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.
Recall that it just took one fierce, unknown feminist Harvard faculty member to eject the distinguished Larry Summers from the presidency of Harvard by supposedly having a Victorian-era fainting spell.
It seems to be a tactic which works. I agree that people must push back.
Done with perfect technique, the deadlift is a perfect example of why the use of major multi-joint exercises is superior to a collection of smaller exercises.
I "enjoy" the exercises which involve multiple muscle groups. Not only are they extremely stressful and fatiguing, but they seem to be more useful for life than fussing over small muscle groups. For another example, combining squats with military presses is another hell of an exercise. Also, lunges with heavy hands - and ropes. You know it's tough when your grunts turn into 4-letter words.
Happy Independence Day! If you're like me, you're with your family and being independent together (h/t to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer).
If you're like me, you're probably having hot dogs and hamburgers, potato or macaroni salad, soda or beer, or other kinds of foods which were purchased at a store after being shipped from some other part of the U.S. or even another nation.
If you're like me, you probably don't spend time worrying about the details of how your food reached your table. But you may know people, as I do, who think the whole "eat local' idea will save our health and economy. We have a restaurant here which is excellent, but very expensive, and always booked. We need to make reservations several months in advance to get a table. They only serve locally grown foods (I believe it's a 50 mile radius), and it's BYOB (so I guess they're OK with bringing French wine to go with the Jersey Tomatoes).
Normally I don't go in for faddish trends, and I really don't buy the whole "local food" movement. But this is a good restaurant and just because I don't agree with it doesn't mean I'll avoid a good meal. Good food is good food. There are reasons why I don't necessarily think the local food movement is ever going to change how we live, and it certainly is not going to make our lives better.
As this video (45 minutes long - so be prepared) points out, most nations with small farms have economic problems. This doesn't intrinsically mean small farms are impoverishing those nations, but there's no doubt being a food exporter (and the U.S. is by far the largest) is an indication of economic strength through size. This video also points out the hypocrisy of our nation's politics and its 'solutions' to perceived problems. We have deemed some banks "Too Big To Fail" and willingly subsidize their moral hazard, while at the same time pointing to large agricultural firms and saying they are "Too Big To Succeed" and impose excessive regulations on them while subsidizing failing small farms. So the policy of the U.S. that we subsidize failure, and engage double standards wherever we see fit.
The Jungle is often touted as an example of what would happen if we did not support regulation of the food industry. Unfortunately, this novel was a work of fiction designed to draw attention to the plight of the working man. It was the lies of Upton Sinclair about the Chicago Packing District that stick in people's memory, however. By and large, most food businesses provided healthier foods than smaller firms. It was in their best interest to do so. One does not win new consumers by killing or injuring those you have. In fact, most of these businesses wanted regulation as a means to raise barriers to entry against their smaller competitors, and to prevent foreign foods, which had raised trade barriers, from being too competitive.
“It might be more harmful to consume lots of carbohydrates than saturated fats. If you fear cardiovascular diseases, most types of fats are better than carbs,” says the professor. Svihus thinks that in the worst case all the focus on taking fats out of the diet might have raised risks for heart disease. This is because we drop fats and exchange them with a lot of carbohydrates.
Politico: "As I noted last month with a link to an AEI infographic, if Clinton patiently endures her falls from public popularity she’s almost always rewarded with a rise."
It’s easy to dismiss Greece as a dead beat country full of oily grifters. In theory, the Greek people have only themselves to blame for electing crooks and liars. That’s an argument against democracy, but the people never voted for bankruptcy. They were misled by their leaders, who got hooked on the heroin of global finance. They supported joining the Euro because they were told it would avoid these problems.
Oh,
look, some Libertarians are having a few second thoughts about the
goals of gay activists post-Obergefell - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=57212#sthash.Rwa9T2B8.dpuf
No doubt about it. Government regulations generally end up working in favor of large, established industries and companies, and, in effect, suppress competition. It takes a large legal department to try to make sure of compliance. Upstarts become discouraged, or just blow off the rules and hope nobody notices.
Just see what they are doing to Uber. Customers love Uber.
Ronaldus Magnus:
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
In my experience, small businesses are almost never in full compliance with all relevant (local, state, county, federal) rules and regulations and only are aware of the obvious ones. The only beneficiaries are lawyers. Government rules and regulations are our bread and butter and I am not proud of that.
Liberals/progressives talk incessantly about racism, yet there are spectacularly few examples of the phenomenon, so they pounce on every conceivable black-white interaction–think Ferguson and Baltimore–even if the facts don’t support their immoral, divisive accusations.
Let's sweep away the lies and just say it out loud:
90% of the left's attempts at social control are simply attempt to outlaw behaviors they perceived as favored or engaged in by 'traditional" "conservative" "old-school" "white" etc. people. Thus, a liberal can simultaneously demand that cigarettes be outlawed but marijuana be legalized.
Why? Because (in their conception of social reality) marijuana is a leftist intoxicant favored by the "counter-culture" while nicotine is a right-wing intoxicant favored by the "dominant culture."
"The Man" smokes cigars. "The Rebels" smoke weed.
That's all there is to it.
...It's absolute juvenile revenge fantasy, leftover from the '60s. That's all it is. The younger generation of activist are automatons acting out the revenge fantasies of their professors.
I've been there. Interesting place. Good food. Aggressive salesmen in the souk. A brief clip of the souk in Tunis. Fun place, not mainly meant for tourists.
Saturday was New Haven, Sunday was NYC. Ah, Les Tres Riches Heures du Bird Dog. We went with dear friends to see DanceBrazil at the Joyce, then for early supper to the enjoyable and authentic Sicilian specialty restaurant Bar Eolo on 7th Ave. (Ask me for menu tips.)
We hadn't realized it was the day of the Gay Pride march on the West Side. By the time we sat down for supper outside, swarms - thousands - of gays were moving back uptown from their destination which I think had been the West Village. "Hi, Happy Pride!" Anyway, it made for some entertaining and curious people-watching. I told Mrs. BD that my Mom would have loved that scene which seems exotic to me. My question was why and how do so many gays (male or female) look gay. No Gaydar required, believe me. It's, like, obvious.
I suspect my buddy expected me as a wacko Christian conservative (ie Evil Right Wing Nazi) to be hostile or uncomfortable. Naw. Christians get a kick (mostly) out of all of God's creation. It was just strange, and a colorful spectacle. I can say that we four felt like aliens from a straight bourgeois planet - which was fine. Overall, fun. Do male gays add more to life than those grim-looking lesbians with their fat girlfriends? I tend to think so. However, I saw a handful of those lesbian marchers whose feminine charms, IMO, were going to waste and I said so.
DanceBrazil was something else. Mrs. BD gave me some words: Muscular, acrobatic, quick, primitive, full-body dancing. She said they were all ballet-trained, but probably lifted weights too. These men and women are seriously strong. Exhausting to watch because of the intense physicality. Very good, high-energy high-intensity stuff. Here's a clip from them a couple of years ago.
Also, a few random pics below the fold - but none of the gay parade people really.
We live in a world where Bobby Jindal is a fake Indian, but it’s racist to say an older white woman isn’t a real one (the correct term being “Native American,” of course). Nikki Haley is a villain for “suppressing” her Indian roots, but Sen. Ted Cruz is a fraud for touting his Cuban roots. (Cruz was recently grilled by Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin about how authentically Cuban he really is. At least Halperin later apologized).
Many white people in Oregon have no idea that our schools and state are
immersed in white culture and are uncomfortable and harmful to our
students of colour
Hard not to see -
Image from Eratosthenes' 
Americans 
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Unpaid Internships Are Worth it: 
Following Fistfights with Uber Drivers, Paris's Taxi Motorists Strike on Thursday 
Pic from