"What if I told you..."

Ignore politicians, make real change.  How Voters, Not Politicians, Are Reforming California's Harsh Sentencing Laws - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "California voters approved a sweeping change to sentencing on Tuesday by passing Proposition 47 and knocking most drug possession and "petty theft" charges down from felonies to a misdemeanors. Only months earlier, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed similar, and more modest, changes to California's sentencing laws, claiming that the state's plan to "realign" convicts from state prisons to county jails required more time to fully take effect. This is not the first time California voters have routed around the obstinate political establishment to address the state's massive prison overcrowding problem. In 2012, voters amended the state's longstanding Three Strikes law to allow resentencing of nonviolent, nonserious third strikes. "

Thuggish douchebaggery.  Deputy suspended after video post - Times Union: "A Saratoga County sheriff's sergeant was suspended after a video posted on the Internet Friday captured him allegedly slapping a young man as the deputy insisted on searching his vehicle...

Sgt. Shawn R. Glans, 48, who has been a police officer for 27 years, was suspended without pay pending an internal investigation...

The video depicts Glans becoming frustrated as he says: "Let me see your (expletive) keys." "Why?" the young man asks. "You can't do that." "Because we're searching your (expletive) car, that's why," Glans says. The deputy then apparently slaps the young man as he says: "You want to (expletive) resist?" The slap can be heard but is not captured on the video because the camera was pointed downward.

At that point, it appears from sounds in the video that Glans grabs the young man's car keys and tosses them to someone off screen, as he says: "Search the (expletive) car." It's unclear from the video if another deputy is at the scene. Glans then tells the young man, who remains calm throughout the ordeal, that "if you've got nothing to hide in there ... we'll be on our (expletive) merry way." The young man filming the incident tells the sergeant that what just happened was "intense" and asks the officer if he's going strike him next. The sheriff's sergeant responds that he could "rip your (expletive) head off and (expletive) down your neck" "You like that, huh? I can get a lot more intense," the sergeant tells the young man. 

Reached Saturday, Glans said there was more to the encounter than is captured on the video. "You saw the video. It doesn't look good," Glans told the Times Union. "I'm all about doing the right thing. I had to go to that point because of the factors that came into play. There was a gun that was involved (that) I spotted in the vehicle." Asked if he would have handled the matter the same way again, Glans said he would, but not if he knew it was being filmed. He acknowledged that he did not know the incident was being videotaped. "I was concerned. It was a public safety issue," the sergeant said. "If I had to do it all over again ... I'd probably do the same thing. If I knew the camera was there, no, because it does look bad." 

Glans, who has also worked for the South Glens Falls police department, said he was in the U.S. Marine Corps before becoming a police officer..."

#TheStruggleIsReal 

"Nympho Killers of the Third Reich"?  Sold. 

"...we are not even close to what is essential."

How We Broadcast About Death | MORNING, COMPUTER: "On Monday, I set HOUSE MD to run.  So it’s been seeping into my head in the background for a few days.  And, as a background noise, it’s become quite a peculiar experience.

...the whole thing is really an extended meditation on death.  And, remember, this was one of America’s most popular tv shows.  When you’re ignoring the plots and just half-listening to the dialogue, it becomes a weird endless sequence of studies on the permanent fog of death, how we approach it, how we prepare for it, and how there is nothing beyond it.  House, the mighty atheist explorer, even goes there to look at one point, sticking a knife in a power socket to peek behind the veil and ensure the room beyond is empty.  For eight years, America told itself a long story about death and the ways in which it comes, using the body of an English comedian to do it.  And the wondrous, awful thing about it is that it never really backs off.  House is always a brutal Modernist hero, the idealised American hospital (that most Americans will never see anything like) is still a waiting room for the graveyard, and death is always a hopeless final function that brings no peace.  It is a hundred and seventy hour long dialogue on the end.  That is an almost magically nihilist thing."

Can't Stop the Signal.  'Dark Web' Drug Site Challenge Law Enforcement - ABC News: "No sooner had authorities announced the shuttering of an alleged illegal online drug bazaar than another popped up claiming to take its place. Welcome to the "dark Web," an increasingly popular corner of the Internet where thousands of computer users from around the globe interact anonymously — and, in many cases, illegally. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a 26-year-old San Francisco man with operating Silk Road 2.0, an anonymous website that authorities say rang up $8 million in monthly drug sales. On Friday, an underground website calling itself Silk Road 3.0 Reloaded claimed to be open for business on the TOR network, which is linked globally through special browsers that encrypt Internet traffic. Several other websites on the TOR network also claimed to be open for drug transactions."

Of course.  Obama authorizes sending additional troops to Iraq: "The White House authorized up to 1,500 additional troops to be sent to Iraq, the Pentagon announced Friday, doubling the size of the U.S presence there...

The additional forces reflect the challenges the U.S. faces in preparing Iraq's military to retake ground lost to the Islamic State, which has taken large chunks of Iraq and Syria. Iraqi forces are not yet capable of a large-scale offensive against the heavily armed militants, according to the Pentagon...

Despite billions of dollars of U.S. funds, a large portion of Iraq's military collapsed in June when Islamic State forces attacked Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, as well as other locations."

Parties used to be cooler.

This girl snaps ankles.  Impressive.

Beautiful.  humansofnewyork: “I just came back from class.... : "humansofnewyork: “I just came back from class. I’m in a continuing education program at a nearby college— it’s helping hold the Alzheimer’s at bay and keeping me out of the nursing home. Today was Genetics And Epigenetics. Tomorrow is French New Wave Film. Friday is Sociology and Religion. It’s where I get most of my socialization, too. It’s a bunch of widows and widowers like me.” 

“Do you remember the saddest moment of your life?” “When my wife told me she wanted to go to hospice.” 

“Do you remember the greatest day you ever spent with your wife?” “We took a cruise in Antarctica, and the weather was great, so the captain took us deeper than he normally goes, and we were floating among the icebergs, and the seals were laying out in the sun, and I remember both of us agreeing that it was the greatest day.”"

Training - "Soreness isn't a terminal condition..."

11/7 - pullups, db curls, band curls, ovh tri xt

Squat. Press. Pull.:

T Nation | The 5 Jackasses of Fitness: "Soreness isn't a terminal condition, and you aren't that hurt. Stop spending so much time prehabbing and actually lift something!"

"It's time to go home!"

 PHOTO PARADE: The Many Heroes and Villains of Comikaze 2014 - Comic Book Resources:

Ordering The Vegetarian Meal? There’s More Animal Blood On Your Hands | IFLScience: "Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in: at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein more environmental damage, and a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat. How is this possible? Agriculture to produce wheat, rice and pulses requires clear-felling native vegetation. That act alone results in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. Since Europeans arrived on this continent we have lost more than half of Australia’s unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption. Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required)...

Producing protein from wheat means ploughing pasture land and planting it with seed. Anyone who has sat on a ploughing tractor knows the predatory birds that follow you all day are not there because they have nothing better to do. Ploughing and harvesting kill small mammals, snakes, lizards and other animals in vast numbers. In addition, millions of mice are poisoned in grain storage facilities every year."

Cocaine and hookers save lives.  Total Frat Move | Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living: "Two thousand dollars spent on a trip to Mexico, a cab ride, a seedy hotel room, excessive amounts of cocaine, and hooker orgies legitimately saved a man’s life...

Went to Mexico to buy barbiturates for a humane and peaceful death. Decided that if I was gonna die anyway I might as well fuck a prostitute before it was all over. After that a cab driver offered to sell me cocaine. One thing lead to another, and I got a room above a whore house equipped with a heart shaped bed, a stripper pole, and a hot tub. Spent a full week snorting coke off tits, popping pain meds, drinking tequila, eating handfuls of Viagra to fight the whiskey/coke dick, and had three FFM threesomes. Somewhere in the midst of my coke-fueled orgy I decide life wasn’t so bad after all."

South Park gets it.

Funny, with a soupcon of accuracy.  5 Dimensional Policial Compass:

  "You are a: Right-Leaning Anarchist Isolationist Humanist Libertine 

Collectivism score: -17% 

Authoritarianism score: -100% 

Internationalism score: -67% 

Tribalism score: -67% 

Liberalism score: 83%"

The U.S. Launches Another Dumb War in the Middle East. Why Hitting ISIS Will Just Make Matters Worse. - Reason.com: "The United States is still involved in a 13-year-old war in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has undertaken a new one against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, just three years after he withdrew the last of our troops from Iraq. The administration is also carrying on a drone missile campaign—which looks eerily like war from the receiving end—in Pakistan and Yemen. Yet the republic has just concluded an election campaign that gave almost no attention to what the United States government is doing, or should be doing, in these places. For the most part, the topic was discussed in only the vaguest terms, but often it was simply absent. No country in history has ever done so much fighting in so many places with so little interest from its own citizens.

Nor do the people in power who make these ambitious commitments necessarily have a clue where they will lead. Over and over, things turn out in ways that come as a complete and thoroughly unwelcome surprise."

"You weren't defending anything..."

Observe the cognitive dissonance/continued death of the 4th Amendment.  Toledo municipal court arrest warrants unconstitutional | The Columbus Dispatch: "Toledo’s municipal court has been improperly issuing arrest warrants for 17 years, a “flagrant” violation of protections against illegal searches and seizures, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today. The local court should revamp its process for issuing arrest warrants, but police officers acted in good faith and the warrants themselves were valid, the high court said. "

Natural Selection.

Jimmy: Why would I even listen to you? Eh? You're a mental case. You're like on a billion medications that all say take for bastshit craziness. 

Edgar: I was defending our country. 

Jimmy: Oh please. You weren't defending anything except the business interests of evil men. 

Edgar: Jimmy, our country is the business interests of evil men. 

Jimmy: That may be the most intelligent thing you've ever said. 

Edgar: Thanks. 

Jimmy: You're still a god-damned lunatic.

 - "You're the Worst"

Training - "I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me."

11/6 - squats, knee raises, lunges, stretch

"I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole." - Henry Rollins

Heidi Somers - Mobile Uploads: "This was achieved in 10 weeks. I hadn't realized how far I had come until I saw my before picture! We all have busy lives and we all have obstacles. But everyday we all have a choice. A choice to better our life or remain the same. If you want a better body..work for it! If you want a better job..work for it! If you want a better life..better relationships...better education..work for it! There is no shortcut and it will be difficult. If it wasn't difficult everyone would do it! So what's holding you back? #NoExcuses #TransformationTuesday #Buffbunny"

Timeline Photos - Bill Phillips Transformation: "Recently I have posted before and now photos of my upper body and I have received several questions about how my injured legs are doing. Here are before and now photos of the legs: on the left is where my quads were after I got out of a wheelchair and out of leg braces following my accident a while back (legs were very small and very weak and the pain was brutal). 

On the right are my quads today, over 100 leg workouts later. I can't do barbell squats and many other exercises... I can do spin bike at high intensity for quads and pretty light dumbbell squats and light leg extensions. Remember I severed all quadriceps muscles on both legs from their attachments at the patella by literally tripping and falling down some stairs (yes, I know that was a stupid mistake - but it all worked out for the best believe it or not). My re-attached quadriceps muscles won't do everything but I don't let that stop me... I do the exercises I can do and I try very hard when I am doing them... I work around the injuries and I don't let limitations stop me. And as I have mentioned before, I don't let the fact that I am age 50 stop me either. I still have a way to go so I am working hard to achieve new goals and I am fired up about improving and making more progress in the future. I have a whole new respect and a new compassion for people who are going through adversity because of injury and I know that it is hard and painful and humbling. I want to show that you can renew your strength and health and feel able and pain-free again. Get back on track and don't give up!"

"You got me there."

Climate change is a problem. But our attempts to fix it could be worse than useless - Telegraph: "The UN Climate Panel came out with its final report yesterday. It is a summary of its 3 main reports, published over the last year. It tells us that global warming is real and a significant problem. And as usual, the media hears something else – in the words of Mother Jones magazine, how future warming will be “ghastly, horrid, awful, shocking, grisly, gruesome.” In between the alarmist hype and the reality of climate change we once again risk losing an opportunity to think smartly about energy and find a realistic way to fix global warming.

We need to realise that the world will not come off fossil fuels for many decades. Globally, we get a minuscule 0.3pc of our energy from solar and wind. According to the International Energy Agency, even with a wildly optimistic scenario, we will get just 3.5pc of our energy from solar and wind in 2035, while paying almost $100 billion in annual subsidies. Today, the world gets 82pc of its energy from fossil fuels, in 21 years it will still be more than 79pc. The simple reason is that cheap and abundant energy is what powers economic growth...

As the poor half of our world is reaching for a similar development to that of China, they will also want much, much more power, most of it powered by coal. Even the climate-worried World Bank president accepts that "there’s never been a country that has developed with intermittent power." Realising that fossil fuels will be here for a long time means stronger focus on moving from coal to gas, since gas emits about half the greenhouse gasses. The US shale gas revolution has reduced gas prices and lead to a significant switch from coal to gas. This has reduced US CO₂ emissions to their lowest in 20 years...

While global warming will be a problem, much of the rhetoric is wildly exaggerated – like when UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calls it “an existential challenge for the whole human race.” 

Global warming pales when compared to many other global problems. While the WHO estimates 250,000 annual deaths from global warming in 30 years, 4.3 million die right now each year from indoor air pollution, 800 million are starving, and 2.5 billion live in poverty and lack clean water and sanitation. When the UN asked 5 million people for their top priorities the answers were better education and health care, less corruption, more jobs and affordable food. They placed global warming at the very last spot, as priority number 17.

Climate policies can easily cost much more than the global warming damage will – while helping very little. The German solar adventure, which has cost taxpayers more than $130 billion, will at the end of the century just postpone global warming by a trivial 37 hours. While a low carbon tax in theory could help a little, the political reality is that climate policies almost everywhere have been ineffective, done little good while sustaining the most wasteful technologies. The IPCC warns than less-than-perfect climate policies can be 2-4 times more expensive. Biofuels, for instance, have driven up food costs, likely causing an extra 30 million starving, with prospects of starving another 100 million by 2020. And it is likely that biofuels cause net increase in CO₂ emissions, because they force agriculture to cut down forests elsewhere to grow food. This is why we have to be careful in pushing for the right policies. For twenty years, the refrain has been promises to cut CO₂, like the Kyoto Protocol. For twenty years these policies have failed. We should instead look to climate economics to find smarter solutions."

"Art Historian."

"The public sucks.  Fuck hope.  That's a nice campaign slogan...  I don't vote... it's meaningless.  This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago."

"I on the other hand, who did not vote, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created that I have nothing to do with."

 Ron Paul: 'Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars' - Hit & Run : Reason.com:

Corn flakes were invented to keep you from masturbating.  True Story.  #knowyourhistory

  

Sleep: You're Doing It Wrong - Lift Big Eat Big: "I know this isn’t easy for everyone, but going to bed at the same time every night makes a huge difference in the quality of your sleep.  Our bodies like to be in a rhythm, and when the time you go to sleep is all over the place, you will have trouble falling asleep, which is another reason why people get poor quality of sleep.  Make it a priority at least during the week to go bed at the exact same time every night...

In your bedroom make sure there is absolutely no light coming in at all.  I make my bedroom into a cave with my entire window blocked off.  Our bodies are very light sensitive, so just a little light shining through can disrupt you...

Make sure there are no noises that can disrupt you.  Sometimes this is out of your control, so it’s a good idea to have some white noise to cloud other sounds out.  A loud fan will generally work well here...

Having a routine before you go to bed can be a great help in falling asleep faster.  Watching movies, television late at night can be very stimulating that can keep your mind racing for a few hours after.  Also doing stressful work before bed can do the same. Our bodies also like to sleep in a cooler temperature, around 66-72 degrees is ideal.  For myself nothing is worse than not being able to sleep because you are too hot. 

This is an obvious one but of course, avoid caffeine and other stimulants later in the day.  If you train later in the day then I would recommend taking a smaller dose to start to see how your body reacts. Start applying these habits and you will feel more energized and motivated to train harder and longer."