Training.

2/11 - MMA Conditioning - elbow combos, thai pads - band throws - hip toss drill - kicks, thai pads -  med ball ab work - 3 laps - 2x max chins/pulls

Bodybuilding.com - Body Transformation: Crawling Out Of The Hole:

"Keep Up" - that's awesome.

Facebook Win.

Training.

2/10 - 50x per exercise/as many sets as req - pushups, bw rows/rings, dips, chins, hyperx, kettlebell swings, air squats

Pics below via Fitness Fabulous

"This picture means a lot to both me and the girlfriend - that we are continuously getting better and not getting sucked into mediocrity." 

Effective argument.

Much more likely.

Kick Ass Tattoo.

Best. Jungle Book. Cover. Ever.

Bonus points for epic beard guy on the ukulele.  Via BoingBoing.

Training.

2/9 - assisted muscle ups x5, bar dips x10
PruFit - assisted bw squats/kneeups, curb skips, dips, pushups, situps - cooldown lap - chins 2x max reps
2/8 - GTG ring dips x2, wg pull ups x3, grip compressions x4
2/7 - weighted chins, weighted dips, db dl - all 25 reps as many sets as needed
2/6 - sick day
2/5 - rest/off

Awesome work - Bodybuilding.com - Body Transformation: The Mom With The Dragon Tattoos 

Sengalese Wrestlers = Impressive. 

"I see no profit in assuming pre-ordained failure and general disaster..."

Robert Anton Wilson – 2 | Mavericks of the Mind:

"I see no profit in assuming pre-ordained failure and general disaster. I assume the unknown future remains unknown, so why not try for the best we can imagine?"

Work in progress.

This - "What do you think happens to consciousness after physical death?"

Robert Anton Wilson | Mavericks of the Mind:

"DJB: What do you think happens to consciousness after physical death?

ROBERT: Somebody asked a Zen master, “What happens after death?” He replied, “I don’t know.” And the querent said, “But you’re a Zen master!” He said, “Yes, but I’m not a dead Zen master.” Somebody asked Master Eckart, the great German mystic, “Where do you think you’il go after death?” He said, “I don’t plan to go anywhere.” Those are the best answers I’ve heard so far. My hunch is that consciousness is a non-local function of the universe as a whole, and our brains are only local transceivers. As a matter of fact, it’s a very strong hunch, but I’m not going to dogmatize about it.

DJB: Could you share with us any experiences you might have had communicating with what you thought to be extraterrestrial or non-human entities?

ROBERT: I’ve had a lot of experiences with what could be interpreted as extraterrestrial communications. They could also be interpreted as ESP, or as accessing parts of my brain that are normally not available, or as contacting a non-local consciousness that permeates everything. There are a lot of different models for this type of experience. I got fascinated by the extraterrestrial model at one stage in the early seventies, and still, every now and then, it makes more sense to me than any of the others.

Other times the non-local model makes more sense, which is a development of Bell’s Theorem. This was stated most clearly by Edwin Harris Walker in a paper called The Complete Quantum Anthropologist. He developed a mathematical theory of a non-local mind, to which we can gain access at times. It’s a complete quantum mechanical, mathematical model to explain everything that happens in mystical and occult experience."

Ah, yes - "Catholic education employs both psychologocal and physical terrorism..."

QFT - Robert Anton Wilson – 2 | Mavericks of the Mind:

"Catholic education employs both psychologocal and physical terrorism: threats of “Hell” and physical abuse. But they never stopped me from thinking - just from saying what I thought."

"All you unsaved trash out there don't know what constitutes a Bible based marriage."

"...Let's recap the Lord's idea of the perfect marriage.  It is between one man and his sister.  And her rapist.  Kitchen condiment.  Gal who's kidnapped and raped.  A few more women and an adulterer.  And a pack of raped whores.   700 wives.  300 concubines.  And the help.  And a son who has murdered his brother.  But it is not between one man and another man.  Because that would be immoral."

"Mind Control Made Easy."

Awesome.  And funny.  Brainwashing 101.  Obvious usages - religion, politics, military.

"Since the death of god, there's been a vacancy opened.  You can fill that void.  Here's how...


Structure your cult like an onion with the most benign and helpful features on the outside and the most controlling, kookie and evil parts at the secret inner core....

Are you trying to recruit me?
 No, I'm just trying to share something meaningful with you.

Establish front groups:
 We are a bible study group.
We are a management course.
We are a meditation center.
We are a world peace organization.
We are a personality development center.
We are a drug rehab center.

You can join us and be special.

 Diminish doubt and commiseration by separating your new recruits from each other.
Surround them with happy true believers, so when in doubt they will tend to do what everyone around them is doing and believe that is normal...

After they have bonded, slowly start making your demands upon them, the message being nothing in this world has value unless it relates to the leader or the ultimate purpose.

Control their behavior.
Come live with us.
Wear these clothes.
Eat this food.
All you need is two hours' sleep.
Prescribe a rigid schedule
THOUGHT-STOPPING RITUALS FUND RAISING INDOCTRINATION ACTIVITIES
MENIAL LABOR - CONFESSIONALS FASTING - COLD SHOWERS - ALL-NIGHT VIGILS  Keep them active and with as little sleep as possible.

Control their emotions and use guilt:
 You are not living up to your potential.
And fear:
The enemy will electroshock you, torture you, kill you, or carry you off to hell.
Control information.

Induce trance states and self-hypnosis by practicing thought-stopping rituals and repetitive acts like dancing, spinning, singing
Overbreathing and chanting
Revert them back to childhood dependence and mindless obedience.
Encourage separation from their family.
Your friends and family probably won't understand.

If you can't recruit your friends, cut off from them.
Stop wasting time with non-believers.

Encourage dependency and conformity and discourage autonomy and individuality.
The whole purpose must be the focus, the self purpose must be subordinated!

 Have confessionals where people demonize their early lives and only praise their lives in the group.

Isolate them from the rest of the world. make them feel part of a special elite group with an important mission.
Monuments and historical landmarks will someday be erected to commemorate us and our sacrifices.
Tighten your group bond by defining scapegoats and enemies.
Demonize outsiders as less than human, biased, corrupt or conspiring against the group.
Develop an US-versus-THEM mentality... "

"Run!"

Bob Pugh is a freelance reporter who was one of the first on scene at the Pentagon on 9/11.

Odd synchronicity, that.

undicisettembre: An Interview with Bob Pugh, Pentagon Eyewitness:

"When I arrived I truly expected to see aircraft wreckage since planes were used in New York and that is what I was hearing on the fire radios. I saw no tail, no wings, no seats, no engines, no luggage, no bodies...  nothing that I could describe as part of an aircraft. The largest piece I saw was about the size of an open laptop, 1/2 meter by 1/2 meter... In the "Loose Change" interview I said I could smell the fuel burning. Again I assumed it was an aircraft that hit the building and proceeded with that assumption. The construction trailer that was burning adjacent to the impact was full of combustibles and in my early video can be heard secondary explosions, perhaps some sort of fuel stored in the trailer. Add to that the diesel exhaust from the fire trucks and the exhaust from the arriving helicopters and there was definitely an odor in the area. Again I was acting on information from others and my own senses.

The witnesses I spoke to said they saw an aircraft; some had varying descriptions of the plane. It was VERY busy there and my instinct was to capture as much of the action as I could. I swept from the attempted rescuers gathering at the heliport to the fire fighting. I had little time to ponder the causes of what I was seeing. All I knew was there had definitely been some sort of disaster there.
I am a very detailed person. I look for specifics when I shoot news video. I know the value of providing complete information. I know that it is widely accepted that the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon but from the details I personally saw I cannot attest to that fact. I am open to all views and I can argue both sides but I am unable to swear that I KNOW the crash was caused by a plane. It's a troubling position to be in but it's my position."

"God to most people means a grouchy old man sitting on a cloud, counting all the kids who are masturbating so he can put them in hell later on."

Robert Anton Wilson: DOUBT:

"...although I don't be­lieve in anything too fervently, I do tend to believe in some kind of mind behind the cosmos. I don't like calling it God, because God to most people means a grouchy old man sitting on a cloud, counting all the kids who are masturbating so he can put them in hell later on. That's so ridiculous that I can't use the word at all. But I don't believe that everything happened by acci­dent. I just can't believe that - to use a metaphor adapted from Arthur Koestler - if you keep throwing junk over a wall for seven million years, you'll get a 747 jet in full working order. I can't believe that; I think there's intelligence somewhere in evolution.

...I don't like the terms "good" and "evil" at all. They invoke too much sub­jectivity disguised as objectivity. I would rather talk about kindness and cruelty. They're a little more clear-cut and specif­ic about what you're talking about. You get shady areas, you get some ambiguity, but by and large, when you say you're in favor of kindness and against cruelty, you're setting up a standard. When you say you're for good and against evil, you're like the cler­gyman in the story about Cal Coolidge. After church somebody asked him, “What was the sermon on, Cal?" "He was against sin." It's easy to be against sin and evil; what the hell do you mean? I'm against cruelty. That's more clear.

Kinney: Do you think there's any source of malevolence or cruelty larger than hu­manity itself- say, built into the universe as a force or a seductive tendency?

Wilson: I don't believe in that; I find that very dubious...  I'm more inclined to look at it in the Buddhist way: it's more igno­rance than malignancy. As a matter of fact, Ezra Pound got around to that at the end of his life after raving and ranting about conspiracies for so many years; toward the end of the Cantos he keeps repeating"Nicht Basheit - Drurmrheit": "not evil - stupidity." Which was his ultimate judgment on what was wrong.

...I'm astounded by the extent to which people are governed by almost meaningless slogans that are repeated over and over again. They don't seem to have much content at all, but you just keep hearing them over and over again, like "the liberal media." You break down what's in most of the media, and how the hell it could possibly be considered liberal is beyond my comprehension.

And yet I know what they're getting at, the people who talk that way. What they're talking about is that the media tends to be liberal on one issue and one issue only, and that's sexual morality. And to these people that's the most important issue. So therefore the defining characteristic of the media is liberalism. Never mind the fact that the media is conservative on almost all economic and political ideas..."

"My morality derives from the world I will to exist."

21C Magazine - Robert Anton Wilson:

"Nietzsche gave me the problem I’ve wrestled with all my life, which is: Why do I choose one course as better than another? He undermined all my traditional morality and yet I haven’t become a mass murderer, so I must have a morality, but what’s it based on?

I’ve struggled with that problem all my adult life and although I don’t claim to have solved it, I think I’m beginning to shed some light on it after decades of mulling it over. My morality derives from the world I will to exist. The concept that all men are created equal is obviously not true – some are taller, some write better poetry, etcetera – but that concept represents an affirmation of a certain type of will, the democratic will, which Nietzsche didn’t like, whereas I do. This allows me to be a First Amendment absolutist even though I’m a relativist philosophically; I will a world in which there are no interferences with freedom of expression. I don’t claim I can prove that such a world should exist, just that I wish it existed. That’s how you can be an absolutist and a relativist at the same time."

Today's education, in pictures.

 

"To me, God will always just be..."

"...the maps we create are more telling of the individual interacting with an experience, than the experience acting upon an individual."

RAW Week: Interviews with Douglas Rushkoff, RU Sirius, David Jay Brown, Phil Farber, and Antero Alli, by Propaganda Anonymous - Boing Boing:

"Wilson described himself as a "model agnostic," who utilized "maybe logic." In other words, Bob was of the opinion that the maps we create -- i.e. mathematical formulas, words written down or spoken, pieces of art, etc. -- are more telling of the individual interacting with an experience, than the experience acting upon an individual. Therefore, it made very little sense to him to speak about this universal "law" or that absolute Truth. Bob believed that everyday language should and could integrate the 20th Century scientific discoveries in mathematics and physics, that it would be most wise to drop our attachments to Aristotelian either/or logic, the Euclidean "left/right" dichotomy applied to politics, and all the other medieval philosophic detritus clogging perceptions and causing confusion. Hence, a model agnostic, utilizing maybe logic..."

Paradigm Shift - Robert Anton Wilson:

"Since NLP was developed from modeling effective language, that makes sense. Apart from writing skills, have you been playing with it in other ways? Accessing altered states or otherwise changing brains?

RAW: Of course. Chiefly, I use it to relax and stop worrying -- two things I need to work on these days, due to medical problems afflicting people near and dear to me. I use a combination Sufi listening exercise (which gets you into relaxation and near trance) and Bandler's mighty mantra, which you repeat every time you start going back into worry or anxiety. The mantra is slow and spaced and it says to the voice of worry, "Shut     the     fuck     up."  After a few tries you get very good at making that damned voice shut the fuck up."

Cooking/Food Log.

Not the best week in the world, all around, on the personal discipline front.  While I managed to grind out all the workouts I'd planned and stayed on point with that, dietary decisions were all over the place due to, ostensibly, a handful of social occasions  - but realistically, because I couldn't be bothered/had the willpower/delayed gratification abilities of a small child.  So there's that.  This week/every day always another opportunity to regroup, retrench, do better.  Onwards.

The Good - the part where I stuck to my plan...

The [not too] Bad - if I'm going to eat stuff out of pocket, white rice is probably the least harmful of the grains/carbs.  Bacon wrapped food, while counting as real food/paleo had way too many carbs if I'm serious about cutting more weight/fat/not treading water at my current levels.

And the Ugly - beer, carbs, sugar, chocolate and deep fried stuffs..  Not pictured - wide swaths of pizza as well.

Prepped for my lovely wife.  New cafeteria at work, work related  dinners and nights out w/friends kept this minimal...

Some real life examples/dietary choices and aging...