"Power, in essence, takes the form of conspiracy."

The Easiest Way to Live Life Fully Is to Follow Your Weird | VICE | United Kingdom: "Think about it – what's the difference between a fiction and a god? A god is a fiction that everyone believes in. Sometimes fictions can take on a similar kind of reality...

It's important to recognise that the term "conspiracy theory" is a derogatory term used against people who are sometimes pointing out very real, very harmful conspiracies. Power, in essence, takes the form of conspiracy. So even if you're not a crazy left-winger, but a reasonable left-winger, there's a lot of truth to seeing our current condition as the result of conspiracy. But even if a given shadowy group exists, that doesn't mean they have their hand on the lever any more than any of the other groups out there with their own crazy agendas. I see many manipulative groups: corporations, intelligence agencies, the super-rich, pranksters and transhumanist technologists. All these groups are making a move on the future, so if you go hunting for conspiracy you're going to find it all over the place."

You don't say.  ‘Boy Who Came Back From Heaven’ actually didn’t; books recalled - The Washington Post: "Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. The best-selling book, first published in 2010, purports to describe what Alex experienced while he lay in a coma after a car accident when he was 6 years old. The coma lasted two months, and his injuries left him paralyzed, but the subsequent spiritual memoir – with its assuring description of “miracles, angels, and life beyond This World” – became part of a popular genre of “heavenly tourism.” 

Earlier this week, Alex recanted his testimony about the afterlife. In an open letter to Christian bookstores posted on the Pulpit and Pen Web site, Alex states flatly: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.” Referring to the injuries that continue to make it difficult for him to express himself, Alex writes, “Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short. … I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention....""

Nightmare Fuel.  UPDATES: This Guy Caught His Wife And Sister-In-Law Cheating In A Four-Way And Is Currently Live-Updating The Story

RAWIllumination.net: Happy RAW birthday: "Today is the 83rd anniversary of Robert Anton Wilson's birth, Jan. 18, 1932 in Brooklyn, N.Y. In other words, he was born on 1-18-1932. If you add those numerals up, you get 25, conforming nicely to the law of fives. Marking RAW's birthday seems less melancholy than noting his death, which took place on Jan. 11, 2007,  just over eight years ago." 

   

  

Progress.  Eric Holder Orders End to DOJ Program that Shares Seized Assets with Police - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Big, huge news on the civil asset forfeiture front: Eric Holder is ordering an end to most of the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing Program. This is the program where the DOJ works with local law enforcement agencies for busts, and then the law enforcement agencies are permitted to keep 80 percent of the assets seized. It has been an incubator of the worst police abuses, as some agencies looked for any possible reason to take people’s property without ever actually accusing them with a crime...

While police can continue to make seizures under their own state laws, the federal program was easy to use and required most of the proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police departments. Many states require seized proceeds to go into the general fund. That difference between how the state and federal programs operate is important. The federal program is what encouraged the police abuse because the agencies got to keep the money (and cars, and whatever else they snatched). When the money goes into the general fund, not directly to the police, there goes the incentive for police to grab whatever they can get their hands on."

Breaking down Holder’s move to limit civil asset forfeiture abuse - The Washington Post: "The program won’t end civil asset forfeiture abuses entirely, but it will stop local police agencies from circumventing state laws aimed at reining them in. Many states, for example, have imposed stricter evidentiary standards police have to meet before they’re allowed to seize assets without a conviction. Other states have tried to eliminate the incentive problems that arise when police are allowed to keep the proceeds from asset forfeiture by requiring those proceeds to be sent to a general fund, or to a schools fund. Local police agencies have been able to get around those laws through the equitable sharing program, which basically federalizes investigations solely for the purpose of letting local police departments and prosecutors keep the bounties they collect in these cases. Holder’s policy change will end that."

I can't even. 

  

Training.

1/16 - squats, calf raises, rocking bench pistols

White/Pinkman 2016.

Money is the New Morality | Scott Adams Blog: "Today, morality is not limited to what your neighbors are doing. Now we look at the entire globe and see that morality is subjective. In ISIS-held territory it means beheading innocent people. To you it might mean donating time at a homeless shelter. Those are the extremes, but the point is that your neighbor has a different idea of morality. He’s hitting the bong and climbing on top of his friend-with-benefits while you’re in church. The Internet allows us to see just how subjective morality is. Or to put it another way, morality is mostly magical thinking that had utility in earlier times but now seems quaint. 

Luckily we have a better substitute for morality in 2015. It’s called capitalism, social media, and the Internet. Now if you treat others poorly you lose customers, lose job prospects, and lose social options. Capitalism is doing what morality once did — keeping people in line. So when you accuse me of putting money above morality (which I do all the time) it’s not because I’m possessed by Satan. It’s because you get a better result in the year 2015 by being smart in business than you do by being morality-driven. "

Empirica: On lard (from Gary Taubes): ""Take lard, for example, which has long been considered the archetypal example of a killer fat. It was lard that bakeries and fast-food restaurants used in large quantities before they were pressured to replace it with the artificial trans fat that nutritionists have now decided might be a cause of heart disease after all. You can find the fat composition of lard easily enough, as you can for most foods, by going to a U.S. Department of Agriculture website called the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. You'll find that nearly half the fat in lard (47 percent) is monounsaturated, which is almost universally considered a "good" fat. 

Monounsaturated fat raises HDL cholesterol and lowers LDL cholesterol (both good things, according to our doctors). Ninety percent of that monounsaturated fat is the same oleic acid that's in the olive oil so highly touted by champions of the Mediterranean diet. Slightly more than 40 percent of the fat in lard is indeed saturated, but a third of that is the same stearic acid that's in chocolate and is now also considered a "good fat", because it will raise our HDL levels but have no effect on LDL (a good thing and a neutral thing). 

The remaining fat (about 12 percent of the total) is polyunsaturated, which actually lowers LDL cholesterol but has no effect on HDL (also a good thing and a neutral thing). "In total, more than 70 percent of the fat in lard will improve your cholesterol profile compared with what would happen if you replaced that lard with carbohydrates. The remaining 30 percent will raise LDL cholesterol (bad) but also raise HDL (good). In other words, and hard as this may be to believe, if you replace the carbohydrates in your diet with an equal quantity of lard, it will actually reduce your risk of having a heart attack. It will make you healthier. The same is true for red meat, bacon and eggs, and virtually any other animal product we might choose to eat instead of the carbohydrates that make us fat. (Butter is a slight exception, because only half the fat will definitely improve your cholesterol profile; the other half will raise LDL but also raise HDL.)""

Man in dress who talks to invisible friend says other stupid things.  Pope Francis Supports Free Speech, Unless It Offends People - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Today Pope Francis aligned himself with those who, after witnessing a massacre in retaliation for cartoons, say freedom of speech should be protected as long as it does not upset people too much...

Censorship based on an audience's anticipated emotional response is highly subjective and hard to distinguish from a heckler's veto, which encourages violence and gives hotheads the power to squelch speech that offends them. In effect, Pope Francis expands the misbegotten (and apparently obsolete) "fighting words" doctrine from its original context of in-person, one-on-one encounters to published words and images that make people mad. Because that anger can be expected to result in violence, he says, those words and images cannot be tolerated. Call it the terrorist's veto...

Francis also "said religion can never be used to justify violence," but his analogy suggests otherwise: If a punch in the nose is a normal and understandable response to an insult directed at one's mother, surely violence is a normal and understandable response to an insult directed at one's faith. It is what you would "expect," and therefore the blame lies with the one who issued the insult. Because certain messages predictably elicit a violent response, according to the pope, those messages should not be legally protected."

What Pope Francis Got Wrong About Free Expression - Reason.com: ""Every religion has its dignity" is Francis' arguable contention. "One cannot provoke. One cannot insult other people's faith. One cannot make fun of faith." If those who kill are not members of a religion, surely Francis is offering us a non sequitur. If you can be provoked to kill, you are not a person of faith, right? 

But then the vicar of Christ went on to explain that those who mock faith should expect to be punched in the face. "If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch," said Francis. The pope is unimpressed by provocateurs. He wants them barred. Someone should ask him whether provocateurs should expect an asymmetrical response. For instance, if Gasparri uttered a curse word against the pope's mother, should he expect to have his family blown up? That would be a more pertinent analogy. 

But let's take it further. Where are the limits? Why does "mockery" hold a special distinction in our debate? And what constitutes contemptuous language or behavior toward another faith? For instance, can we intentionally criticize another person's faith without expecting to be punched? What if that faith is in direct conflict with the beliefs of our own set of beliefs—beliefs that deserve, according to the pope, the same respect as any other? Is it ever worth getting punched in the face?

...What if one of these faiths is unable to live in free and open society because the principles of the faith conflict with those of others? What if one religion feels mocked by the things that other religions put up with in society—such as wearing skirts above the knees or eating pork sausages or failing to accept that Muhammad is God's prophet? What if those of a certain faith feel this is ridicule toward them? What if they believe it worthy of retaliation? Should the rest of us avoid these things so as not to upset anyone? 

Obviously, I comprehend there's a distinction to be made between secular debates and the way people of faith conduct themselves. I get that there are religious reasons for not mocking others—and I also imagine people of faith avoid this because they do not want to be mocked themselves. The pope himself defended free speech as a fundamental human right and claimed that Catholics have a duty to speak their minds for the sake of the common good. But then he also asserted that this fundamental right should not extend to faith. Any faith. Any government."

sharemycosplay: #Cosplayer @GinaBCosplay kicks... - APE IN A CAPE: "#Cosplayer @GinaBCosplay kicks off today with this awesome #Redhood #cosplay #comicbooks "

Training.

1/15 - bench, pushups, seated rows

CutAndJacked.com Interview: Erko Jun |: "Train more, complain less."

"...it's - going - down."

Japan Wins Hard. Amazon Japan Is Selling A Build-Your-Own Mech Starter Kit: "You know how it is when you're browsing Amazon - books, games, Blu-rays, even your groceries, the occasional giant mech. Wait, what? The Kuratasu Starter kit lets you build a four-wheeled mech that is almost 4 metres tall, and fully piloted by a human. Think of it almost like the world's most ridiculous car. Speaking of ridiculous, it's available for the low low price of ¥ 120,000,000 - that's just over a million dollars worth of mech. But shipping for only 350 yen? BARGAIN."

Sorry, vegans: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains - The Washington Post 

  

Always frame your discussions.

Today's soundtrack.

Training.

1/14 - pullups, bw rows, floor knee raises, hang/holds, stretch

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way | Mark's Daily Apple: "It doesn’t have to be – that the ship has sailed on your health, vitality, physical appearance, or enjoyment of an active, vibrant and fulfilled life. No, it doesn’t have to be this way. That said, things will continue to be the way they have been until something changes. That change begins with you – today. Right now you have the option of turning it all around. You can say goodbye to this way of being. You can shift the whole trajectory of your health, weight, strength, fitness, aging, life balance, personal well-being."

Bonus points for the Superman shirt.