Best correction ever.

Though, alternatively, depressing. As it means, probably, the Post has people working for it too young to know Public Enemy's 911 is a Joke.

correction - washingtonpost.com:

"A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number."

Training.

AM - [Adjusted] Atlas 1, 8
PM - Atlas 1, 8, 9
50x - jab/cross/hook/r uppercut/liver shot
25x [l/r] - knees/front snap kick/front push kick/snap round kick/side kick/roundhouse

Well and smartly played, ladies.

Prostitutes Offer Free Climate Summit Sex | Disinformation:

"Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming conference. Now, the prostitutes have struck back, offering free sex to anyone who produces one of the warnings.

Copenhagen’s city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’.

“Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes,” the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card..."

One more for the "amazingly corrupt, not at all surprising" file.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince revealed as a CIA spy Boing Boing:

"Adam Ciralsky's Vanity Fair profile of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater ('a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees') reveals that Prince was a spy for the CIA while he was at the same time raking in over a billion dollars as a government contractor in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars."

Training.

12/4 & 12/3
AM - Atlas 1, 8, 9 [Adjusted]
PM - Atlas 1, 8, 9
21m shado, 10m back stretch

The best tv show that hasn't been made yet.

This looks awesome.

The Slingers sizzle | @sizemore

SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.

Screwing with the religious is a sound pastime.

texts from last night:

"(847): Jesus people on campus asked me what i do for joy. I said i love sinning especially pre-marital sex."

That's funny.

texts from last night:

"(703): tiger just fucked it up for all of us...she grabbed my phone this morning and started asking questions."

Wildly improves the holiday season, imho.

I don't know that you needed a scientific study to establish this, exactly.

All Men Watch Porn, Scientists Find | Disinformation:

"Scientists at the University of Montreal launched a search for men who had never looked at pornography – but couldn’t find any.

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn’t find any.”"

Depressing in its truthful accuracy.

In Which the Terrorists Win | The Agitator:

"In his thorough history of 9/11 The Looming Towers, Lawrence Wright makes a pretty persuasive case that Osama bin Laden’s goal in planning out terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s was to suck the U.S. into a Soviet-style war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had no delusions about turning the U.S. into a Muslim country. Instead, he wanted to pull America into an expensive, dispiriting, unwinnable war—the sort of war nearly every power that has invaded Afghanistan has had to extract itself from, tail between legs. Wright writes that bin Laden was initially dispirited at the ease with which U.S. forces removed the Taliban from power.

Of course, we then let bin Laden escape. And then came Iraq. We’ve since given bin Laden more than he ever could have thought possible, and more. Two protracted wars. And our war in Afghanistan is looking more and more like the Soviet war bin Laden was hoping to emulate.

We’re now well into our ninth year in Afghanistan. The Soviets pulled out after 10. With Obama’s surge, we’ll be close to 100,000 U.S. troops in the country next year. That’s about the number the Soviets had deployed at the height of their own war. About the only difference between the two wars is that technology has shifted more of our war casualties from the killed column to the maimed. I guess that’s something.

...We do have a pretty good idea how bin Laden pictured victory. It looks a lot like what we’re seeing now. He wanted a holy war. We gave him two. We’ve compromised our values, rolled back civil liberties, and let our politicians generally scare the crap out of us whenever they want new powers. Oh, and we’ve let the bastard live to gloat about it all..."

Good to have a plan.

texts from last night:

"(940): Well, ive pounded a baby into a stripper and a girl who was on jerry springer, a 16 year old is logically next."

Training.

AM - Atlas 1, 8, 9 - adjusted for injury
PM - 4x25 circuit - hindu squats/air squats/hip thrust/calf raise
21m shadowboxing

The philosophy of the physical.

Vid via RossTraining.com Blog : Choose Not To Fall

Again, color me completely unsurprised.

Federal Judge Says NYPD Plagued by “Widespread Falsification by Arresting Officers” | The Agitator:

"In refusing to dismiss a lawsuit against New York City brought by two brothers arrested on trumped-up drug charges, Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein had some harsh words for the city’s police department. From the NY Daily News:

“Informal inquiry by [myself] and among the judges of this court, as well as knowledge of cases in other federal and state courts … has revealed anecdotal evidence of repeated, widespread falsification by arresting officers of the New York City Police Department,” Weinstein wrote.

He said that while the vast majority of cops don’t engage in crooked practices, it was common enough to be an institutional problem.”

Maximo and Jose Colon were arrested and jailed last January for participating in a drug deal with undercover officers at a Brooklyn bar. They were released—and the officers who arrested them were later indicted—when surveillance video showed the arresting officers fabricated the entire drug deal."

I swear, if I wasn't surrounded by uber-cheerful elementary school 2nd graders, the 'news of the day' would depress/piss me the hell off.

Report: US to order 30 - 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan - Boing Boing:

"President Obama is expected to order 30-35,000 more troops into Afghanistan, to "finish the job," over the next twelve to eighteen months. If the plan is implemented, US troop levels in that country will have tripled under his presidency."

Supreme Court upholds Obama ban on release of detainee torture photos - Boing Boing:

"The US Supreme Court today rejected an appeals court ruling that ordered the release of photos that document war-on-terror prisoners being tortured by U.S. military personnel. At first, President Obama said he would not ban the release of the images, then changed his mind. The ACLU say they'll keep fighting."

Iran Election Protestors Sentenced To Death | Disinformation:

"Iran has sentenced five people to death and 81 others to prison terms of up to 15 years in a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest that followed June’s disputed presidential election, state television says."

EU memo on secret copyright treaty confirms US desire for global DMCA - Boing Boing:

"'The European Commission analysis of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement's [ed: a secret, restrictive copyright treaty that the Obama administration will not release on 'national security' grounds] Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the U.S. is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law (the EC posted the existence of the document last week but refused to make it publicly available). The document contains detailed comments on the U.S. proposal, confirming the U.S. desire to promote a three-strikes and you're out policy, a Global DMCA, harmonized contributory copyright infringement rules, and the establishment of an international notice-and-takedown policy.'"

BBC photographer prevented from shooting St Paul's because he might be "al Qaeda operative" - Boing Boing:

"A BBC photographer was stopped from taking a picture of the sun setting by St Paul's Cathedral in London. A real police officer and a fake "community support officer" stopped the photog and said he couldn't take any pictures because with his professional-style camera, he might be an "al Qaeda operative" on a "scouting mission." Now, St Paul's is one of the most photographed buildings in the world (luckily, there is zero evidence that terrorists need photographs to plan their attacks), and presumably a smart al Qaeda operative with a yen to get some snaps would use a tiny tourist camera -- or a hidden camera in his buttonhole...

The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid's toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist's job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. There were two al Qaeda operatives at St Paul's that day: the cop and her sidekick, who were about Osama bin Laden's business in London all day long."

Reason.tv: Nanny of the Month for November 2009 - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine:

"Smoking, fast food, giant inflatable blue gorillas—no matter what it is, chances are some nanny wants to ban it. And this past month was no exception."

Training.

Still coddling my screwed up, road rashed hands...

AM - Atlas 1, 8, 9 - adjusted for injury
PM - 32m, 5x20 circuit - hindu squats/air squats/lunges
21m shadowboxing

This is damned impressive - Bodybuilding.com - Susie Torres Los 80 Pounds And Began Competing! - Female Transformation Of The Week:

"Before:
Age: 38
Height: 5' 1.5'
Weight: 209 lbs
Body Fat: 51%

After:
Age: 39
Height: 5'1.5'
Weight: 129 lbs
Body Fat: 12%"

Color me completely unsurprised.

Dear God, Please Confirm What I Already Believe | Disinformation:

"“Intuiting God’s beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one’s own beliefs,” writes a team led by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Ooooohhhhh... nice.

Better than the 3 prequels, at the very least.

A Green Arrow/Hawkman fight? That's called "knowing your base."

That's some geekgasm-y goodness right there.

'Smallville' sneak peek: Doctor Fate, Stargirl, Hawkman, and more! | Ausiello | EW.com:

"When it comes to Smallville’s two-hour Justice Society-centric movie (airing Feb. 5), there’s no such thing as too much hype, right? Good. Glad we’re all on the same page."

Training.

Wiped out on the bike today and road-rashed my hands pretty good, so no gripping, pushing, pulling, etc. You know, due to oozing blood and whatnot. Boo. Anyways, improvised lower body wkout.
AM - Atlas 1, 8 and most of 9
PM - 8x10/1x20 circuit - hindu squats, air squats, hip thrusts, calf raises, lunges, situps, russian twists.

The Internet is Glorious - I give you the Bacon Mug!

We have what appears to be a mug, constructed of tightly woven bacon, capable of holding melted cheese. Pure Win.

Japan Wins.

Awesome educational story.

Click over for the details even if it sounds slightly interesting to you.

My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments:

"What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

“Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.”

And thus began our ten-week course.

...And while my knowledge of the Economics of Capital Markets has faded in time, the lessons that stayed with me were his real legacy:

* “Experts” can be wrong, and say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact.
* If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation.
* A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously.""

Even I'm not that bad.

Warren Ellis » Links for 2009-11-29:

"Vietnamese man dug up wife’s corpse ’so he could hug her’ – Telegraph "The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife's grave in 2004, moulded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman, put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed, Vietnamnet.vn said"'"

Prior planning, etc, etc.

texts from last night:

"(954): woke up and she was making me crepes. definitely not the last time i fuck a culinary student"

I wouldn't.

texts from last night:

"(631): Girl just texted me a pic of her boobs with the caption 'don't think I'm a whore'"

Training.

Missed 4 days of working out. Every day I didn't it was like - to steal a pop culture term - a splinter in my mind. Two days missed I can chalk up to the soul-sucking, spirit-killing JET Mid-Year Seminar, and its assorted schedule disruptions. Another day I can relegate to my wrist feeling a little tweaky. The 4th day though I was just a lazy bastard. Boo, me. Anyways, back at it today.
AM - Atlas 1 & 6
PM - Atlas III Pushups [1m] - 25
Atlas Situps [3m] - 55
Hindu Pushups [2m] - 20
Hindu Squats [12m] - 216
Hindu Pushups [2m] - 17
Atlas Situps [3m] - 50
Atlas III Pushups [1m] - 15
Chins [1m] - 11
MILO DSR [4m] - 20/15
Bridge - 40 count

Catching up on JET blogging - Bunkasai/Culture Festival pt II.

Last month of so seems to have been falling behind on the whole "JET blog" stuff, kind of the whole reason I even started this online monstrosity. So given that after a month, it's fairly obvious I won't be getting around to doing the photo collage stuff or merging/cropping/editing the video stuff like I originally planned, or before end of the year/winter holiday stuff rolls up, so it's time to do the abbreviated post for both the Tsuyazaki Jr High Bunkasai and the Katsuura Elemementary/MaruKatsu Festival.

MaruKatsu Festivities.

From 2009-11-15

Adorable munchkins. Talented too.

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

Kids recruited into local produce sales. Good stuff.

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

C'mon, how cute?

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

Horse rides!

From 2009-11-15

Highlight of the day for me was the taiko performance, because the group featured about a half dozen of my current and graduated students. It's always really awesome for me to see the kids after they've graduated. They become little adults. It's really quite brilliant.

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

From 2009-11-15

More pics/vids here:

2009-11-15

Man I'm gonna miss this stuff.

Catching up on JET blogging - Bunkasai/Culture Festival.

Last month of so seems to have been falling behind on the whole "JET blog" stuff, kind of the whole reason I even started this online monstrosity. So given that after a month, it's fairly obvious I won't be getting around to doing the photo collage stuff or merging/cropping/editing the video stuff like I originally planned, or before end of the year/winter holiday stuff rolls up, so it's time to do the abbreviated post for both the Tsuyazaki Jr High Bunkasai and the Katsuura Elemementary/MaruKatsu Festival. Here goes the first...

Junior High Bunkasai

From 2009-10-19

[Me too.]

Even trash bins are cutified in Japan.

From 2009-10-19

Prepare for Battle.

From 2009-10-19

The uber-effective "don't take my photo" double arm block.

From 2009-10-19

School plays, the annual excuse for cross-dressing.

From 2009-10-19

And awesome costumes.

From 2009-10-19

From 2009-10-19

Art!

From 2009-10-19

C'mon, how insane is this?

From 2009-10-19

From 2009-10-19

The battle between heaven and hell...

From 2009-10-19

DANCE FINALE!

From 2009-10-19

With the, I kid you not, Michael Jackson tribute.

From 2009-10-19

Whole bunches more pics and videos of my super cool and awesome kids and school here:

2009-10-19

Read in Sept, Oct, Nov.

From 2009-11-29

Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat by Forrest Griffin and Erich Krauss. Pretty funny. Damn entertaining.

"Wondering why you should purchase this book when there are other titles on the shelves written by much higher-caliber fighters? Well, Forrest Griffin is not as good-looking as those guys. He's not as smart as them. He's also not as athletically endowed. And let's face it, neither are you. Those other fighters are pretty much better than you in every way. But you can actually aspire to be as good as Forrest one day. Why? Because he is nothing special, just like you.

Forrest is not a martial artist. He's a fighter, and this book was written for his kin. If you're a hillbilly like Forrest and you get off on having your face rearranged, Got Fight? is for you. This is a manifesto more strategic than Sun Tzu's The Art of War, more philosophical than Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do, more powerful than a well-lubricated locomotive."

Under the Bar: Twelve Lessons of Life from the World of Powerlifting and the sequel Raising the Bar, both by David Tate. Life lessons from the gym. Great stuff.

Brilliant birthday gifts from my better half, the first two hardcover books of Greg Rucka's and Ed Brubaker's outstanding Gotham Central series - In the Line of Duty and Jokers and Madmen. Often described as "Law and Order" in Gotham City. That much is true, as far as it goes, except vastly superior to any TV show. Great procedural and well drawn characters. My wife is teh awesome.

Other great comic book reading - Suicide Squad: From the Ashes by John Ostrander and Javier Pina, Secret Six: Unhinged by Gail Simone and Nicola Scott, The Question: Riddles by Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan, Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign by Jeff Parker, Booster Gold: Reality Lost by Chuck Dixon and Dan Jurgens - all excellent comic collections.

Multiple volumes of Sandman Mystery Theatre - Dr Death & Night of the Butcher, The Hourman & The Python, The Mist & The Phantom of the Fair, The Vamp - all extremely well crafted noir comic book goodness.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. I'm not a runner, by any stretch of the imagination, but this was a great book. Captivating and well written in that "can't put it down/stayed up way too late reading it."


Read the next 5 novels in the Spenser series - Stardust, Playmates, Crimson Joy, Taming a Sea-Horse, Pale Kings and Princes. All excellent. It's probably my favorite series of novels going these days, despite the fact that chronologically I'm only into the late 1980s with the books. Great characterizations, witty dialogue, tight plotting.

Farthing by Jo Walton. Alternative history/murder mystery. It was okay, but didn't blow me away.

A Wild Sheep Chase (羊をめぐる冒険) by Haruki Murakami. I am clearly too dumb to understand this book. Absurd - in that philosophical sense - but I guess I prefer my absurdity of the Camus variety. Finished it, but didn't really get into it.

Hypnotizing Maria by Richard Bach. I'll probably never like one of Bach's books as much as I dug Illusions - just because of the time and headspace I was in when I read it, though the Ferret Chronicles were entertaining - but this was an well written little novel. Worth reading and a good reminder.

Huna: Ancient Hawaiian Secrets for Modern Living by Serge Kahili King. Not bad, but I still like Fundamentals of Hawaiian Mysticism as the go to Huna book.

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein. Another book that kept me up way later than I wanted, unable to put it down. Great book. Here's Adelstein interviewed on the Daily Show. [The book is actually way better than the interview.]

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jake Adelstein
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Brown takes a lot of flack for his writing, and yeah, he dumbs down some of the esoteric stuff he touches on, but the dude writes a good story, imho. He hooked me until the end. My one complaint really about The Lost Symbol is I thought the ending itself was a bit of a letdown. Still, not a bad read.

My Dead Body: A Novel by Charlie Huston - vampire noir. Feels like the last Joe Pitt tale. If so, a great sendoff. Good read.

Also re-read Critical Space [not pictured] as I do every so often. Great airplane reading from summer vacation. My favorite of Rucka's Atticus Kokiak novels. Just awesome.

Indeed... both make equal sense.

Though the one on the left is funnier.

Watched this week...

Holidays in the US meant not a lot of new TV, hence, a bunch of documentary catch up watching...

ST Voyager S7 - man, I kept hoping it would break out of mediocre, but sadly it only rarely did. Oh well, all done now.

Lie to Me, Castle, House, NCIS, V, Modern Family, Misfits

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard - for such an A list cast - Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms, Ving Rhames, James Brolin, a cameo by Will Ferrell - this flick was really not all that good. Can't point out why, exactly... writing? The directing/editing? Dunno, but it was only so-so. Bits of funny among the "eh."

ONE: The Movie is "an independent documentary about the meaning of life... starring Deepak Chopra, Robert Thurman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, et al." Interesting, though I was hoping there'd be something more... though I don't know what.


Us Now - a documentary film project "about the power of mass collaboration, the government and the Internet." This was quite good, and nicely optimistic. The whole documentary is available on YouTube.


Good Hair - "2009 American documentary comedy film produced by Chris Rock Productions and HBO Films, starring and narrated by comedian Chris Rock... The film focuses on African American women's hair, including the styling industry surrounding it, the acceptable look of African American women's hair in society, and the effects of both upon African American culture." Wow, as a corollary to the "geez, people are screwed up" theorem, the things black women do for their hair is straight insane. Dug the documentary though.


2012: Science or Superstition. You know, I've read Mckenna, Pinchbeck, Marrs and a bunch of other of the 2012 stuff, and it's interesting, I just don't know that I buy any of it at all. Too much like the rapture for New Agers. Cloaked and covered in bunches of judeo-christian guilt and claptrap. Golden ages, Edens, wraths of gods and whatnot. Bah. Documentary was well put together though.

Perceptive.

Overheard Everywhere | ...So, No-- I'd Just Cheat on You with One.:

"Girlfriend: Would you ever date a playboy bunny?
Boyfriend, after long pause: I feel like this is a trap.

UMass Dorm
Amherst, Massachusetts"