Training - "When you own your actions, you own your future."

10/3 - pullups/pushups, alt db curls/band pushdowns, ab wheel

Maria Kang - People often say that others make them feel ashamed...: "People often say that others make them feel ashamed for being unhealthy. They complain about the system and blame enablers around them. I want to confess something as a nonprofit founder. I've organized hundreds of FREE fitness groups, bootcamps and events and while maybe 100 sign up, only 20 actually follow through. The truth is that if someone really, really wanted something to happen, they would find a way. Bottom Line. You will become educated, find resources, figure out all the "how's" when you fully commit to change. The only shame people feel, is realizing they are guilty for not utilizing their free will to make better choices and living up to their truest potential. When you own your actions, you own your future."

 "Don’t get lost in unnecessary complexity. Almost anything works if you put in the work..." - RossTraining.com Blog:

Be Healthy, Be Happy!: "Time for a throwback Thursday story. So once upon a time I was an active girl who liked food, a lot. I remember during the trip the photo on the left is from my dad and I went to Cracker Barrel, and after finishing my meal he asked if I had enough and I said no so he bought me a 2nd kids meal. I had no comprehension of portion sizes or nutrition and as I got older and became more responsible for what I ate I continued to eat large quantities of junk food. Over time my eating habits caught up to me, not just in terms of my weight, but I got migraines regularly, had digestive issues, my nails were bumpy and brittle, and it became clear that I was malnourished and needed to learn how to take care of myself. Essentially relearning proper eating habits and nutrition wasn’t easy and didn’t happen overnight, but I did it, and I’m almost grateful that I had to undertake such a drastic lifestyle change because it showed me how strong I am and how much I’m capable of. So no matter where you’re starting at, change is possible if you stay determined and have the faith that you can do it!"

 Bodybuilding.com - Bodies Of Work: Volume 2:

"If it doesn't go well according to your expectations, so what?  So what?  Let it go...  the experience is awesome, even if you do fail."

"...libertarianism isn't pacifism though. A libertarian is just a pacifist that will punch you back."

RAWIllumination.net: Jake Shannon talks to RAWIllumination: "You define liberty is "what you can get away with," an obvious reference to RAW's "Reality is what you can get away." Do you see the use of encryption on the Internet an example of carving out liberty for one's self?  

I tweaked RAW's prose thus because I was growing very weary of the fear-mongering and sense of hopelessness I had noticed consuming the "Liberty Movement". I felt it important to inspire optimistic individualist anarchists by shifting their attention to the blessed liberty they already had (and could grow) but were souring it with the pessimism and constant focus on the negative...

I truly hope that "liberty is what you can get away with" becomes a bit of a libertarian mantra reminding people of reasons for libertarian optimism, like encryption...

Your book predicts that there will be a total financial collapse of the system that props up the U.S. government. How confident are you about that? Is that still  your prediction? 

Yes, there is a coming collapse of the American political economy as we know it but that isn't to sound apocalyptic or to immanentize the eschaton in any way. I am an apocaloptimist actually. As Johan Galtung so succinctly said, "I love the US Republic, and I hate the US Empire." The debt levels of the US Federal government are unsustainable, this isn't really controversial. Both the Congressional Budget Office and General Accounting Office figures corroborate this. The date when the debt to GDP ratio proves that the US Federal government is insolvent arrives shortly after 2020. 

My guess is that when this collapse comes it won't result a Mad Max scenario. Instead it will be more similar to the post-USSR economy until, of course, entrepreneurs zip in to fill the service gaps previously provided by the government sector. I am optimistic since the Millennials, those that will be taking the reigns of power after the collapse, seem like a demographic that favors decentralization. I could be wrong though, I mean just look how poorly the hippies did when they inherited the reigns of power...

Do you regard taking an antiwar position on U.S. military adventures overseas an important element of the liberty movement? It's an impression I get from your book, but I thought I would make sure. Yes, I think it is very difficult to be both pro-war and libertarian simultaneously. This is why the combination of sociological recuperation and the Beckian/Palinesque detournement so effectively neutered the liberty elements within the nascent 21st Century Tea Party movement. It was basically conservatarian jingoism that brought the Tea Partiers back under the influence of the Republicans, unfortunately. This theme was given a much longer treatment in my TEA-O-CONNED book. No one that actually knows my positions would ever call me a conservative but that is the great thing about libertarianism, in my opinion. It serves, as Nozick called it, as a framework for utopia. Meaning, libertarianism is a big tent where both conservatives and revolutionaries can get together to battle their common foe, authoritarians (this was a point made originally by George Orwell). I do think it is important to make it explicitly clear that libertarianism isn't pacifism though. A libertarian is just a pacifist that will punch you back."

Godly.  St. Louis Archbishop Carlson claims to be uncertain if he knew sexual abuse was a crime : Lifestyles: "Archbishop Robert J. Carlson claimed to be uncertain that he knew sexual abuse of a child by a priest constituted a crime when he was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to a deposition released Monday. During the deposition taken last month, attorney Jeff Anderson asked Carlson whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. “I understand today it’s a crime.” Anderson went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t,” Carlson said. Yet according to documents released Monday by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates in St. Paul, Carlson showed clear knowledge that sexual abuse was a crime when discussing incidents with church officials during his time in Minnesota."

Training - "If you can't fix it with squats or fish oil..."

10/2 - squats, front squats, walking lunges, calf press, stairs

"If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse." – Jim Rohn

Aging is a choice.  Timeline Photos - Bill Phillips Transformation: "My 50-year old legs...lol... Rebuilt completely after my accident that left me in a wheelchair a couple years ago... Getting older and stronger and feeling better than ever! "

Bodybuilding.com - Lindsey Built Military Muscle For Competition:

AudraLorraine's Progress Photo Update - BodySpace: "QUADS! 2 YEARS OF HARD WORK"

"Everyone has ghosts."

Obama Currently Being Chased In Background Of Secret Service Hearing | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

Game is Tight.

Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It: Why Is This Widely Denied? | Alternet: "According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.” However, that’s not what the epidemiology of the disorder suggests. By age 35, half of all people who qualified for active alcoholism or addiction diagnoses during their teens and 20s no longer do, according to a study of over 42,000 Americans in a sample designed to represent the adult population...

While some addictions clearly do take a chronic course, these data, which replicates earlier research, suggests that many do not. And this remains true even for people like me, who have used drugs in such high, frequent doses and in such a compulsive fashion that it is hard to argue that we “weren’t really addicted.” I don’t know many non-addicts who shoot up 40 times a day, get suspended from college for dealing and spend several months in a methadone program. Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery. If your addiction really is “doing push-ups” while you sit in AA meetings, it should get harder, not easier, to quit over time...

So why do so many people still see addiction as hopeless? One reason is a phenomenon known as “the clinician’s error,” which could also be known as the “journalist’s error” because it is so frequently replicated in reporting on drugs. That is, journalists and rehabs tend to see the extremes: Given the expensive and often harsh nature of treatment, if you can quit on your own you probably will. And it will be hard for journalists or treatment providers to find you. Similarly, if your only knowledge of alcohol came from working in an ER on Saturday nights, you might start thinking that prohibition is a good idea. All you would see are overdoses, DTs, or car crash, rape or assault victims. You wouldn’t be aware of the patients whose alcohol use wasn’t causing problems. And so, although the overwhelming majority of alcohol users drink responsibly, your “clinical” picture of what the drug does would be distorted by the source of your sample of drinkers. Treatment providers get a similarly skewed view of addicts: The people who keep coming back aren’t typical—they’re simply the ones who need the most help. Basing your concept of addiction only on people who chronically relapse creates an overly pessimistic picture."

Super Awesome Dog is Super Awesome.

Scott Adams Blog: Your Personal Ghosts 10/01/2014: "Everyone has ghosts. You can let them haunt you forever or you can make them your bitches. Consider the latter."

Excellent.

Geektastic.

Training - Aging is a choice.

10/1 - bench, dips, inc db press, decline situps, run stairs, steam room 

Tony Horton Kitchen's Photos: "First – thanks for an awesome program. Between Tony Horton Kitchen and P90X, I was able to lose 70 pounds in 6 months. Progress picture attached if you're interested. So I wanted to say thank you. Second - this change has driven me to running triathlons and also having a goal to get to single digit BF. I exercise daily and sometime twice a day..."

2014 NPC True Strength Classic: 

Aging is a choice.  "Hugh Biddick Bodybuilding- Masters 60+ 1st place" 

  

  

Bodybuilding.com - Body Transformation: Mhariel McDonald Cut 86 Pounds!: 

— #transformationtuesday officially over 70 lbs lost...: "officially over 70 lbs lost so far! Left photo; February 2013, right photo; Saturday, September 27th, 2014." 

 WITH X BLOOD: "IT HAS BEEN A YEAR SINCE I STARTED INTERMITTENTLY FASTING, AND IT HAS BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE IF STARTED TAKING MY TRAINING VERY SERIOUSLY. I’VE GOT A LONG WAY TO GO TO REACH MY GOALS, BUT THOSE GOALS ARE ALSO CONSTANTLY SHIFTING AND CHANGING TO MATCH MY PROGRESS. LOOKING AT HOW MUCH I’VE CHANGED PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY IS VERY ENCOURAGING, I ALMOST LOOK LIKE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON, AND I CERTAINLY FEEL COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. LESS STRESS, MORE CONFIDENCE, HAVEN’T GOTTEN A COLD OR ANY OTHER ILLNESS IN A YEAR, AND I’M MUCH STRONGER AND MUCH LEANER. IF YOU’RE UNHAPPY WITH YOUR LIFE, BODY, MIND: DON’T HESITATE TO MAKE POSITIVE CHANGES TODAY, BECAUSE TIME WON’T WAIT."

The scale is secondary.   Kate Windsor — Transformation Tuesday: On the left: my college...: "On the left: my college graduation on May 17, 2012 On the right: a picture from September 28, 2014 I am almost 25 pounds heavier and so much happier."