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.
If you have no idea of how to deal with the occasional hurricane and the frequent nor'easter, you have no business living on the Atlantic coast and less so in flood zones. Never live in a flood zone or, God knows, below sea level. Common sense.
I am not heartless, but please. These are normal weather events in these areas and everybody knows it. No reason to be stupid about it, or surprised. Why are 100s of people "awaiting rescuing"? They were told there would be no rescues. A week's warning ought to be sufficient.
Dramatic weather, raw Nature, is certainly exciting despite being predictable. Hence Weather Porn.
When I was a university student in the early 1990s, it always was assumed that the primary threat to free speech was government — especially government in the Big Brother form that George Orwell had taught us to expect and fear...
I have been using Nike crossfit sneakers (Metcons) for my workouts. I have 2 pairs, so one is always dry. No heel, minimal cushioning, so perfect for all mixed workouts. Why would they want to engage me in political bullshit?
Commenter at Ace: "NIKE is going where the bucks are - single parent black teenage males. Who else buys $300 sneakers?"
Apparently I am not their customer. $300? I would never spend $100 on exercise shoes. Just go online and get last year's model for $25-50. Problem is, now I know they do not welcome my patronage. Idiots not to want me to buy their darn sneakers because I wear mine out with an approximation of the Maggie's program. They last one year.
Exercise tip: Running shoes are the worst unless you are a foolish road-runner. They are not gym shoes, but fine walking sneakers for the elderly. They have too much of everything so there is no floor-feel. Fact is, barefoot would probably be best for everybody but gyms do not allow that.
Reebok Nanos and Reebok Crossfit are good fitness cross-training sneakers. New Balance makes a Minimus trainer. Try it. For calisthenics, weights, cardio machines, etc you want minimal shoe. Big cushioning is supposedly for running on cement, which we do not advise. If you need thick pillows on your feet, you are doing something wrong.
Political nonsense aside, what do our readers like for cross-training footwear?
Cleaning out cabinets for painters and found my old fossil collection. I will not have a fossil-free future. I love looking at fossils and hope to become an old fossil myself someday
K expressed empathy with DF's concerns. He was super-nice to her, and as things progressed, what I read in her face was pain — pain over wanting him to feel pain. But he's so heavily swaddled in judicial values that he's safe from everything. As a judge, he does what he must do as a judge, even when it pains him. He's pre-pained, inoculated to pain, and there's no way to further pain him. The children who die in school shootings... the women who would die from illegal abortions... these causes for empathy receive his empathy, but they do not change what he must do. His cold, dry judicial virtue is supreme and sublime, and he must, as ever, humbly submit. Feinstein was reduced to scoffing that K had learned (from Senators?) to "filibuster."
Why New York City Stopped Building Subways - Nearly 80 years ago, a construction standstill derailed the subway’s progress, leading to its present crisis. This is the story, decade by decade.
Politics today is a lot less about ideology and a lot more about the disconnect between the people who make our laws and the people that live underneath them. If you want to understand 2010, 2014, 2016, and I believe, future elections, you have to understand that there’s an enormous gap between what public policy elites – people in government, the media, and academia – are focused on, and what everyday people care about. And they’re not lined up.
So I think there’s a sense across the American political spectrum that the people in office spend all their time fighting for things that don’t matter in the real world. And the things that matter in the real world aren’t getting enough attention. And so, they want to send people that are going to blow it up, that are basically gonna force change in the status quo, and the more the established figures in politics attack you, the stronger it makes you in the eyes of people that want to see something different.
Weiner Laptop Scandal, the Mueller Witchhunt, the Clinton Foundation and China Hacking Hillary’s Emails All Have One Thing in Common
The end game is to crush what they see as a peasant’s revolt. Mueller’s function is to provide a legal pretext for removing the President from office. The role of the media is to misrepresent everything he does in order to trick independent voters into giving the Democrats a majority in the House. This will prevent Trump from continuing to act on his 2016 mandate.
The Democrats will impeach the President if they gain a majority in the House, regardless of their chances of securing a conviction in the Senate. Impeachment will effectively shut down his Presidency either way. Fighting it would involve so much White House time that virtually nothing else would get done. And this is an important Democratic goal.
Image via 
Hiking With Kids Age 4 and 6 (and Some Llamas) 
How C.S. Lewis 
I have been using Nike crossfit sneakers (Metcons) for my workouts. I have 2 pairs, so one is always dry. No heel, minimal cushioning, so perfect for all mixed workouts. Why would they want to engage me in political bullshit?
The Five 