"Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind. It criminalizes the act of asking 'why?" - Cory Doctorow.

Peter Watts may serve two years for failing to promptly obey a customs officer - Boing Boing:

"That's apparently the statute: if you don't comply fast enough with a customs officer, he can beat you, gas you, jail you and then imprison you for two years. This isn't about safety, it isn't about security, it isn't about the rule of law. It's about obedience.

Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind. It criminalizes the act of asking 'why?' It is the obedience-sickness that turns good people into perpetrators and victims of atrocities great and small."

An educated jury would have gone with jury nullification -

"...the first Chief Justice of the United States, John Jay, wrote: "[i]t is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision… you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy". State Of Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1, 4 (1794)"

Random music I'm diggin' - Rev Theory & Mika.

Yes. This.

The Joe Rogan Guest Blog Experience, Day 2: We Are All Still Going to Die: The Q: GQ:

"I think another reason why we're all fascinated by this idea of an apocalypse is because there's this silent acknowledgement amongst folks that are even remotely paying attention that there's no fucking way we can keep this up. The way people are going in this world there's just no way we can sustain it. There's too fucking many of us, and we need too much to live the way we've got it set up now. Our industrial lifestyle is literally choking the planet with trash. There's an island of plastic and garbage floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, and you rarely hear a peep on the news about it, but they'll dedicate time day after day to report about a golfer that likes to have sex.

"President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize and then sends 30,000 more troops into an unwinnable war! That makes no sense!"
"I know, right? Crazy. Do you think Kate can really be on "Dancing with the Stars" and still be a good mom?"

We're fucking nuts, and deep down inside we all know we are fucking nuts. I think when many of us sit down and even try to think about the way the world is run today, it can really fuck your head up. It seems so crazy and so out of control that thinking about it too much can actually cause depression. When you take into account all the lessons we supposedly learned in Vietnam, and factor in the incredible access to information that's available today, and then think about the fact that we're involved in TWO wars that make even less fucking sense over 30 years later…it really is enough to make you want to quit. Any random night spent watching CNN makes me want to move to a beach house in Costa Rica just in time to watch the rest of the world blow up in the distance."

Karma.

Far be it from me to delight in another man's physical pain... but I will.

Madoff Was Beaten in Prison - WSJ.com:

"Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence in North Carolina for running a fraud scheme that cost investors billions of dollars, was physically assaulted by another inmate in December, according to three people familiar with the matter.

...Mr. Madoff was treated for a broken nose, fractured ribs and cuts to his head and face, according to a felon currently at Butner serving time on drug charges who was familiar with his condition at the time. The details of the injuries couldn't be independently verified.

...The former inmate said the dispute centered on money the assailant thought he was owed by Mr. Madoff."

Nothing is ever the way they told you.

The Secret Sun: The (Not-So) Secret History of Saint Patrick's Day:

"In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was killed on the 17th day of Athyr, the third month of the ancient calendar.

3/17 is also the date of a Masonically-created holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. The story has it that the holiday was established by high level Freemason, George Washington, allegedly to reward Irish soldiers in the Continental Army. But “St. Paddy’s” has traditionally been a very minor Saint’s day in Ireland. Considering that the day has become America’s defacto Bacchanal (which takes us back to Osiris) it’s worth noting some of the parallels of this day with Solar mythology.

• Osiris was believed to be the source of barley, which was used for brewing beer in Egypt.

• It’s customary to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and Osiris was known as the “Green Man"

There's going to be lots of kicking and explosions.

Want.

Training.

+ Atlas Lesson 1, towel 3D, Milo
+ P90X - 11 - X Stretch... supposed to be Yoga X today, but slid the wrong DVD in, and since I was running short on time anyways, just went with it.

"...a blunt truth: No law extends beyond the lawmaker’s power to enforce it."

Fred On Everything:

"[Washington] does as it likes, without restraint. It spends American money and American lives to fight remote wars for which it cannot provide a plausible reason. It determines what our children will be taught, who we can hire and fire, to whom we can sell our houses, whether we can defend ourselves, even what names we can call each other. The feds read our email and track the web sites we visit, make us hop around barefoot in airports at the command of surly unaccountable rentacops. They search us at random in train stations without even a pretense of probable cause. We have no influence over them, no way of resisting.

Except, perhaps, to ignore them.

Washington has learned to insulate itself from interference by the population. Huge impenetrable bureaucracies beyond public control make regulations that amount to laws, spending God knows how much money to do God knows what for the benefit of the interest groups that run the government. These bureaucrats cannot be fired and usually cannot be named. Congress, like the bureaucracies, serves not the United States but the big lobbies. The looters of Wall Street wreck the lives of millions, and get millions in bonuses for doing it instead of the end of a rope.

...The VA can easily take six months to provide a veteran’s records, when it could be done online in five seconds. The Pentagon spends a trillion a year, precious little of which has anything to do with defending America, but can’t defeat a small group of badly outnumbered men armed with rifles and RPGs; the intelligence agencies were unable to warn them of the prospect.

...The only remedy short of armed rebellion is civil disobedience at the level of the states. Clear constitutional justification for refusal to obey Washington lies in the Tenth Amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

...the entire question comes down to a blunt truth: No law extends beyond the lawmaker’s power to enforce it... The federal government made alcohol illegal but, in the face of massive public disregard, couldn’t make it stick.

What happens if, as may happen, California legalizes marijuana—not just for contrived medical purposes, but legalizes it, period? I search in vain for the Marijuana Clause in the Constitution. The feds do not have the manpower to enforce federal laws within California without the help of the police of California. What happens if a state passes a law saying that its citizens cannot be forced to buy health insurance? What can Washington do? It can persecute individuals, but a state, or thirty states, are another thing. The FBI can arrest any one person, but it cannot arrest Wyoming..."

Mark Valley's a West Point'er? I'll be damned.

Dug him on Boston Legal, and digging the new "based on a comic" Human Target. Who'da figured, another service academy grad...

Mark Valley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Born in Ogdensburg, New York, Valley is a 1987 graduate of the United States Military Academy with a degree in math and engineering"

Training.

Atlas Lesson 1
pull aparts/deep breathing/pull downs/pull aparts/towel 3D - 3x10
neck mobility + dynamic tension
P90X - 10 - Shoulders & Arms, Abs

On the End of the World - Joe Rogan guestblogging at GQ = Awesome.

Guest Bloggery: Joe Rogan On How We Will All Die: The Q: GQ:

"...my usual daily routine of getting online, reading one fucked up, bummer of a news story after the next, watching a few videos of UFO sightings, animal attacks, various loons predicting the apocalypse, and then of course ultimately... internet porn.

I usually turn to the porn when the reality of impending doom starts to really freak me the fuck out and I need a "release" as it were. Nothing takes the edge off the end of the world like the latest Lucy Thai clip on Youporn.

DOOM!

It's everywhere you look online; from the collapse of the dollar, to terrorism, to the reports of thousands of earth quakes occurring in Yellowstone National Park threatening to ignite the 600 kilometer wide super- volcano that erupts every 600,000 to 800,000 years and kills almost everything on the continent.

...Everywhere you look it's asteroids, and paranoids, and BAD AIDS. Just as a social engineering tool the internet porn is an incredibly important factor in keeping people docile. People argue that porn creates violence, but I usually think it's because unlike me, they've probably never run into someone desperately searching for something to jerk off too. You don't want to see that, trust me.

The biggest and most popular meme of doom online without a doubt is the end of the world date of December 21st, 2012. There are thousands of websites dedicated to it, as well as hundreds of books, and even one really retarded blockbuster movie...

In case you're one of those folks out there with "a life", the 2012 end of the world date is based on the end of the Mayan calendar. It's the end of the long count, and the beginning of a new age. What the Mayans actually meant by all that is mostly guesswork, but many have interpreted it to mean the end of humanity and possibly the end of the earth itself.

Like most doom and gloom subjects, the people that subscribe to the most terrifying scenarios are usually the ones most positive that they're correct. When you question why they believe this, they will invariably point out that the Mayans were and advanced civilization and that their Calendar was so accurate that it predicted eclipses a thousand years in the future. To which I usually say, "Guess what, we can do that too, and we're fucking retarded." We can't even predict the future of American Idol, and we can do a fuck load more than those stone age dummies could...

The Mayans regularly practiced human sacrifice and worshiped a snake with feathers that made the universe and flew here from another planet. When archeologists discovered their temples they had been abandoned for centuries. Some of the most amazing structures humans have ever created, and there was no one living in them. The Ancient Mayans were pretty cool, but they certainly weren't perfect.

...For all we know what these scholars are deciphering might just be 2,000 years ago's version of scientology."

Fellow Sherlockian, I approve.

Overheard in New York | Meet the Only Guy in the U.S. Who Liked Nights in Rodanthe:

"Girlfriend to boyfriend walking out of movie theater: That was kinda lame... I totally saw that ending coming.
Boyfriend: I don't know, I kind of liked it.
Girlfriend, raising voice: What do you mean you liked it?
Boyfriend: It was entertaining.
Girlfriend: Oh, so now you're gonna tell me that you liked it more than Sherlock Holmes?
Boyfriend: Actually, yeah...
Girlfriend, angry and yelling: What the fuck? What is wrong with you? I can't believe this!

--Outside Chelsea Clearview Cinema

Overheard by: J Wing"

A day of elementary school awesomeness...

C'mon, how cool is this?

This particular day at elementary school they were having a 'farewell and good luck' assembly for the this year's graduating 6th graders, which included an honored arch walk - Japan knows ceremony.


Then each of the grades paid their respects/thanks/well wishes in song, performance and music. It was, predictably, adorable. [Probably the only thing that bums me out about my computer crash last weekend was I lost the video I'd taken that day. Grrr. Argh.]
1st Graders.

2nd Graders.

The graduating 6th graders absolutely rocking out on the music - I love it when kids do taiko.

A candle lighting/passing the torch ceremony [I told you Japan knows ceremony.]



Also my last day this year at this school, and I finally played the legendary "Fruit Basket" game, fabled in the annals of the JET Programme, but I'd never actually done. More of a karuta, simon says, hot potato man, myself.

What a great class this year.

Time for lunch! [Child labor laws have no meaning in Japan.]

FEAR ME! Or find me adorable. Either one.

The Graduates of 2010.

Really an exceptional group of kids. Glad I got to see them graduate. [More pics from the last couple weeks soon, now that my computer is up and running again.]

Training.

Charles Atlas Lesson 1, P90X - 9 - Plyometrics

"Confining one's perception of reality to reality as perceived is counterproductive." - Dr. G. Morrison.

Via Doom Patrol #8, Keith Giffen. Comics rock.

Training.

P90X - 8 - Chest & Back, Abs.

[Yesterday - P90X - 7 - Rest.]