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.
We had a Papillon visiting over the weekend. This breed might be in the lap dog, ankle-biter category, but this one was a delight: well-related, highly-communicative with human-like noises, feisty, high energy, highly-alert, and eager to please. They need plenty of time to run around off leash, and they seem to need plenty of time napping on somebody's lap.
A cool dog. The breed is known to be easily trained, and our visitor obeyed numerous voice commands.
This breed can have erect ears (mostly in the US) and floppy spaniel ears (mostly in Europe). These were popular in the courts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Madame de Pompadour with her Papillon, by Boucher. Ms. Pompadour was cute, charmant, and smart too. Well-educated, she could sing, play musical instruments, recite plays and poetry, and she understood statecraft. A self-made lady who retained her usefulness to Louis XV well-past her sexual prime until her death of TB at 42.
The Farmer's Walk is a toughening exercise, not so much a strength-building exercise. It is only a true strength-building exercise for your grip - ie your forearms. However, done correctly with chest out, head up, for as long as you can, it challenges your entire body from calves to neck.
Three sets of Farmer's Walks to near-failure weekly, as part of your calisthenics program, will improve your posture and overall toughness.
Do me a favor: Do not resolve to get fit after the new year. If serious, you will work on it today. The problem with fitness is that it takes effort so there is always a good excuse for postponing.
“[Because of an imminent ICE AGE] .. even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.” -John Holdren, 1971
Read through all of the news accounts and commentary about the Berlin attack and no where do you see any questions about whether it was wise to import a million barbarians...The Pax Americana allowed the West to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence.
Tree went up last weekend. That was our first family Christmas because a daughter will be vacationing in Asia during real Christmas. Our daughters love traveling in Asia.
Still, we have the in-laws for Christmas Eve fish supper and candlelight church, and all the other kids for Christmas Day dinner. I think Christmas Day afternoon will be a good day for a chilly long hike with the puppy if the old guy feels up to it...meaning The Dog - not me.
Image via Never Yet Melted. Grammatically correct, but the message is wrong. Good grammar does not compensate for an erroneous message. (Fact check: Spanish actually has a future subjunctive, but not English. Go figger.)
The reason (I surmise) that so many people claim to be spiritual rather than religious is that being spiritual imposes no discipline upon them, at least none that they do not choose themselves. Being religious, on the other hand, implies an obligation to observe rules and rituals that may interfere awkwardly with daily life. Being spiritual-but-not-religious gives you that warm, inner feeling, a bit like whiskey on a cold day, and reassures you that there is more to life—or, at least, to your life—than meets the eye, without actually having to interrupt the flux of everyday existence. It is the gratification of religion without the inconvenience of religion. Unfortunately, like many highly diluted solutions, it has no taste.
Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio quantified just how much private sector experience Trump's picks have: a cumulative 83 years in the private sector vs. 55 years in either government or military (mostly military). By contrast, Obama's first Cabinet had achieved a cumulative of five years in the private sector vs. 122 years in the government or military (mostly government) before joining his incoming administration. Trump's Cabinet is tilted more toward the private sector than any administration in history, and Dalio predicts this may inject into the economy the "animal spirits" that spurred so much growth in the 1980s.
News outlets such as the New York Times and NBC have no more credibility than most websites or the National Enquirer. Is it any surprise that we are witnessing the funeral for traditional journalism as we once knew it?
It's the time of year to remember to say Thank You in a material way. When it's cash, I think $50 is a reasonable token of appreciation around here. Less might constitute an insult. Of course, that depends on where you live. Our general rule is cash for people who work for somebody else, and goodies for people we pay (except for house helpers).
Garbage man - $ Mailman - $ My 4:30 AM regular Dunkin Donuts Hindu immigrant guy - $20 Docs, lawyers, dentists, and accountant - Harry & David fruit Our trainer - special goodies that he likes Our house-cleaner - Mrs. BD let her go quite a while ago...we need a more professional, less intrusive one but it's so hard to find good help these days...
Hope I am not forgetting somebody else important. Am I? I'd give something to the UPS guy, but it's never the same person.
This election didn’t merely expose the failure of six months of campaigning by the Democratic Party. This election exposed the failure of SIX DECADES of leftist propaganda to have any cumulative effect at all.
... low levels of legal immigration are probably a good thing. The people willing to go through all the steps it takes to migrate legally are going to be people who scrupulously observe the law. They are not coming here just to screw it all up for everyone including themselves. Recent legal immigrants tend to be hyper-patriotic for that reason. They take nothing for granted because they had to earn their citizenship. Their presence is a healthy reminder that citizenship has value.
Weight exercises like deads, squats, and leg press stress the heck out of your lower body - hamstrings, glutes, quads, calves and all of the little accessory muscles. It's necessary strength-building until you reach your realistic goals for your maximal life functionality.
For the calisthenic component of your fitness program, though, you can throw in a few sets of lunges to make your legs burn for 24 hrs. (That is not lactate burn, it is good muscle-damage, micro-tear burn/ache). I do 3 sets of walking lunges, with or without hand weights, weekly. Even though it counts as calisthenics, I think it toughens up the legs even though it is more endurance than strength. Good pain!
Readers are tired of my preaching that calisthenics are a necessary fitness component but I will persist. Contra Rippetoe, we preach a balance of approximately 1/3 weights, 1/3 cardio intervals, and 1/3 calis (including what I term "heavy" calis like Farmer's Walk, pull-ups, push-ups, heavy ball slams, lunges with weights, weighted planks, etc) - while agreeing that real weight training is the most important and effective fitness component.
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
How many MORE atrocities before our leaders stop lying to us and admit that, thanks to their immigration policies, being mowed down while doing your Christmas shopping is simply the new normal?
“It would be very difficult for us to learn that a human being committed this deed who came to Germany to ask for refuge and asylum,” the German chancellor said in a live statement.
"Would be"? You know she is praying that Lutherans did it.
The Wisconsin governor has asked Trump to restore the balance of federal and state power. Here’s why all states should rally to his call...Democrats who fear the exercise of unbridled power by a Republican president have as much reason to want state governments kept free from federal control as Republicans do for not wanting a repeat of Obama’s constitutional abuses. We can disagree about policy issues, but we should agree on the basic meaning of our Constitution.
The options are risky because the White House knows the hacking story was made up to pacify the lunatics. They also know the Russians know it was made up. Creating a diplomatic crisis over something both sides know is a fiction – and a ridiculous one at that – is very dangerous.
We are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
A year ago, it would have been more difficult for me so I am happy about that. If I can't be overly smart, at least I can be functional in practical ways.
Regardless of the above, whether you exercise hard or make lame excuses, we all need extra mental protein and if you need more today, peruse American Digest. And not just for the Melville.
Feeling Grinch-like this morning, and so is my trainer. I told him this morning how good it was to walk into a place without Christmas music. He said that, as long as he is there, there will never be any. We agree that it is destroyed by overuse, and that 99% of the time you hear it, it is meant to induce you to spend money you don't have. Carols stay warm and sweet and rare in church during Advent, and Chrismas songs are good for a party song-along. Otherwise, if I hear Little Drummer Boy one more time in the supermarket I might go postal.
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
1:19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
1:20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
1:21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
1:22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
1:23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
1:25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
... there was never any serious argument for reelecting the Democrats, their whole campaign was to defame Trump as a sexist and a racist. There was never a jot of truth to any of it, as his cabinet appointments are showing. Trump’s popularity is rising steadily and most Americans think Obama has already gone as president. The president-elect is driving a bulldozer at 60 miles per hour toward the wreckage of decades of misgovernment and misinformation, while the departing incumbents crawl around on their hands and knees complaining that the lights have gone out. For them, they have.
Trump might be a wackjob, and I did think so, but I can't object to his employees who will do the real work. Even some of my ardent Dem friends are hopeful. Donald may have ADD or Bipolar Disorder, and is a Democrat at heart, but with Pence and Priebus in charge, and The Donald as larger-than-life figurehead, seems like a promising mix...We'll see.
“Lawmakers are overall the reason we have the problems that we have, because they think that they’re the smartest people in the world and they sit in D.C. and talk to themselves, and if you don’t sit on the cocktail circuit there you don’t know anything about anything,” said a senior transition aide. “I think they’re intimidated by a guy like this — they don’t know him and he doesn’t owe them anything.”
As a rule, the Obama administration is staffed by the crème de la crème of academically trained policy and legal scholars. Harvard is the number one school represented. Columbia is second. Law schools and schools of public administration are the majority. A vast (and we mean vast) portion of the current administration’s work experience has been in politics and government. In other words, they are professional bureaucrats, trained by academics in the process of government.
The Trump administration is virtually the opposite. Military, medical, and business backgrounds are the norm. These individuals went to school all over the country...
Plutocrats in the top three dozen richest people in the country in 2014 who were publicly donating money to boost immigration numbers included Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch, and the widow Jobs.
That’s a rather daunting list of opponents. Staring at their names just now, I realize I must have been nuts to devote my career to opposing the whims of people like them. What was I thinking?
The advice of a solid old Anglican priest — back when the Anglicans had a use for solids — was to retain one’s balance. “Don’t try to do everything at once,” he said, after my conversion on that bridge over Thames. In particular, “Don’t try to believe everything at once. It is bigger than you, you shan’t be able to do it.” And, “Never abandon your skepticism. If it doesn’t make sense to you, leave it and get back to it later.” And, “The trick to walking, whether you are a babe or very drunk, is: one step at a time. Those who get ahead of themselves tend to fall over.”
We had a
Tree went up last weekend. That was our first family Christmas because a daughter will be vacationing in Asia during real Christmas. Our daughters love traveling in Asia.
Image via 
Here's the Real Reason 
Tomorrow, the days begin to lengthen but I have to say that I don't really mind the short days. Getting out early in the cold and dark at 330 or 4 is pleasant to me. I take the dog out if he's willing, I listen for owls, I identify constellations and O'Ryan watches me with a cautious eye, I hear little critters scampering in the leaf litter.I have a hot coffee and a cold Coke to get ready for the gym which is open at 4:45. Carpe diem.
Got
are not those - or at least hope we are not. Just people trying to stay fit and ready for all of what life sends our way. Some readers find our fitness posts boring and/or obnoxious, some find companionship in them. Same with everything. I can say that I carried ten 60 lb. bags of sand from Home Depot easily on Sunday afternoon (for anticipated driveway ice to be stored in my sand storage), and that I was happy to find that it was a quick and effortless task.
What's for supper? Big 
