"If you're one of those people who finds the bashing of religion and stuff tiresome or offensive, just... give me five more minutes."

Your Sunday Sermon.  You're welcome.

"Swing your partner by the hand

Have a baby if you can

But if the voices your head

Say to sacrifice your kid

To satiate your loving God's

Fetish for dead baby blood

It's simple faith, the Book demands

So raise that knife up in your hand!

Swing your daughter by the hand

But if she gets raped by a man

And refuses then to marry him

Stone her to death!

If you just close your eyes and block your ears

To the accumulated knowledge of the last two thousand years

Then morally, guess what?

You're off the hook

And thank Christ you only have to read one book..."

"“Look Storm, sorry, I don't mean to bore you 

But there's no such thing as an aura!

 Reading Auras is like reading minds 

Or tea leaves or star signs or meridian lines 

These people aren't plying a skill, 

They are either lying or mentally ill. 

Same goes for those who claim to hear God's demands 

And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands. 

By the way, 

Why do we think it's okay

For people to pretend they can talk to the dead? 

Is it not totally fucked in the head 

Lying to some crying woman whose child has died 

And telling her you're in touch with the other side? 

I think that's fundamentally sick 

Do we need to clarify that there's no such thing as a psychic? 

What, are we fucking 2? 

Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?"

Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts? 

That Michael Jackson didn't have facelifts? 

Are we still so stunned by circus tricks 

That we think that the dead would 

Wanna talk to pricks...

Does the idea that there might be knowledge 

Frighten you? 

Does the idea that one afternoon 

On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you 

Frighten you? 

Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural 

So blow your hippy noodle 

That you would rather just stand in the fog 

Of your inability to Google?"

I've never trusted nice people.

Psychologists Find that Nice People Are More Likely to Hurt You: "People who are agreeable are also more likely to make destructive choices, if they think doing so will help them conform to social expectations. That's the finding of psychologists, who suggest that disagreeable, ornery people may be more helpful than we think...

Researchers recently conducted a version of Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments, where people were asked by doctors to "shock" others until they died. Only later did they discover they people they'd "killed" were just actors. A surprising number of otherwise kindly people "killed" others, just because they'd been given orders. In revisiting the experiment, researchers have found evidence that agreeable people will often choose to do destructive things because they don't want to upset anyone by disagreeing with direct orders." 

 

"So Catwoman, Supergirl and Poison Ivy walk into a bar..."

August 23.

Training - Aliveness, Timing, Resistance.

6/27 - squat, smith machine calf raise, leg xt, hip xt, treadmill intervals - twisting crunches

Bodybuilding.com - Body Transformation: Andrew Brodsky Only Gets Better With Age

Kazushi Sakuraba, still awesome.  Still a goof.  Photo: Dana White submits Kazushi Sakuraba - Bloody Elbow

Cool.  UFC and Vale Tudo Japan to produce tournaments for a TV show, winners to join the UFC - Bloody Elbow: "During a press conference in Tokyo Dana White announced an unprecedented deal, stating that the UFC is partnering up with Vale Tudo Japan to help build stars and improve their roster of Japanese fighters. The two promotions will cooperate to produce a TV show in Japan that will have tournaments in both bantamweight and featherweight divisions, with the top fighters eventually joining the ranks of the UFC."

  

Leg Day.

Bonus points for the Batman shorts.  Before And After Fat Loss: "thefatkiddiaries: Left: 276 Right: 194 I haven’t posted any progress pictures in a while but I thought I should give a personal update. Let’s just say I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been and I love it "

 Before And After Fat Loss: "alucepluv I came across these shorts a year from when the first picture was taken. Super happy with my progress since! Height: 5”4 Starting weight: 127 Current weight: 114.5"

Skepticism & Spirituality in the Martial Arts, with Matt Thornton

Aliveness, Timing, Resistance.  "Don't pretend to know things you do not know."  

Muay Thai Results & Video: Fight of the Year contender between Sangmanee and Thanonchai - Bloody Elbow

"Hey everyone, we’re putting a Justice League together."

That's... familiar.

 Raising your kids right.

 Squat. Press. Pull.: "diggly: IS THAT DOG TEACHING A HUMAN PUPPY TO CRAWL"

Nine Thoughts About The Flash TV Pilot That I Shouldn't Have Been Allowed To See - Bleeding Cool: "Hey everyone, we’re putting a Justice League together."

Bikini top that looks like bare breasts - Boing Boing

 marvelentertainment: Costoberfest Spotlight - ...:

Yowza! Gorgeous! - APE IN A CAPE

Training - "Because Science is a Liar Sometimes."

6/26 - chins, dips - neck harness, pullups 

  

  

 

ChAoS & PAIN: We're All David Rigert's Bitches: Smoke Em If You Got Em, Because Science Is A Liar Sometimes: "Pictured above, you will see a man who could probably crack walnuts with his traps and or spinal erectors...  A man who set 68 world records in Olympic Weightlifting as 198 lb lifter (yeah, the dude above was 198, so feel free to start slitting your wrists now), won six world championships in Olympic weightlifting and snagged a gold at the 1976 Olympics...  and a man who chain smoked during training and meets, and who would slam shots of vodka in the warm up room at meets between his warmup sets (Van Vleck)."

ChAoS & PAIN: We're All David Rigert's Bitches: Smoke Em If You Got Em, Because Science Is A Liar Sometimes: ""So fucking what?", you might be saying.  "Everyone knows smoking will kill you and my mom said drinking is bad and the kids on Bodybuilding.com say drinking and smoking and masturbating is bad and girls have cooties and only people on steroids weigh more than 150 lbs.!", might be your follow up.  This is, of course, because you've been snowed by the popular media and know about as much about the world around you as a sea cucumber might know about the aerodynamics of helicopters.  As we've already covered extensively, alcohol consumption, even to Gary Busey-esque levels of violent, dangerous, irresponsible, and flirting-with-alcohol-poisoning-because-it's-tuesday levels, is not only not deleterious to training, but it may in fact help your training.  This flies in the face of what MADD, teetotalers, Christians, the mentally challenged, and virgins might have to say on the subject, but as they're all generally incorrect whenever they open their mouths, this should come as no surprise.

Likewise, it appears that while smoking shortens your lifespan, it makes those years you have on the Earth markedly better, because it raises your testosterone, drastically lowers your chances of suffering from neurological disorders, improves memory, attention and psychomotor speed, stimulates blood vessel growth, and drastically speeds fat loss (Wang, English, Phillips, Andersson).  Let's pause a moment while you drink that in, shall we?  

...During the halcyon days of weightlifting and powerlifting in the 1970s (you know, when people actually lifted weights and got strong rather than endlessly kvetching over bullshit like buttwinks and jacking off to other peoples' lifting videos), people smoked in the gym.  "Cigarette smoke often filled the gym and the ash tray was next to the chalk box" and people used to take "a drag off [their] cigarette, [set] it on the edge of the platform (with the “cherry” end dangling off the edge) and [hit] a set of power cleans" and then resume smoking (Van Vleck). The half hour breaks one sees in Bulgarian training routines do not exist so lifters can catch their breath and lay down- they are pre-programmed smoking breaks, because European weightlifters traditionally take frequent smoke breaks during training and many Oly lifters still smoke regularly, even with the mounting prohibitions on smoking in Europe (Starting Strength, Lowe).

 I'm not saying smoking is good for you, but there is absolutely no justification for the current wave of smoker vilification that basically likens your average smoker [...] to a child molester..."

Lesson: Just because everyone seems to agree on something does not make it so.  Remember- people are fucking stupid."

"How'd you make it this far in life?"

Supreme Court limits police searches of cellphones: "Cellphones and smartphones generally cannot be searched by police without a warrant during arrests, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday in a major victory for privacy rights. Ruling on two cases from California and Massachusetts, the justices acknowledged both a right to privacy and a need to investigate crimes. But they came down squarely on the side of privacy rights. "Modern cellphones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet or a purse," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. "We cannot deny that our decision today will have an impact on the ability of law enforcement to combat crime," he said. "Privacy comes at a cost.""

 Strawdoll:

via Dedroidify: Love Now - Inspiring advice from a mentally insane person - YouTube

Wow.  V I V I D : V I V K A

 Scenes from militarized America: Brookline, Mass., and the Michigan State Police - The Washington Post:

 Protesting Thai reader of Orwell's 1984 dragged off by police in Bangkok | South China Morning Post: "Police in Thailand yesterday arrested eight people for demonstrating against the nation's increasingly repressive military junta, including a man dragged away by undercover officers for reading a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The arrest was the first known case of anyone being detained for reading as a form of protest since the military seized power last month."

We Win! TIME Magazine Officially Recants (“Eat Butter…Don’t Blame Fat”), And Quotes Me: "Conclusions 

Paleo and its offshoots (Primal, Perfect Health Diet) are still years ahead of the academic research, and even farther ahead of mainstream dietary advice. 

The political savvy required to become a Recognized Authority is frequently unaccompanied by the keenest analytical mind or a burning desire to seek truth…and telling the truth is often incompatible with political advancement. 

The mainstream of academia, politics, and the press will continue to pretend they weren’t simply, devastatingly wrong for decades, causing the deaths of millions and incalculable suffering—and that it was all Ancel Keys’ fault. 

Don’t count on receiving any credit for having been correct long before it was popular, or even acceptable. Accept that eating like a predator, and living like a predator, is its own reward."

Huh.  Researchers Use ESP to Make Thousands of Dollars on the Stock Market | The Daily Grail: "The experimenters - Christopher Carson Smith, Darrell Laham and Garret Moddel of the Department of Electrical, Computer, & Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado - repeated the procedure for seven trials using the same 10 remote viewers. The result? Of the seven trials performed, all seven resulted in correct predictions, showing statistical significance at p < .01. More tangibly, however: Regarding the financial results, on an initial investment of $10,000 we gained approximately $16,000 with a total of $26,000 at the end of trial 5. The first five trials were conducted on days of large market swings, therefore the potential gains were very large. Trials 6 and 7 happened on days of small market changes and, despite resulting in correct predictions, produced small losses because of the mechanics of the options trading vehicle. A timing issue in the trade of trial 7 resulted in an additional monetary loss of approximately $12,000. However, it is important to stress that this was in spite of the prediction itself being correct. (Without this timing error, total cash at the end of the project would have amounted to $38,000, or a return of almost 400% on the investment in a span of about two weeks.)

...This is not, however, the first time someone has made money through remote viewing research. The paper discusses some previous history, including a study conducted by pioneering remote viewing researcher Hal Puthoff in 1982, in which a series of 30 RV trials attempted to predict the outcome of the silver futures market. Financially, the trials netted a profit of approximately $250,000 for their investor, "of which Puthoff’s share was ten percent, or more than $25,000, which he used to help fund a new Waldorf School". And in that same year, researchers Russell Targ and Keith Harary also used remote viewing to predict silver futures in an attempt to raise funds for their research, with their first experiment yielding $120,000."