Training.

8/20 - Bas Rutten MMA Workout/Boxing/Shadowboxing - 10x2m rounds
8/19 - UBW - bench/pushups, rows/chins/hyperx, press/laterals/halos, curls, pushdowns/ovr x
8/18 - pushups, deep breathing, pull aparts, pulldown - circuit x4
8/17 - 20m treadmill intervals, leg press, calf raises, hyperx
8/16 - dips, pulldowns, flyes, row, pushdowns, curls, press/laterals, leg/knee raise, hyperx
8/15 - pushups, deep breathing, pulldowns, pull aparts, bi/tri DT, neck, hyperx, hip thrusts, twisting situps, hindu squats, air squats, calf raise, dislocates, pull aparts
8/14 - pushups/feet elevated - chins - hyperextensions - shoulder press - curls - tricep extensions - pull aparts - dislocates

Ron Paul - Jesus = Gary Johnson [with whom I seem to agree on damn near everything political.]

Gary Johnson Bets Big on New Hampshire - Reason Magazine:

"...Johnson also ran through his policy positions. “I believe fundamentally in the right for a woman to choose an abortion. I happen to believe in evolution.” He said that drug prohibition is the source of “75 percent of the violence” along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that “if we can’t connect the dots between prohibition and violence now, I don’t know that we ever will.” Johnson also dismissed the idea of building a wall (or a fence, or a moat) along the border, and called instead for a simplification of U.S. immigration policy, and for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers currently residing in the United States to receive work visas—”not green cards or citizenship.”

“I believe in global warming and that it’s man-made,” Johnson said. He doesn’t however, believe in regulatory schemes to reduce carbon emissions or greenhouse gases, saying that such policies would harm businesses while doing little to help the environment. Besides, he added cheekily, “in the future, the sun will grow to encompass the Earth. Global warming is in our future.”

Johnson reiterated that our involvement with Libya was a huge mistake, that the U.S. should leave Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, that the question of who will fill the power vacuums in those two countries will have to be answered sooner or later, and that the U.S. might as well answer it now. He also said that there is no reason the U.S. should have 100,000 troops in Europe, and that he would “have to have the case made to me that we need any troops there at all.”

“I would’ve never established the [Department of Homeland Security] or the [Transportation Security Administration],” Johnson said. “I would’ve left security to the airlines, and I dare say traveling today would still be as safe...

As for his first act as president, Johnson said that he would not rest until he’d passed a balanced budget. “We went to the moon, we can balance the federal budget.”

When he’d finished his speech, Johnson, ever the nice guy, opened the floor “for questions, comments, and any insults you may have.”

“Maybe as a result of today,” he said at the end of the Q&A, “you’ll walk out of here saying, ‘He doesn’t stand a chance, but I like what he has to say.’””

You know the whole game is rigged, right? - "Matt Taibbi: Senior SEC investigators order routine destruction of records, promote “self policing,” take jobs with the companies they “investigate.”"

Via BoingBoing:

"In his latest feature, he looks at the way that the SEC, America's financial regulator, has combined "self-policing" of criminal finance firms with a policy of destroying all records of previous investigations to produce an world in which no one has been punished for the vast financial crimes that brought the world to its knees..."

Truth - "Knowledge is power. The power to..."

Summer Vacation 2011, Phase IV - Endgame.

D.C. and Busch Gardens, VA.

Beer.  Sausage.  Awesome.

Super Happy Fun Dress Up Play Time!  [Baachan would be proud.]

Roller coasters are the best.

Fear Us.

More pictures here...  

"What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe."

I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian - CNN.com:

"...What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe. I don't know exactly how we got here, and I don't think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we'll get more, but I'm not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I'm not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof...

And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

President Obama sure looks and acts way smarter than me, but no one is 2 to the 300 millionth power times smarter than me. No one is even 2 to the 300 millionth times smarter than a squirrel...

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

People try to argue that government isn't really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment -- suggesting on CNN.com that someone not pay his or her taxes is probably a federal offense, and I'm a nut, but I'm not crazy.). When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force -- literally, not figuratively.

I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

How did we get here and how do we save everyone? I don't know, but I'm doing the best I can..."

Mmmm... philosophy.

"Dear Parents..." - You're not paying attention.

"Why I Won't Join Your Movement."

Summer Vacation 2011, Phase III - The Final Dimension.

My Japanese cousin wanted an "American" picture. Me, standing alone in an airport counts, apparently.

Turning my cousin into a Japanese Biker Gal.

Brownies and Beer. For dinner. Somewhere, 8 year old me is cheering. We did it, little dude. We did it.

Pizzapocalypse aftermath. Garden Fresh, All the Meats and a Hawaiian. Decadent, even.

Definitely making the trip back to Liberia in the luggage, umeshu for the Mrs and some nigorizake for me.

More pics here.