Sunday Links

• We seem to have a political (public) imagination so shallow that it cannot conceive of what to even do with children, especially smart children. We fail to properly respect them all the way through adolescence, so we have engineered them to be useless in the interim. We do not need children to work, that is abundantly clear, but by ensuring there is nothing for them to do we are also sure to destroy more onramps towards making meaningful contributions to the world. [Simon Sarris]
• The new Jeep Wrangler is a real surprise, what with 0-60 in 6.5 seconds for some trim levels. Such a great idea to put that kind of power in an 80 year old war machine with the handling of a Best Western and the crash protection of a commercial air conditioning unit. [Jalopnik]
• Dogs are a cheap, easy, unfulfilling version of raising a baby. I’m pretty sure that a significant number of dog owners choose to engage in the activity because they want to experience the nurturing process of child-raising and the reciprocated affection of the baby, but without having to go through the arduous process of actually making and raising a real human. There even seems to be a trend of millennials choosing to own dogs instead of having kids. [Matt Lakeman]
• My eventual solution was to eat raw eggs. If I was still hungry after a meal, I’d crack open one or two eggs in a cup and take them like a shot. At about a 50:50 fat-protein ratio, eggs aren’t ideal, but they’re tasty and one of the only permissible foods in the carnivore diet that can be eaten raw. [Matt Lakeman]
• Talk show host Larry King admitted that when he was growing up in Brooklyn, “Jewish gangsters were our heroes. Even the bad ones were heroes to us.” The 1930s were a time fraught with danger for Jews. For some Jewish mobsters, it proved to be a time when they could do something positive to protect their community from Nazis and anti-Semites. [Tablet]
• Against polygamy, feminists can argue that it degrades women. Others might point out that many rich and powerful men in the modern United States already have informal harems or engage in serial polygamy. But let us set aside the merits of polyamory in any form and focus on the task of imposing it on the American people without legislation or democratic debate. The process would begin with billionaire donors and foundation program officers at private conclaves agreeing to make polyamory the next big reform. [Tablet]
• Increased loading as resistance training is the most potent nonpharmacological strategy by which skeletal muscle mass can be increased. Conversely, aging (sarcopenia) and muscle disuse lead to the development of anabolic resistance and contribute to the loss of skeletal muscle mass. [link]
• Rapamycin, a drug used as an immunosuppressant in the treatment of organ transplant patients, may be the most potent life-extension drug currently available, and the practice of rapamycin anti-aging medicine is just getting started. Mikhail Blagosklonny, a doctor and scientist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York, has been the most notable and vocal advocate of rapamycin to extend human lifespan. While rapamycin has adverse side effects in humans who take it daily for immunosuppression, recent research has found that pulse dosing, perhaps once a week, may confer most of the anti-aging benefits without any adverse side effects. [Mangan]
• A great road ride has six virtues: It’s scenic. There are no rides on this site that aren’t eye candy. It’s interesting. That is to say, the road contour has character. It goes up and down, back and forth, presents you with changing conditions. No endless 6% pitches. No ruler-straight flats. It’s small—two-lane certainly, without a center line ideally. It’s untrafficked. Not even trafficked with a substantial shoulder. I don’t do shoulders unless I have to in order to get to better riding. The road surface is good. It has some climbing. Flat is boring. A flat road would have to have San Francisco Bay or the Redwoods for scenery to make my list. [bestrides]
• A certain segment of the outdoor world (me included) seems transfixed by image-fueled gear clichés: Darn Tough socks, stickered Nalgenes, slack MTB head tube angles, and expensive flannel shirts designed to imitate cheap flannel shirts. Behind the wheel of a minivan, you subversively toss out the stereotypes—the rugged Tacoma, the decked-out Sprinter, heck, even the sporty Outback—and recast the meek denizen of the cul-de-sac as a brash open-road adventurer. [Outside]