Mrs. BD's Best Meat LoafWe have tried dozens of meatloaf recipes over the years, some complex and some not. We have settled on our favorite, which is also the simplest. This ought to make 2 loaves: 3/4 lb. ground chuck Mix thoroughly with your hands. Put in meat loaf thing - do not pack or compress it - at 350 for an hour or so, when it has a good crust. Serve with mashed taters, and salad if you must. It's a damn good supper, but even better in a sandwich with mayo afterwards.
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