Training.

5/9 - chins x21/14/12, dips x15/12/12, glute bridge 2x30 -- P90X2 D81 PAP Lower

5/8 - P90X2 D80 PAP Upper

5/7 - P90X2 D79 PAP Lower

Today's Internets - "This is the bureaucratic mindset at it’s very base: until a bureaucrat passes a rule that says you have their permission to do something, it’s illegal."

Fat Head » The Older Brother’s notes from the sausage factory floor…: 

"Then, one of the raw milk producers who had been added after Donna started inquiring raised his hand and said “you didn’t explain why or how the decision was made that we even need a new regulation — how did that happen?” Then, the whole room erupted in cheers.  I slowly put my pen down and decided that it was going to be a good day. 

 Ms. Lamb: Um, well we decided. 

 Producer: How? 

 Ms. Lamb: Well, let’s move on…

At some point either right before or after this, Ms. Lamb helpfully pointed out (again, backed up with an authoritative Power Point slide) that since the Department had been statutorily given the authority to regulate dairies, and since there were currently no rules regulating raw milk, that meant that raw milk was really illegal. The slide literally had “no rule = illegal” on it. This is the bureaucratic mindset at it’s very base: until a bureaucrat passes a rule that says you have their permission to do something, it’s illegal.  She said this with a smile like that was going to clear things up, and let people know they were just trying to be helpful by passing some rules.  She seemed to be a bit surprised by the (politely contained) expressions of outrage and incredulity from the crowd...

There was also this: Producer: So, you’re directive is to regulate dairies? Ms. Lamb: Yes Producer: But the regulations define a “dairy” as an operation that collects milk from farming operations for processing and wholesale and retail sales. Ms. Lamb: Yes Producer: So, since that definition means none of us are dairies, you shouldn’t be regulating us. (audience: applause)

Once they got to the part where they were supposed to discuss actual rules — now just “suggestions for discussion,” mind you — it was exactly what you’d expect.  A bunch of rules related to massive, highly automated, feedlot-style operations that may have value in that environment, but completely non-scalable down to the level of someone or a family personally running a pastured cow dairy operation...

With the further caveat that no more than 100 gallons of raw milk could be sold a month.  When the producers hoo-haa-ed that one especially, one of the bureaucrats said — I swear to God, months in and ready to pass  rules on this that would put most of the producers in the room out of business –   “well, we weren’t really sure how many gallons a month you folks usually produce.”

...Then she got wonderfully animated and told the panel that if the IDPH’s mission was really — as they had asserted — to protect the health and nutrition of Illinois citizens, she wanted them to enforce the same rules for people who sold Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Monster Drink, which have well-documented poor health impacts — they could only sell 100 gallons a month, they couldn’t advertise, they could only put it in the customers’ own containers, and it could only be purchased on the vendors’ premises.  That rocked the house."

FML: I found out that my wiffe...: 

"Today, I found out that my wife is having an affair with the same guy my ex-wife left me for. FML"

Stop Watching Sports: 

"Look, I get it. Drinking can be fun. Nachos are tasty. Sports are at least notionally “cool.” But why are you willing to devote entire weekends of your precious free time to watching other men accomplish things? Would you ever sit around spectating at your buddy’s effort to repaint the walls, or crack open a beer and relax on the couch watching your friend work feverishly on his business idea? If not, then why would you watch people you’ll never meet engaging in contrived contests that have no meaningful impact on your life? I enjoy the odd sporting event as much as the next guy. Freakish athletes doing things that I am incapable of is a spectacle worthy of occasional attention. Beyond that level of involvement, though, your sports fandom is a terrible time sink with no discernible return on investment. An American football game lasts 3 hours. If you watched one fewer football game per week, you could: Do an intense weight-training and HIIT workout (1 hour) Juice vegetables to help your health (30 minutes) Go go the coffee shop and talk to a woman (1 hour) Practice writing or another language skill (30 minutes)"

Of course they did.

Newly Declassified Memo Shows CIA Shaped Zero Dark Thirty's Narrative: 

"Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup for the CIA this century outside of the actual killing of Osama bin Laden. But the extent to which the CIA shaped the film has remained unclear. Now, a memo obtained by Gawker shows that the CIA actively, and apparently successfully, pressured Mark Boal to remove scenes that made them look bad from the Zero Dark Thirty script."

RossTraining.com Blog: 

"...it is important to decide for yourself what you’ll attempt in life. Don’t allow the pessimistic opinions that exist within others to influence you. There will always be someone who believes your goals are too ambitious. Fortunately, such beliefs are nothing more than opinions. There are plenty of educated professionals who didn’t think Brock would ever walk again. Imagine if he listened to them. Where would he be now?"

The best thing you'll watch all day.

Fascinating.

Impressive fanvert.

Psychiatry is not a science - Experts Say 'Psychiatry's Guide Is Out of Touch With Science.' What Science? - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"No less an authority than Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), complains that the DSM continues to suffer from a "lack of validity." In other words, we cannot be confident that psychiatry's bible, on which mental health professionals rely every day to diagnose patients and (not incidentally) get paid by medical insurers, identifies things that actually exist. That's a pretty big problem."

Traditional psychological diagnoses are going out of style: 

"In a major milestone, a powerful organization of mental health researchers has said it will not be using the new, fifth edition of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), a handbook that has virtually defined the field of psychiatry in the United States for decades."

Don't ever speak to the FBI without a tape recorder running and a lawyer present - Boing Boing: 

"Civil liberties and civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate made this video to show you how to protect yourself from FBI agents who will interview you, then claim you lied so they can threaten you with imprisonment unless you become their puppet. The message from Robel’s prosecution and Silverglate’s advice is clear: do not talk to the FBI without your lawyer present. If Harvey’s decades long experience is any indication, chances are that the agents will politely decline to interview you if you and your attorney insist on creating an accurate record of an FBI interrogation."

FML: my family flew out to…: 

"Today, my family flew out to surprise my grandma for her 70th birthday. When we arrived, she and my grandpa were both sitting on the couch, high, smoking a joint. FML"

Questionable Content: New comics every Monday through Friday:

Summing up all of DC culture, actually.

The Five Most Wretched Things About Single People in Washington, D.C.: 

"They think they are cultured. But they aren’t

...all of you brag about how this town is supposedly in the midst of a cultural revolution because, you know, the Italian guy from New Jersey, who worked in a Greek kitchen, opened a Mexican restaurant.

That’s not culture. There are people in this city who still can’t pronounce arugula. I go on dates with girls who don’t know what pho is. Yet they have the gall to claim they are worldly because they spend their Saturdays at the National Museum of American History. You aren’t bettering yourself. You’re suppressing latent white guilt. If you were learned you’d know the Vietnamese word for soup. You are a charlatan.
They believe in causes
...Yet here, people embrace and, even worse, have attitudes shaped by their beliefs. And then I have to lie.  “Wow. You work for Save Darfur? That’s, like, so awesome… Yea. I’ve heard things are bad there… No, no. My martini tastes much better when you discuss the mass slaughter of underfed African babies. Really makes the vermouth sparkles. Like a lemon twist, but subtler… Yea. I hate it too. Screw the other Sudanese… No. Sorry. Can’t get another drink. Have to get up early.”
They think they are smart
Don’t let any dating survey that claims this city ranks high on intellects fool you. They are shams and lies. Have you stood on the Metro and seen the federal work force? If this town was composed of intelligent, brilliant beings, our government would not be the bloated bastion of incompetency it currently is...  You know who isn’t smart? The 26-year-old tasked with monitoring the corn output of Iowa’s 4thdistrict for the Department of Agriculture.  You know who is smart? Thomas Edison. When he applied for a job at the Department of Agriculture, they put him in charge of inventing light bulbs and movies and future.
They have an inflated sense of self-worth
I went out recently with one girl who was working for the Obama campaign. She kept saying, throughout the date, the word “we.” Like, “If we win a second term, we’ll change the world.”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d be out of a job if the federal government discovered stamps.com.  This goes in line with people having causes. The guy working at the FDA thinks he saved the lives of 19,500 babies because he noticed Chinese toys have trace amounts of lead. And the girl on the Hill, she was tasked—TASKED—with delivering a confidential memo.  Your plaques will be on your desks tomorrow.
They think politics are important
...Politics are not important. In fact, here is a list of things you should care about more than someone’s political beliefs: The score of the last night Toronto Blue Jays game; Piranhas; How many marshmallows are in a bag of marshmallows; negative integers; whether koala bears can be taught to use hand guns; things that are flammable; salt water; that box over there.  And even worse, this town is stuffed with people who think voting is the highest of pursuits. I can’t handle it.  “Oh. You thought Obama’s stimulus was a bad idea? So your plan is to inform the world by casting a single ballot in a country of 313 million people. Four years after it happened? Word.”  In fact, that simple act—voting—sums up everything I hate about people in this town.  If you vote, you probably think you are cultured: “Oh, Lorenzo, we are just like the Greeks during the zenith of Pericles.”  And you probably have a high-sense of self-worth: “I, I. Me. I am making a difference.”  You also probably have causes: “If Mitt Romney wins, he will drill in Alaska and a bear will die.”"

APE IN A CAPE:

   

Of course.

Justice Department Sees No Need For a Warrant To Snoop Your Email - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal. Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access to e-mail correspondence.

...The American Civil Liberties Union points out that the DOJ takes its position on warrant-free access to email "even after a federal appeals court ruled that doing so violates the Fourth Amendment.""

3D Guns Advocate Cody Wilson is About More Than Weapons and That's What Most Frightens People About Him - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"Like the rest of the world (see J.D. Tuccille's copious coverage), the New Yorker is pretty alarmed by the possibilities of 3D weapon printing, but writer Jacob Silverman in expressing his confusion and fear is at least more perspicacious than most about the ideas and goals of leading 3D weapon printing spokes-gadfly, Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed...

Silverman gets it: Wilson is a full service provocateur for what liberty really means, even if that means being initially a snake-oil salesman of sorts, hyping possibilities beyond their apparent reality at the moment. It's not what a 3D gun can do right now that matters. It's the idea that anyone can make anything they want at home, beyond most of the obvious points where they are interacting publicly with others where they can be most easily obstructed, licensed, regulated, taxed--that's the important part...

Silverman thinks he's got Wilson and his wooly ways, though: "What’s notable about this kind of talk is how divorced it is from any practical reality." Really? After noting, as I did, Wilson's propensity for high-falutin' French literary theorists, and how other more mild Makers are annoyed at the negative attention his provacateuring brings to their quirky little tech-craft movement, Silverman veers off course, as if merely stating that Wilson is the one divorced from practical reality makes it so, because he knows most of his readers aren't necessarily the types to think like Wilson or act as he and his supporters do. But believe it Mr. Silverman: the technologies Wilson relies on, and their plastic end results, are as much a part of "practical reality" as it can get...

As I said in my talk to the Extreme Futurist Fest, the future is going to feature a whole lot of: "What are you going to do about it?" to which the only sensible answer is: "Nothing to be done." Despite what Silverman thinks, that is the practical reality governors of all sorts are facing."

Wishful Thinking Is Control Freaks' Last Defense Against 3D-Printed Guns - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"After Defense Distributed published video of a successul test of a 3D-printed handgun, the responses came fast and furious: politicians, including Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed legislation that would ban the sort of plastic gun made by Defense Distributed, but would be utterly impotent to prevent people from ignoring the law and carrying on as home armorers. Now comes Slate's Farhad Manjoo to play the role of Kevin Bacon in Animal House, bellowing, "remain calm, all is well!" 

... technology is empowering individuals to defy and ignore the ever-grasping control freaks who seek to rule over us."

Your WTFs of the day.

Florida Man Flees Seatbelt Stop on Foot, Cop Runs Him Over and Kills Him - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Austin Police Officer Shoots First At Unarmed Man in Traffic Stop, Asks Questions Later - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"The officer fired at least once when he said he saw the man make several “furtive” movements, as if reaching for a weapon, Acevedo said."

"Furtive."  I bet he 'bladed' his body too.  

[For the uninformed, 'furtive' movements and 'bladed his body' are CYA copspeak & report writing for justifying use of force.]

Article forwarded to my French and French speaking friends...

Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.: 

"Exhibit A: Wine experts contradict themselves. Constantly. Statistician and wine-lover Robert Hodgson recently analyzed a series of wine competitions in California, after "wondering how wines, such as his own, [could] win a gold medal at one competition, and 'end up in the pooper' at others." In one study, Hodgson presented blindfolded wine experts with the same wine three times in succession. Incredibly, the judges' ratings typically varied by ±4 points on a standard ratings scale running from 80 to 100...

Exhibit B: Expert wine critics can't distinguish between red and white wines This one's one of my favorites. In 2001, researcher Frédéric Brochet invited 54 wine experts to give their opinions on what were ostensibly two glasses of different wine: one red, and one white. In actuality, the two wines were identical, with one exception: the "red" wine had been dyed with food coloring. The experts described the "red" wine in language typically reserved for characterizing reds. They called it "jammy," for example, and noted the flavors imparted by its "crushed red fruit." Not one of the 54 experts surveyed noticed that it was, in fact a white wine..."

Important questions.

How good is Batman at sex?: 

"First of all, thank you, because I will never get the image of Bruce Wayne ragefucking some poor debutante while his eyes pool with tears at the eternal pain at having lost his parents as a child. I may never be able to read a Batman comic again. But that doesn’t mean I can’t answer the question. I assume Bruce has to do some sexy times to maintain his reputataion, although it’s certainly way less than the public believes. But if he never had sex with the candy draped around his arm, eventually someone would figure it out, and Bruce’s cover would be blown. So Batman has a vested interest in banging skanks, is what I’m saying."

How good is Batman at sex?: 

"As for his skill level? Well, since the defining characteristic of the modern Batman is that he’s prepared for any eventuality, this means he has prepared for a situation that he literally has to fuck his way out of. At some point — unlikely as it may sound — Batman’s sexual technique may be the thing that saves his life, so I imagine Batman is ready to pull some mindblowing tantric craziness..."

We're all horrible people.

The Biology Bias: 

"In psychology, there’s a well-observed phenomenon known as the actor/observer bias and it states that we’re basically all a bunch of assholes. The actor/observer bias states that all of us unconsciously assume others to be more responsible for their negative actions than their environment, and for ourselves to be less responsible for our negative actions than our environment. For example, if you are at an intersection and someone runs through the red light and almost hits you, you think, “Wow, what a shitty driver. That guy is an idiot.” But when it’s YOU who runs the red light and almost hits somebody, you think, “It’s not my fault. The guy in front of me was driving slow and the light changed too quickly for me to stop.” When it’s us, it’s not our fault. When it’s someone else, they’re a shitty person.

But it gets worse. The opposite happens with positive actions, too. In our own case, we over-estimate our own responsibility for the great things we do and under-estimate the responsibility of others. For example, if someone else wins a prestigious award, we make assumptions that they got it because of their connections or some sort of conspiracy and not of their own work. But if we win an award, we assume it was all because of the great work we did. The actor/observer is a natural bias that afflicts us all. We can be mindful and try to be better about it, but we’re never completely rid of it."

Religion ruins everything.

Just-world hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: 

"The just-world hypothesis (or just-world fallacy) is the cognitive bias that human actions eventually yield morally fair and fitting consequences, so that, ultimately, noble actions are duly rewarded and evil actions are duly punished. In other words, the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to, or expect consequences as the result of, an unspecified power that restores moral balance; the fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of such a power in terms of some cosmic force of justice, desert, stability, or order in the universe."

Cosplay All Over The World - A Very Beautiful Chicago - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors: 

Speaks wise.

Mary-Louise Parker Interview 2011 - Mary-Louise Parker Naked Quotes - Esquire: 

"If being honest is the goal, I can unzip to a pretty deep level. But what you get today is not necessarily what you'll get tomorrow."

Soldier Tries to Throw a Hand Grenade, It Travels About - BroBible.com: 

"She had better be an incredible shot, otherwise this lady has no business engaging in warfare of any kind. She may as well be playing for the other team with that footloose and fancy free toss. Noodle-armed the fuck out of it. Couldn't even clear the goddamn sandbag wall built to protect them from enemy fire. This is not how you war, you guys."

Tiger Woods Infidelity Lessons - True Story of Infidelity - Esquire: 

"An affair forces women to face something inside themselves that they'd rather not acknowledge, even today, thirty years post-liberation. It is my experience that a married woman will go to extraordinary lengths to put a genteel spin on her involvement outside marriage. She'll speak of coveting "emotional fulfillment" or "a man who really listens when I need to vent" or "someone who appreciates me for who I am"--all of which may be true--but as time goes by she finds it increasingly difficult to kid herself about why the two of you have paired off. The real reason an unfaithful wife wants to do other things with her lover besides screw, I am convinced, is not so much to do those things as to surround the sex with enough distractions that she can continue to rationalize the true basis of the relationship."

Training.

5/6 - P90X2 D78 PAP Upper

5/5 - P90X2 D77 Rest

5/4 - P90X2 D76 X2 Yoga

Inspiring/Motivating - Bodybuilding.com - We 'Mirin Vol. 27: 25 Awesome Transformations:

Food Log.

5/1 - coffee, cream, water, Condense, Animal Rage, coconut oil, EAS Whey, Monster Multi, bacon, chicken, Coke Zero
5/2 - coffee, cream, coconut oil, coconut water, Muscle Milk, chicken, bacon, diet soda, milk, meat stick/snacks, chocolate bacon bar
5/3 - coffee, cream, coconut water, Animal Rage, water, Coke Zero, chicken, beer, mayo
5/4 - coffee, cream, coconut water, beer, vodka, bloody mary mix, diet soda, bbq chicken
5/5 - coffee, milk, popcorn, diet soda, french fries, pizza, beef quesadilla, sour cream, ice cream, UCC Coffee

Today's Internets - Everything you say on the phone in America is being recorded.

Jews are the best magicians - Boing Boing: 

""The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool," top Iranian official Mehdi Taeb said last week. 

He's right, we do."

8-year-old's invention for keeping books dry in the bath - Boing Boing: 

"This ingenious technique for safeguarding books from falling in the bathtub was invented by redditor Crash-From-Space's 8-year-old daughter. The suction cup came from the plumbing aisle at Home Depot."

The bad joke called 'the FISA court' shows how a 'drone court' would work | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: 

"In the mid-1970s, an investigation by the US Senate, conducted by the Church Committee, uncovered decades of serious, systemic abuse by the US government of its eavesdropping powers: listening in on the telephone calls of civil rights leaders, reading the mail of political opponents, spying on anti-war groups. The supposed lesson learned from this was that political leaders will inevitably abuse their surveillance powers if they are permitted to exercise them in the dark and without meaningful oversight. The "solution" was the enactment of a law - the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) - that made it a criminal offense for government officials to eavesdrop on the electronic communications of Americans without first obtaining a warrant from the newly created Fisa court...

From the start, the Fisa court was a radical perversion of the judicial process. It convened in total secrecy and its rulings were classified. The standard the government had to meet was not the traditional "probable cause" burden imposed by the Fourth Amendment but a significantly diluted standard. There was nothing adversarial about the proceeding: only the Justice Department (DOJ) was permitted to be present, but not any lawyers for the targets of the eavesdropping request, who were not notified. Reflecting its utter lack of real independence, the court itself was housed in the DOJ...

And, and was totally predictable, the court barely ever rejected a government request for eavesdropping. From its inception, it was the ultimate rubber-stamp court, having rejected a total of zero government applications - zero - in its first 24 years of existence, while approving many thousands. In its total 34 year history - from 1978 through 2012 - the Fisa court has rejected a grand total of 11 government applications, while approving more than 20,000..."

Feds Lose $250K in Attempt To Steal Motorcycle Club’s Logo, Then Try Again - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"It takes a special talent to combine abuse of asset forfeiture with a free speech violation, and to blow a wad of cash while doing it, but the federal government is certainly up to the task. In its crusade against the Mongols Motorcycle Club and the group's (allegedly) criminal activities, the Department of Justice decided to use asset forfeiture in an effort to seize the organization's distinctive logo of a stylized Mongol warrior on a motorcycle. The goal, apparently, was a symbolic victory that would strip the group's members of the right to use the image.

But an image is how you you present yourself, which would seem to be an exercise of First Amendment-protected free speech rights, isn't it? At least, that's how a federal judge saw it, right before he ordered the federal government to reimburse the motorcycle club's attorneys to the tune of $253,206.

So, the feds being the feds, they're just doubling down..."

“Homo sapiens has been on the planet for at least a hundred thousand years. In order to be Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most people having a life expectancy of about 25; famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that. For 98,000 years, heaven watches it with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, it thinks, ‘That’s enough of that, it’s time to intervene. The best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice, somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Let’s not appear to the Chinese where people can read, study evidence, and have a civilization. Let’s go to the desert and have a revelation there.’ This is nonsense. It can’t be believed by a thinking person.” - Christopher Hitchens

Why Beijing Could Win the Great China-America Showdown of 2030 | Danger Room | Wired.com: "The nine authors of “China’s Military & the U.S.-Japan Alliance in 2030,” released Thursday, stress that a full-blown shooting war is not in the cards. “The threat is not a war with China,” the report states. Rather, Washington and its close ally Tokyo could find themselves losing influence and disputed island territory to an increasingly unconstrained Beijing that  finds it can “win without fighting” owing to a combination of its own military rise and its rivals’ relative declines.

In any event, change of some sort is probably coming, the report authors say, although what change is unclear. The status quo –  a western Pacific comfortably dominated by the U.S. with its aircraft carriers, bombers and Marine regiments, with Japan playing a key supporting role and China steadily adding to its military arsenal while biding its time — is “unsustainable,” they claim..."

Mind. Blown.

'Time Crystals' Could Upend Physicists' Theory of Time | Wired Science | Wired.com: 

"In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek decided to go public with a strange and, he worried, somewhat embarrassing idea. Impossible as it seemed, Wilczek had developed an apparent proof of “time crystals” — physical structures that move in a repeating pattern, like minute hands rounding clocks, without expending energy or ever winding down. Unlike clocks or any other known objects, time crystals derive their movement not from stored energy but from a break in the symmetry of time, enabling a special form of perpetual motion..."

Oh, North Carolina...

Most Likely To Get Knocked Up Again | What Would Tyler Durden Do: 

"A teen in North Carolina had her picture pulled from her high school yearbook because it was of her…and her son. Caitlin Tiller and  her classmates were told to bring a prop that symbolized how they’d achieved the goal of graduation. Perhaps a football, a laptop, or a bong was more fitting than a little person that you pushed through your meat curtains. Caitlin said of her one-year-old son, “He helped me get to where I am today.” How a mistake conceived in the parking lot of a Chili’s helped her pass that trig final is a mystery. The school pulled the photo because they were afraid that it promoted teen pregnancy. I don’t know. I’m looking at Cailin and that baby and this might be the seven seconds of the day I’m actually not thinking about sex. Maybe the yearbook staff can take a picture of the 16-year-old mom and baby and put it on a condom wrapper you get with every yearbook. Boner killer win."

She was used! | Dalrock: 

"...tabloid magazine In Touch and the Christian Post decry Kanye West’s failure to marry two time divorcée and soon to be baby mama Kim Kardashian.  The In Touch cover indignantly declares:

Humiliated Kim Discovers She’s Been Used

She thought Kanye would be her ticket to ultimate fame & fortune. Now divorced and desperate to wed, Kim realizes she’s been played as he refuses to propose...

All I have to say to Kanye is:

'18 years, 18 years

She got one of your kids got you for 18 years

I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids

His baby mamma’s car and crib is bigger than his

You will see him on TV any given Sunday

Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai'"

What You Should Know About the Low-carb Ketogenic Diet: 

"Fasting and other ketogenic-like diets have been used to treat conditions like epilepsy for thousands of years. And in fact, a version of the keto diet has been traced back to 500 BC. Fast forwarding a bit, Dr. Rawle Geyelin gave a 1921 presentation to the American Medical Association in which he reported on the remarkable outcomes of several children who had benefited from fasting; his patients were having fewer seizures — and the effect appeared to be long-lasting. Geyelin continued this work, and he developed a tolerable and reproducible high-fat and low carbohydrate diet now formally known as the ketogenic diet. For the next two decades, it was used by physicians to minimize seizures in their patients. Once modern antiepileptic drugs were introduced, however, the practice declined dramatically. But interest in keto was renewed about 20 years ago as a number of scientists began to study it more closely — and not just for its ability to treat epilepsy. As we’re now learning, and despite its reputation as a “starvation” diet, a keto regimen has been shown to confer a variety of benefits...

The keto diet is being increasingly considered for the treatment of many neurological diseases and injuries, a list that includes Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke, and even traumatic brain injuries. The keto diet can also improve memory function in older adults with increased risk for Alzheimer’s. Neuroscientists attribute the keto diet’s brain-protective qualities to a number of things: Ketone bodies serve as an alternative source of energy during metabolic stress Ketosis diminishes the toxicity produced by glutamate acid, a problem when a brain injury happens It enhances GABA levels (γ-Aminobutyric acid) — an important inhibitory neurotransmitter It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory qualities The diet protects against various forms of cell death Restricting carbs protects against oxidative- and glutamate-stress, among other things...

Meals, therefore, should mostly be comprised of protein and some healthy fats (like olive oil, coconut oil, and avocados). A good rule of thumb is to follow the 60/35/5 rule in which 60% of calories come from fat, 35% from protein, and 5% from carbs. Protein should be set at about 1.5 to 1.75g of protein for every kilogram of your ideal body weight. For comparison, a typical Western diet is about 5-15% protein, 10-20 % fat, and 65-85% carbohydrates."

Oh, thank gods.  I may live forever.

Tip 602: How To Include Coffee In Your Diet When You Are Trying To Get Lean - Charles Poliquin: "1)    Association studies show the more coffee you drink a day, the lower your risk of death by all causes."

People can be awesome.

Dedroidify: Russian dashcams can give you the good kind of goosebumps too:

The Afghan Bag Man - By Sarah Chayes | Foreign Policy: 

"Buried in the recent New York Times revelation that the CIA has been delivering bags of cash to Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a nugget of information that tells the whole story about just how self-defeating U.S. Afghanistan policy has been. It solves some riddles that mystified a lot of us at the time -- and constitutes an object lesson for the future.

The CIA's bag man was Muhammad Zia Salehi. In July 2010, this same Salehi was arrested by U.S.-mentored Afghan police officers, on charges of influence peddling. At the time, U.S. civilian and military officials had begun to grasp how damaging Afghan government corruption was to what they were trying to achieve in Afghanistan, and were beginning to take serious steps to counter it. Salehi's arrest was the climax of that process.  It was a dramatic success, an offshoot of months of painstaking investigation into a nearly billion-dollar sinkhole in Afghanistan's top private financial institution, Kabul Bank. The decision to develop the case had been run up the U.S. interagency flagpole. Senior U.S. officials, at last sensitized to the corruption problem and anxious for a test case, had approved it and were kept informed along the way. Afghan officials, too. Karzai himself had authorized the arrest. But before nightfall, Salehi made a phone call and Karzai reversed course, ordering his release. Charges were quickly dropped. This episode ended any serious U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan. Which in turn ensured that all other efforts, all the sacrifice, would be in vain..."

"Be Bold." - "Never Leave the Playground."  

Stephen Jepson is amazing/awesome/inspiring.

Never too old.  Never too late.  Never give up.

About Stephen Jepson... A great Swimmer! An active guy! I love the water! I love skiing! Unicycling ! Juggling!neverleavetheplayground.com: 

"At age 72, Stephen Jepson is living proof of his philosophy of lifetime fitness called Never Leave the Playground. He rides a unicycle, juggles while balancing on a bongo board, throws knives and plays jacks with both hands, walks a tightrope, swam across Iowa’s Spirit Lake at age 66, and has won over 80 gold medals in swimming since age 65. And more. Much more. He knows the secret is to “just keep moving” through constant play, not exercise. He’s developed toys for all ages and degrees of physical fitness to use throughout our daily lives so we never have to leave the playground no matter where we are or what we’re doing."

Study Suggests Yoga Boosts The Immune System On A Genetic Level |: 

"Newly published research from Norway suggests that a yoga program rapidly produces internal changes on a genetic level. The results help explain the well-documented health benefits of this ancient practice. “These data suggest that previously reported effects of yoga practices have an integral physiological component at the molecular level, which is initiated immediately,” writes a research team led by Fahri Saatcioglu of the University of Oslo."

“How do Fortune 500 companies pay zero in taxes while college loans go up to 6 percent?…  This game is rigged.” - Elizabeth Warren

Thrilling Wonder Stories. via... • Richard Kadrey's Damn Tumblr:

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: 

"...a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.

On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could...

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them? 

CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out. 

BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible. 

CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.

"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak". On Thursday night, Clemente again appeared on CNN, this time with host Carol Costello, and she asked him about those remarks. He reiterated what he said the night before but added expressly that "all digital communications in the past" are recorded and stored...

That every single telephone call is recorded and stored would also explain this extraordinary revelation by the Washington Post in 2010: Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. It would also help explain the revelations of former NSA official William Binney, who resigned from the agency in protest over its systemic spying on the domestic communications of US citizens, that the US government has "assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about US citizens with other US citizens" (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that "the data that's being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want."

...Back in 2010, worldwide controversy erupted when the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates banned the use of Blackberries because some communications were inaccessible to government intelligence agencies, and that could not be tolerated. The Obama administration condemned this move on the ground that it threatened core freedoms, only to turn around six weeks later and demand that all forms of digital communications allow the US government backdoor access to intercept them. Put another way, the US government embraced exactly the same rationale invoked by the UAE and Saudi agencies: that no communications can be off limits."

Of course.

allAfrica.com: Liberia: Govt Systematically Breaking Its Own Laws in Oil, Mineral, Forest and Land Deals Worth Billions of Dollars, New Audit Reveals. (Page 1 of 2): 

"Global Witness welcomes a new audit recommending that the Liberian government take immediate action to address systematic gaps in compliance with laws on how its natural resources are allocated. The report, commissioned by LEITI, Liberia's groundbreaking transparency initiative, revealed that laws had been broken in virtually every natural resource deal since 2009. The findings, leaked to the press earlier this week,1 paint a picture of a country routinely ignoring its own laws in a rush to hand out natural resources to all comers. The audit also underlines the importance of independent oversight of how natural resources deals are made. Global Witness urges the Liberian government to quickly finalize and publish the report and take strong action to fully address its recommendations."

Reincarnation/writings on the Akashic Wall/Something else entirely...

Paranormalia: Things Children Say: 

"Getting my two and a half year old daughter out of the bath one night, my wife and I were briefing her on how important it was she kept her privates clean. She casually replied "Oh, nobody 'scroofs' me there. They tried one night. They kicked the door in and tried but I fought back. I died and now I'm here." She said this like it was nothing...

My 3 year old nephew was at my cottage. He's asked me numerous times about the "girl over there" while pointing at one of the back bedrooms. The place is small, and there is definitely nobody there so I just dismiss it as a really active imagination (he has lots of imaginary friends) . . . Then some friends are visiting and they have a daughter around the same age. She has never met my nephew. Twice in the one day she asked about the "pretty girl" while pointing at the exact same room. Definitely caught me out and I didn't know what to think . . . Then at Christmas my family was over at my place and my nephew points at a picture of my wife and asks if she is coming to visit us here or does she just stay at the cottage. My wife died ten years ago. Personally I don't really believe in paranormal stuff so it's probably just my logical brain putting together a bunch of kids ramblings but it definitely got my attention."

Paranormalia: Things Children Say: 

"When I was about 4, I would remember talking to "Mr.Peterson" whenever I was at my grandmothers house. He looked like a hobo from the great depression and had a guitar and sang me old timey blues, he told me that he died when he fell of a train he was riding whist drunk on moonshine. I stopped seeing him when I was about 6. Anyway, 6 months ago I found my dads old acoustic guitar and started playing, and my little cousin told me "Mr.Peterson is proud of you!" And left."

FML: my 6-year-old daughter : 

"Today, my 6-year-old daughter walked into the bathroom where I was grumbling about my weight. Seeing how upset I was, she took my hand and said, "Mom, you're not fat. You just look fat." FML

Puzzlecunt: