Today's Internets - "Only after disaster can we be resurrected."

“It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.” - Chuck Palahniuk

Ninth Circuit Rules Government Agents Need Reasonable Suspicion to Search Laptops, Other Property at Border Checkpoints - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "The Ninth Circuit Court’s handed down a ruling limiting the power of government agents to search your property at border checkpoints."

Eric Holder Makes it Clear DOJ’s Culture — Not the Prosecutor — Is the Problem in Swartz Case - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "The issue is not whether a few months is an appropriate sentence for Swartz’s crimes but rather whether hanging the possibility of several years over the young man’s head in order to essentially force him to take a plea deal for a relatively minor crime is appropriate. Cornyn went on to explain to Holder the “bullying” component of the Department of Justice’s behavior and the overall scariness for an average citizen to be targeted by the federal government as a criminal, but it didn’t seem to register..."

Don 'The Dragon' Wilson Returning to the Ring | LiverKick.com: "Most guys at the age of 58 would enjoy their retirement from the ring and serve as an ambassador, just like Don has been doing, but true fighters can't resist the urge to compete, so compete he must. Don announced yesterday that he'll be fighting a 10-round non-title Kickboxing bout this fall in Istanbul under the IKF banner and that he'll be flying out on March 19th for a press conference to make everything official."

FML: "Today, I showed my wife an article about how frequent orgasms can prevent prostate cancer, as well as increase both partners' overall health. She replied that she wouldn't judge me if I masturbated, as long as I don't use porn. FML"

A Cat May Look At A King, But A Citizen May Not Criticize A Cop | Popehat: "...the state has no moral authority to demand adherence to laws that its own agents refuse to follow."

A Cat May Look At A King, But A Citizen May Not Criticize A Cop | Popehat: "Your approach should be to try to live your life, as much as possible, without giving them one minute of your time. If they want to talk to you, you should ask, “Am I being detained, or arrested?” If they say “no,” then you walk away. If they tell you that you cannot leave, then you stay put, but don’t talk to them. Because they aren’t following the law when they detain you for no reason. And if the government will not follow the law, there is no reason why anyone else should. Let me repeat that: If the government will not follow the law, there is no reason why anyone else should. So this is the proposal I set forth: To the government, you can start following the law, or none of us will. To everyone else, if the government will not follow the law, you should stop pretending law means anything."

A Cat May Look At A King, But A Citizen May Not Criticize A Cop | Popehat: "The Fresno County Sheriff's Department represents the heartland of law enforcement thought about criticism, dissent, monitoring, and attempts to impose accountability upon the people who are privileged by the law to arrest and/or kill us. That is a heartland where people who inquire how to file a complaint against police are threatened, reviled, and abused. That is a heartland where cops argue that monitoring them is a threat or that it is a crime and are willing to arrest you on ludicrous pretexts to stop it. That is a heartland where law enforcement thinks that discussing your constitutional rights when confronted by them is evidence of criminality.

That is a heartland where cops think they have a right not to be mocked and a right to expect you'll shut your fucking mouth, where writing something they don't like is an occasion for a knock on your door in the dead of night. This is a heartland where challenging the cops' actions makes you a suspect and a target. This is a heartland where cops feel they should have the right to use any amount of force against you they see fit, even if normal non-sociopathic people would find that use of force wanton and freakish.

This heartland survives — and thrives — because the media is too often a pliant lapdog to law enforcement, and because the populace — lulled by generations of cop shows and law and order rhetoric and statistics-defying fear peddled by the media — either likes it or doesn't give a shit."

Training.

3/9 - P90X2 D27 X2 Yoga

BOOM. - A Revolutionary Study | Iron Man Magazine: "The study, as incredulous as it may sound, revealed that strength training can actually reverse the aging process."

Training.

3/8 - Russian Pullup Program D16 16/14/14/12/10 -- P90X2 D26 Base + Back

Today's Internets Cornucopia.

Science of hair testing for drugs questioned in Boston cop case; cocaine blamed on cookies, donuts - Boing Boing: "Six police officers in Boston who were fired after testing positive for cocaine use will be reinstated, with back pay, now that a state board has struck down the science of hair testing for drugs as 
unreliable. The ruling could have broad impact on drug testing for city workers, and other populations routinely subjected to a form of drug screening in which snips of hair are analyzed for tell-tale traces of illegal substances."

4m of hilarious cruelty.

Truth.

WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR, John Yoo to Rand Paul: Leave Barack Obama Alone on Targeted Killing!: "When John Fucking Yoo is on your side, you are on the wrong side, Mister President."

WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR, HAVE ALL MY UPVOTES FOREVER.:

Cool.

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: At the heart of most of that research was the implicit assumption that the results revealed evolved psychological traits common to all humans, never mind that the test subjects were nearly always from the industrialized West. Henrich realized that if the Machiguenga results stood up, and if similar differences could be measured across other populations, this assumption of universality would have to be challenged. Henrich had thought he would be adding a small branch to an established tree of knowledge. It turned out he was sawing at the very trunk. He began to wonder: What other certainties about “human nature” in social science research would need to be reconsidered when tested across diverse populations?"

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: "A MODERN LIBERAL ARTS education gives lots of lip service to the idea of cultural diversity. It’s generally agreed that all of us see the world in ways that are sometimes socially and culturally constructed, that pluralism is good, and that ethnocentrism is bad. But beyond that the ideas get muddy. That we should welcome and celebrate people of all backgrounds seems obvious, but the implied corollary—that people from different ethno-cultural origins have particular attributes that add spice to the body politic—becomes more problematic. To avoid stereotyping, it is rarely stated bluntly just exactly what those culturally derived qualities might be. Challenge liberal arts graduates on their appreciation of cultural diversity and you’ll often find them retreating to the anodyne notion that under the skin everyone is really alike."

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: "Subjects from more than a dozen cultures were tested, and Americans were at the far end of the distribution—seeing the illusion more dramatically than all others. More recently psychologists had challenged the universality of research done in the 1950s by pioneering social psychologist Solomon Asch. Asch had discovered that test subjects were often willing to make incorrect judgments on simple perception tests to conform with group pressure. When the test was performed across 17 societies, however, it turned out that group pressure had a range of influence. Americans were again at the far end of the scale, in this case showing the least tendency to conform to group belief."

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: "As Heine, Norenzayan, and Henrich furthered their search, they began to find research suggesting wide cultural differences almost everywhere they looked: in spatial reasoning, the way we infer the motivations of others, categorization, moral reasoning, the boundaries between the self and others, and other arenas. These differences, they believed, were not genetic. The distinct ways Americans and Machiguengans played the ultimatum game, for instance, wasn’t because they had differently evolved brains. Rather, Americans, without fully realizing it, were manifesting a psychological tendency shared with people in other industrialized countries that had been refined and handed down through thousands of generations in ever more complex market economies."

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: "When people are constantly doing business with strangers, it helps when they have the desire to go out of their way (with a lawsuit, a call to the Better Business Bureau, or a bad Yelp review) when they feel cheated. Because Machiguengan culture had a different history, their gut feeling about what was fair was distinctly their own. In the small-scale societies with a strong culture of gift-giving, yet another conception of fairness prevailed. There, generous financial offers were turned down because people’s minds had been shaped by a cultural norm that taught them that the acceptance of generous gifts brought burdensome obligations. Our economies hadn’t been shaped by our sense of fairness; it was the other way around."

Nobody's the same, everything is made up. - Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: "...much of what social scientists thought they knew about fundamental aspects of human cognition was likely only true of one small slice of humanity."

The 70's were different.

Training.

3/7 - Russian Pullup Program D15 16/14/12/12/10 -- P90X2 D25 X2 Shoulders + Arms & X2 Ab Ripper -- glute bridge x30

Impressive work - HEALTHYLICIOUS LIVING | buffyshot: sculpt-that-body: The incredible...:

Overly Manly Man Judges You.

Today's Internets - "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space, everything else is opinion." - Democritus

Well played, Kim Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian At Oscars: Glowing In White | WebProNews: "Though lately I’ve been watching shows like I’m Pregnant and Addicted to Meth. It definitely makes me feel better if I’m wanting one sip of Diet Coke or, you know, too much sugar. I’m like, This woman is on meth.”"

Hawaiian libertarian: Heart Check: "I finally paid a visit to an establishment I saw featured on the Tell-A-Vision a couple of years ago - The Heart Attack Grill. Love that place. It is the only burger joint for which I've eaten at in the past 4 years or so. It was quite the entertaining dining experience, and one for which I enjoyed completely...

"Wait, isn't this the guy telling all of us we should quit eating at McDonalds, Burger King and Jack in the Box?" Yup, that would be me. But this place? I love the entire theme. It essentially sticks the middle finger at the conventional wisdom of the modern health and medial fields entire set of dietary guidelines THEY would have us all follow...

...fries, deep fried in lard, like they typically used to be before the federally subsidized, Big Ag's round up ready vegetable and grain oils became ubiquitous? YESSSS! A quadruple bypass burger stacked with 4 1/4 lbs. patties of beef, tomatoes, onions, bacon, and cheddar cheese? Oh yeeeeaaaah baby!! Heart Attack? Not from the food... I broke the whole mound apart and ate everything except for the bun, Atkins-diet style (not because I wanted to eat low carb, but rather because I know that most commercially baked hamburger bun products are made with white flour and hydrogenated vegetable oils -- aka margarine). Unless the lard used to make the french fries was hydrogenated, I am almost certain that the hamburger bun was probably the only truly unhealthy component of the whole meal.

The entire raison d'etre of the H.A.G. is to flaunt the dietary health and nutrition recommendations of the establishment. It's the literal manifestation of some of the more intense Western allopathic medicine detractors: Go to the Doctor's, listen to their recommendations, than go home and do the exact opposite. That's not too far off from the truth."

Ha.  Ha.

Don't Expect That Orson Scott Card Superman Story Any Time Soon - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors: "Yesterday Chris Sprouse announced that he was no longer willing to draw the Superman story by Orson Scott Card appearing in the upcoming Superman Adventures. DC stated that they were pulling the strip until they could find a replacement artist. I understand that this may never happen. That, basically, there is no “hurry” to find a replacement artist… and that the people involved with putting the comic together simply weren’t aware of Orson Scott Card’s activist membership. I mean, I was. I’m sure you were. But, it seems not everyone was. They are now, obviously."

Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think | Science | The Observer: "Neuroscience has entered the public consciousness, and changed the way we talk about ourselves. But much of what passes as knowledge is inaccurate...

... a great deal of psychology research has shown that we tend not to have a good insight into why we make certain choices. In one of the many studies in the area, Lars Hall and colleagues gave people a survey about their moral beliefs but used sleight of hand to change the choices they had originally made. When asked to justify the beliefs they hadn't endorsed, more than two-thirds of people didn't notice the switch and happily gave reasons for why they supported the opposite of their original position. Folk psychology tells us that we can accurately explain our actions and, consequently, many people think that these well-validated psychological effects never apply to them or simply don't exist. Suggesting that someone may not fully know their own actions and that their post-event justifications might be improvised simply won't wash in everyday conversation.

...Brightly coloured brain scans are a media favourite as they are both attractive to the eye and apparently easy to understand but in reality they represent some of the most complex scientific information we have. They are not maps of activity but maps of the outcome of complex statistical comparisons of blood flow that unevenly relate to actual brain function. This is a problem that scientists are painfully aware of but it is often glossed over when the results get into the press...

FOLK NEUROSCIENCE 

Popular misconceptions 

■ The "left-brain" is rational, the "right-brain" is creative The hemispheres have different specialisations (the left usually has key language areas, for example) but there is no clear rational-creative split and you need both hemispheres to be successful at either. You can no more do right-brain thinking than you can do rear-brain thinking. 

■ Dopamine is a pleasure chemical Dopamine has many functions in the brain, from supporting concentration to regulating the production of breast milk. Even in its most closely associated functioning it is usually considered to be involved in motivation (wanting) rather than the feeling of pleasure itself.

■ Low serotonin causes depression A concept almost entirely promoted by pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s and 90s to sell serotonin-enhancing drugs like Prozac. No consistent evidence for it. 

■ Video games, TV violence, porn or any other social spectre of the moment "rewires the brain" Everything "rewires the brain" as the brain works by making and remaking connections. This is often used in a contradictory fashion to suggest that the brain is both particularly susceptible to change but once changed, can't change back. 

■ We have no control over our brain but we can control our mind The mind and the brain are the same thing described in different ways and they make us who we are. Trying to suggest one causes the other is like saying wetness causes water.

APE IN A CAPE

A First Draft of the Third War - By Micah Zenko | Foreign Policy: "...in general, there is relative indifference to the history of America's Third War -- the 10-year campaign of over 400 targeted killings in non-battlefield settings that have killed an estimated 3,500 to 4,700 people. And that is puzzling, particularly since they have become a defining feature of post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy."

SO.  MUCH.  THIS.

I am a creationist. God was created by man.:

Fuck the NYPD, basically.

Carrying Condoms is Evidence of a Crime, Says NYPD - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "The NYPD will arrest you for carrying condoms, but that depends entirely on who you are. If you're a middle-class white girl like me, you're probably safe. But say you're a sex worker or a queer kid kicked out of your home. Say you're a  trans woman out for dinner with your boyfriend. Maybe you've been arrested as a sex worker before. Maybe some quota-filling cop thinks you look like a whore...

And yes, arrest is always a big deal, even if you don't end up convicted: Arrest is always violent. The NYPD may or may not break your ribs, but the process of arrest in America is still a man tying your hands behind your back at gunpoint and locking you in a cage. Holding cells are shit-encrusted boxes, often too crowded to sit down. Police can leave you there for three days; long enough to lose your job. If this seems obvious, I say it because the polite middle classes trivialize arrest. They talk about "keeping people off the streets." They don't realize that the constant threat of arrest is traumatic, unless it happens to them or their kids."

Richard Kadrey's Damn Tumblr: 

"I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room." -  Ray Bradbury

Details at the links...

9 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight | Mark's Daily Apple:
1. You’re engaging in too much mindless eating.
2. You’re eating too many “pleasure foods.”
3. You’re eating too little.
4. You’re under “hidden stress.”
5. You’re too focused on diet to the exclusion of all else.
6. You’re getting too much exercise.
7. Your macronutrients and training are mismatched.
8. Your eating schedule is too disordered.

9. You’re actually at a healthy weight and your body is “keeping” you from dropping any more.

17 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight | Mark's Daily Apple:

1. You think you’re eating healthy, but aren’t.

2. You’re under too much stress.

3. You need to watch your carb intake.

4. You’re adding muscle.

5. You’re not active enough.

6. You’re lapsing into Chronic Cardio.

7. You still haven’t tried IF.

8. You’re eating too much.

9. You haven’t overcome bad habits or developed good ones.

10. You haven’t purged and Primalized your pantry.

11. You’ve reached a healthy homeostasis.

12. You’re low on willpower.

13. You’re full of excuses.

14. You haven’t actually gone Primal!

15. You’re not getting enough sleep.

16. You haven’t given it enough time.

17. You’re eating too much dairy.

Bonus Reason: Sprinting is not part of your fitness routine.

On The Job Training: "Rooney Rule:  Success in life can be measured as the amount of time you spend doing what makes you happy with people that make you happy."

Taylor Swift Said Tina Fey & Amy Poehler Are Going To Hell For Making Fun Of Her. They Responded. - The Superficial - Because You're Ugly: "Tina and Amy each responded with two to three sentences that are way more entertaining than anything Taylor Swift will ever write about getting dumped again. So here’s Amy who was reached for comment first by The Hollywood Reporter: “Aw, I feel bad if she was upset. I am a feminist, and she is a young and talented girl. That being said, I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff.” And Tina who Entertainment Tonight got a hold of: “If anyone was going to get mad at us, I thought it would be James Cameron. I did not see that one coming. It was a joke. It was a lighthearted joke.”

And while both of those responses were awesome (Who doesn’t enjoy a quote that suggests James Cameron is more likely to burst into tear than Taylor Swift?), I like how neither one pointed out Taylor Swift thinks making a joke about her serial dating should damn a person to burning in eternal hellfire."

I am not smart, because even after researching all these, I still don't quite understand them.

kateoplis - 11 Emerging Scientific Fields That Everyone Should Know About: 

"1. Neuroparasitology 

2. Quantum Biology 

3. Exo-meteorology 

4. Nutrigenomics 

5. Cliodynamics 

6. Synthetic Biology 

7. Recombinant Memetics 

8. Computational Social Science 

9. Cognitive Economics 

10. Organic Electronics 

11. Quantitative Biology"

Good primer here - 11 Emerging Scientific Fields That Everyone Should Know About

WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR, Only Obama can enact the shit GOP ideas that the public just rejected. Austerity now. Insanity later: "But this guy, who refuses to hold the torturers and Wall Street criminals accountable (but punishes whistleblowers) claims the right to assassinate any American, anywhere, without due process (but won’t tell Americans why), and cares more about making a deal with  a party that refuses to accept anything other than what a Romney presidency would have given us (something resoundingly rejected by voters)? This guy sucks. At this point, Occam’s Razor says that Barack Obama isn’t getting rolled or negotiating against himself. Occam’s Razor says that he is this guy, and that’s a profound disappointment."

IN.

All religions are like this, basically.  Looks like a fascinating documentary.

George Carlin, nothing but truth.

"Swearing on the bible.  You understand that shit?

...Suppose they hand you an upside down backwards Chinese Braille bible with half the pages missing.  At what point does all of this stuff just break down and become a lot of stupid shit somebody made up?  It's fucking make-believe.

...What is the big deal about swearing 'to god' in the first place?  Why does swearing to god mean you're going to tell the truth?  Wouldn't affect me.  If they said to me, 'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god?"  I'd say, "Yeah.  I'll tell you about as much truth as the people who wrote that fucking bible.  How do you like that?"  Swearing on the bible doesn't mean anything...

Bible or no bible, god or no god, if it suits their purpose, people are going to lie in court.  The police do it all the time.  Yes, they do.  It's part of their job.  To protect, to serve and to commit perjury whenever it supports the state's case.

Swearing on the bible is just one more way of controlling people and keeping them in line and it's one more thing that holds us back as a species."

"Here's one more item, the last in our civics book - RIGHTS...

Folks, I hate to spoil your fun but there's no such thing as rights.  They're imaginary.  We made 'em up...

Rights are an idea.  They're just imaginary.  They're a cute idea.  Cute, but that's all.  Cute and fictional.  But if you do think you have rights, let me ask you this, where do they come from?  People say "Well, they come from god.  They're god given rights."  Oh, fuck, here we go again.  The god excuse.  The last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument - "It came from god."

...If you think you do have rights, one last assignment... in Wikipedia I want you to type in 'Japanese-Americans 1942' and you'll learn all about your precious fucking rights.

...110,000 Japanese-American citizens in good standing, law abiding people who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country.  That's all they did wrong.  No right to a lawyer.  No right to a fair trial.  No right to a jury of their peers.  No right to due process of any kind...

Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most, their government took them away.  And rights aren't rights if someone can take them away.  They're privileges.  That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges.  And if you read the news, even badly, you'd know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter and shorter.

Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them.  Government doesn't care about you or your children or your rights or your welfare or your safety.  It simply doesn't give a fuck about you.  It's interested in its own power, that's the only thing, keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.

...I lean toward unlimited rights.  I feel, for instance, I have the right to do anything I please.  But, if I do something you don't like, I think you have the right to kill me.  So where are you gonna find a fairer fucking deal than that?"

Today's Internets Shenanigans.

History is instructive.

Blood eagle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Blood Eagle was a method of torture and execution that is sometimes mentioned in Nordic saga legends. It was performed by cutting the ribs of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the wounds in the victim's back. Salt was sprinkled in the wounds."

What do you know about grass fed steaks, deep squats and deadlifts, son!?

"

God. Damn.

World Record Deadlift 1128 pounds- World's Strongest man - YouTube:

Ah, romance.

Craigslist-post-of-the-day - BroBible.com: "‘You Blew a Load On My Face and Stuck a $100 Bill On It’: The Best Craigslist Missed Connection Ever -- Here at BroBible we always try to help people find love, especially if one of those people is a down-on-her-luck chick who is searching high and low for..."

APE IN A CAPE:

Constitution? Due process? Rule of law? Posse Comitatus?

I give it 6 months before we learn of an "extraordinary circumstance" and drone assassinations being carried out in America. Or, you know, 'America.'

Obama Administration Says President Can Use Lethal Force Against Americans on US Soil | Mother Jones: "Yes, the president does have the authority to use military force against American citizens on US soil—but only in "an extraordinary circumstance," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday.  "The US Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening," Paul said Tuesday. "It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans.""

March 2013 Beta Of The Month | Chateau Heartiste: "Hi, My wife of 12 years and mother of 4 told me she wants a divorce because she has “fallen out of love” with me and can “never love me again.“ 

Where have we heard this before… oh yeah, everywhere. 

Last night she explained her life plan, that I would buy her a car and two condos so we could be divorced and neighbors. She said her online friends are doing it that way. 

...This “life plan” is a tidy encapsulation of the desire of women to extract emotional and financial resources from doting beta males while being free to pursue sexual resources from sexy alpha males. I love the “all our friends are doing it” appeal to popularity. Men use arguments to win the crowd. Women use the crowd to win arguments."

So close.

Sprouse Exits Orson Scott Card's "Adventures of Superman" Story - Comic Book Resources: "Orson Scott Card's digital-first "Adventures of Superman" story from DC Comics has sparked since its announcement -- and the latest developments are likely to cause even more discussion. According to USA Today, Chris Sprouse, the artist announced as drawing Card's Superman story, has chosen to exit the title due to the increased media attention surrounding both the author and his Superman story"

Truth.

Fit Girls Oh Yeah, Tumblr: Great Exercises for Toning........ Me:...: 

"Tumblr:Great Exercises for Toning........ 

Me:the fuck is toning?"

The Democracy Boondoggle in Iraq - By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy: "The U.S. spent billions promoting democracy in Iraq. Now the official verdict is in: It was all for nothing."

...Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki now runs a staunchly authoritarian state that, while not quite as vicious as Saddam's old dictatorship, certainly doesn't hesitate to crack down on its opponents. The media are largely under government control, and the government is happy to swoop down and make its opponents disappear on the pretext of a vaguely defined "war on terror." And yes, the local al Qaeda franchise is still active, blowing up people at random -- mostly, it would seem, for sectarian reasons: Maliki's ham-fisted rule is based on his roots in the country's Shiite majority, while al Qaeda still draws upon radical elements within the disenfranchised Sunni minority.

...As Carothers notes, though, "even occupying a country doesn't give you as much influence as you think." This error was compounded by the devastating American inability to comprehend Iraqi society in all of its complexity -- or to comprehend why the occupation was so despised. A common view holds that you can't "install democracy at gunpoint." The Iraq War's defenders contend that the West succeeded in doing just that that in occupied Germany and Japan in the wake of World War II. What this argument usually overlooks is that post-1945 efforts were meticulously planned, took place under good security conditions, and marshaled the expertise of an entire generation of administrators and social scientists -- factors that certainly didn't apply to the U.S. state-building exercise in Iraq after 2003."

Adaptation is specific.

T NATION | Knocks to the Weightlifting Head: "Want to see a bodybuilder's functional strength at work? Let's look at what happened in 1993 when Tom Platz and his epic quads had a friendly test of strength against Fred "Dr. Squat" Hatfield. Platz was well-known for his phenomenal leg development built by heavy squats, high-rep squats, and heavy squats for high reps. Hatfield, who earned the nickname "Dr. Squat" by successfully squatting well-over 1,000 pounds in several competitions, was clearly no slouch in lower body strength.

Yet, when the two legends had a "squat off" and each squatted 505 for max reps, Platz came out the clear winner, racking up 23 reps to Hatfield's 12. That, my friends, is why you don't challenge a bodybuilder to a weighted "max reps" contest. It's where their functional strength shines – performing multiple repetitions with a moderate to heavy load – and it's no coincidence that it also happens to be an ideal way to build muscle. However, earlier that day, when the two men compared their max squat for a single rep, guess what happened? Hatfield dominated by lifting 865 to Platz's 775 (supposedly with a spotter giving him more-than-a-little help out of the hole). Again, challenging a powerlifter to a one-rep max contest is not a good idea. Functional strength, fully demonstrated."

Awesome.

Richard Kadrey's Damn Tumblr:

Watching House of Cards, I could not help but think, "This is how politicians wish they were.  None of them are this competent."  Glad to see I wasn't alone.

Washington, DC: Capital of The Absurd - Reason.com: "Like most of this company town, I'm addicted to Netflix's Beltway "telenovela," House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey as a conspiratorial House majority whip. But the show unwittingly flatters D.C., depicting a city of ruthless, steely competence. The real thing is a clown show consumed by trivialities."

ECCC 2013 Photo Parade - Comic Book Resources:

Secretary of State Kerry: You Just Can't Expect the U.S. to Not Start Another War Forever - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Not content to further dig us into a Syrian quagmire, Secretary of State Kerry yesterday made it clear that the world can't reasonably expect us to avoid war with Iran forever if it doesn't do everything we want, according to this Reuters report.

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday there was "finite" time for talks between Iran and world powers on its disputed nuclear program to bear fruit, but gave no hint how long Washington may be willing to negotiate.  Israel, Iran's arch-enemy and convinced Tehran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, has grown impatient with the protracted talks and has threatened preemptive war against Tehran if it deems diplomacy ultimately futile...

When you are the hyperpower, "diplomacy" means "you do what we want without making us kill a bunch of people." The mad, backward Iranians, Kerry seems to worry, might not fully understand this.  See also Vice President Biden yesterday assuring the world that Obama is not bluffing with Iran, and Obama's ominious "We will do what is necessary" during his State of the Union speech last month, and, well, get ready for the mighty stimulating powers of war in the Middle East that made the '00s a happy dream for those of us stumbling though the '10s."

ECCC 2013 Photo Parade - Comic Book Resources:

Truth disguised as lulz.

Why So Ugly?: 

"So…why so ugly? First, let’s put aside the 1% on each side.  Hitting the genetic lottery for better or worse (deformities on one hand, and the model/beautiful types on the other) is not something you can control.  Once you accept that, the answer should be obvious.  It’s laziness.  The difference between an undateable and an average, and for that matter an average and an above-average, is lack of effort — not caring or doing enough with respect to your appearance.

Eat well?  Fast food is easier.  Go to the gym?  Nah that’s for vain people.  Dress nice?  My 12-year-old sweatshirt is just fine.  I simplify as there are other factors but the main culprit is laziness.  If a girl is out of shape she’s too lazy to exercise.  When a girl talks about chopping her hair off it’s because long hair “is just so hard to maintain!”  A guy has bad breath because he’s too lazy to floss and brush. These causes lead to certain effects.  Unhygienic men do not hit trendy bars on a Friday night.  Most girls sporting fat rolls do not have their iPhones blowing up with multiple gentlemen callers trying to connive themselves into their sweaty panties.

If you want to be desirable, all hope is not lost.  These categories are fluid and movement from one to another is common, absent the 1% mentioned above.  I will readily admit I’ve been undateable three separate times in my life, but after I ceased my laziness I escaped and now for good.  There are plenty of articles around on how to improve one’s looks and style, so I won’t comment much on it.  You can basically transform yourself in a day with some hygiene, decent clothes and a stylish haircut."

Mila Kunis confirms her cool chick status.

Ashton Kutcher Didn’t Drain All The Awesome Out of Mila Kunis. Yet. - The Superficial - Because You're Ugly: "Press junkets for movies are incredibly bland and boring, so here’s Mila Kunis promoting Oz The Great And Powerful on BBC Radio 1 where she finds out it’s her interviewer’s first time with a celebrity – Or a “famous,” in the Queen’s tongue. – and literally jumps at the chance to bail this kid out instead of doling out canned answers about the movie. In fact, at one point, her publicist tries to steer the conversation back to just that, only for Mila to rattle off her pre-written talking points and go right back to discussing steak pies and Jagerbombs with Hugh Grant Jr."