Training.

3/6 - Russian Pullup Program D14 16/14/12/10/10 -- dips 3x10, glute bridge 5x20 -- P90X2 D24 X2 Recovery & Mobility

Awesome - | Meet Ben. Ben is 72 years old and the sole...: "Meet Ben. Ben is 72 years old and the sole caretaker of his disabled adult son. He started attending Crossfit in order to build & maintain the strength he needed in order to be able to pick his son up out of his wheelchair regularly. Everyday he is in the gym cracking jokes and attempting whatever is thrown at him-regardless of his ability. Here he is squatting 115lbs! He is the sweetest man I’ve ever met and my favorite gym buddy. So for all of you thinking “I can’t”, “I won’t”, “Its too hard” or “What’s the point?” - Find a reason. Find a reason to live the best life that you can. Your health is more important than simply looking good in a bikini. Your life, and in some cases the lives of others, depends on it. If Ben can do it, than so can you!"

Training.

3/5 - Russian Pullup Program D13 16/14/12/10/8 -- P90X2 D23 Plyocide -- gtg/glute bridges & COCT grip work

Inspiring/dude is shredded.

Today's Internets - "Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious." - Rumi

FML: "Today, I found out that my wife makes mashed potatoes by using her dirty feet to crush the potatoes because apparently this is a "healthy, natural" way to make them, and it also cleans her feet. I've been eating her mashed potatoes at least once every week. FML"

You don't say.

As church attendance drops, Europe's most Catholic country seeks modern pope - World News: "“Well-educated young people from the cities are leaving the church,” said Marej Zajac, a writer for the Polish Roman Catholic weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny."

Scott Adams Blog: Market Manipulators - Clarification 03/04/2013: ""I'm glad you had the wisdom to get a cartoonist's opinion on global financial markets.    The 20% estimate is based on the fact that 20 is a big round number and more likely to happen than 30%. I don't like to over-think these things.    My reasoning is that the people at the highest levels of finance are brilliant people who chose a profession with the credibility of astrology. And they know it. Then they sell their advice to people who don't know it. So that's your cast of characters.    Now consider that the characters - who are literally geniuses in many cases - have an immense financial motive, opportunity, and a near-zero risk of getting caught. How do you think that plays out?"

Fat Head » Two Studies of hearthealthywholegrains: "The reported increase in celiac isn’t due to better diagnosis, however.  As Dr. William Davis explained in Wheat Belly, the rate of celiac disease really and truly has gone up – it’s quadrupled, in fact.  We know that because researchers found blood samples taken from soldiers 50 years ago and compared them to blood samples taken from soldiers today.  Sure enough, today’s soldiers were four times more likely to have celiac antibodies in their blood. As for the argument that gluten intolerance is all in our heads, perhaps a double-blind study would answer that.  You know, feed some subjects foods containing gluten, feed other subjects similar foods without gluten, with neither group knowing which foods they’re eating.  If only someone had conducted such a study…

… oh, wait.  It’s been done, as reported in a New York Times article about gluten sensitivity: Crucial in the evolving understanding of gluten were the findings, published in 2011, in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, of an experiment in Australia. In the double-blind study, people who suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, did not have celiac and were on a gluten-free diet were given bread and muffins to eat for up to six weeks. Some of them were given gluten-free baked goods; the others got muffins and bread with gluten. Thirty-four patients completed the study. Those who ate gluten reported they felt significantly worse."

...Every time I tracked down a study purporting to prove the benefits of whole grains, the comparison was between people consuming whole grains and people consuming white flour.  All we can determine from those studies is that whole grains aren’t as bad for us as white flour.  To prove whole grains have real benefits, we’d have to compare people who eat whole grains to people who eat no grains."

Mitt Romney's still an idiot and a hypocrite.

Mitt Romney Thinks He Lost the Election Because of ObamaCare - Hit & Run : Reason.com: " former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that his campaign “underestimated” the attractiveness of ObamaCare, particularly among people with lower incomes. Given the health law’s sagging poll numbers, it’s hard to make a strong case that ObamaCare helped seal the deal for the president...

...More importantly, Romney has long viewed ObamaCare as basically a good idea. He passed its state based predecessor in Massachusetts, and he repeatedly touted it as a model for the nation. He also chose his top campaign adviser, Stuart Stevens, in large part because Stevens broke from other GOP consultants in telling Romney that he didn’t need to disavow the Massachusetts health care plan.

...You can imagine this frustrating Romney. When RomneyCare passed back in 2006, a lot of folks in Massachusetts viewed it as a bid for the presidency: Romney was going to run as the Republican who made health care reform happen. It was going to be his signature achievement. Instead, it turned out to be Obama's, and Romney was stuck in the deeply awkward position of defending the Massachusetts overhaul while taking a hard line against the president's."

Pizza Level: Asian.

LOL.

» The War On Pubes - Unleash The Beef: "The article, aside from expressing the pseudo-shock of its author, recounts the shock one mother experienced upon catching sight of her fifteen-year-old daughter’s fully-shaved baby-station, despite the fact that Mommy had, for years, taken the same newly-pubeless daughter along with her to have professionals wax out her own giney town. “[T]he fact that a significant number of girls barely past puberty think going ‘bare floor’ or even Brazilian is desirable just kills me,” cries the bush-cherishing Ferrier. Well, if it kills you, good riddance...

The inability of others to differentiate between your genitals and a muskrat is not desirable in 2011. Hell, most males are rocking a high and tight cock-fade these days, never mind the absence of pubes on the fairer sex. 

...We’ve long since established, as a society, that a hairy female body is not desirable. You shave your legs. You shave your armpits. Why? Because you want to be desired. And men don’t desire hairy legs and armpits. If you’re really unfortunate, you also shave your moustache. These behaviors, designed to attract mates, are perfectly acceptable, but shaving one’s vajeezy – the most desirable spot – is horrific? That is insane!"

Not to mention bathing, perfume, clothing, cutting hair, hairstyle and and all the other "unnatural" things we all do to make ourselves more attractive, in one way or another...

"Another point that bothers me, besides everything, is the mentioning that this pube-shaven teen’s mom, regardless of whether or not her daughter is actually sexually active, is “appalled” that her daughter is “thinking of that area in that way.” Holy parental mindfuck. Are we serious? A mother of a teenage daughter – a woman this world (mistakenly) considers an adult – is appalled that her ovulating daughter thinks of her own sex organs sexually? Why do people kid themselves this way?"

A Lion in Iron: Women—Be More, Not Less: "I’m tired of it. I’m tired of women thinking they are supposed to be weak. I don’t know who taught them this. I don’t know if it was their mothers, the media, and/or their friends. I don’t know how this started or who started it, but I do know that it needs to end. Whatever it was, whoever it was, it needs to be killed. You are not supposed to be weak. You have the right to be strong. The body you want is more than what you are, not less. You have the right to make progress. You have the to right to have muscles. Your training is not confined to counting how many calories two hours of cardio can burn. You have the right to add plates to the bar. You have the right to use something heavier than 10s. You have the right to be strong."

Crony capitalism, lobbying and scare mongering at its worst.

WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR: "The Results of Drug Tests on Welfare Recipients in Florida: Drug testing only benefits the testing company. Typical on conservatives to waste time and money trying to stop a fake issue. You have to love how they pander to the “everyone on welfare is a mooch and a druggie” types in order to get public support for such a wasteful program - that did nothing but line the pockets of the owners of drug testing facilities."

The Running Of The Moms - Unleash The Beef: "From my initial vantage point, it looked to be mostly females. I thought to myself, “Hmm, probably some nonsensical cancer marathon where everyone fails to see the irony of the fact that distance running destroys fast twitch muscle, weakens the immune system, and increases susceptibility to cancer. Oh well.

...The fact of the matter is that jogging/distance running, much like whole grains and ritual human sacrifice, is bad. Slow, plodding, aerobic exercise is not a sweet idea. Given the choice between jogging and complete motionlessness, just sit still. You’ll be much healthier for your choice. I’m not spelling out the scientific points as to why these things are true, but follow the pretty blue links if your interest is piqued. There’s also the likelihood that your running form is horrendous, which only serves to further cripple you. If you’re confused, I’ll make it easy. Walk, sprint, or sit on the couch. Forget the carb-loading. Forget whole grains. Forget the whole of what you’ve “learned” about exercise and nutrition. It’s all wrong. Every. Last. Bit."

Long, slow running sucks.  Do sprints.

I voted last fall.  This still makes more sense to me.

» Voting: Act Of The Proud Slave - Unleash The Beef: "“Exactly. I don’t vote because voting is the ultimate exercise in futility. It’s begging a master to whip you more or less aggressively. It’s propping up an institution I don’t feel should exist – government – and consenting to your status as property of the ruling class. It’s a mechanism for legitimizing illegitimacy. Why would I participate in a system I wish to eliminate when all it takes to eliminate that system is non-participation?”"

» That Shortsightedness Looks Good On You - Unleash The Beef: "“Hey, make sure you get lunch today! They provided a whole spread in there! It’s really good! Have you gotten any yet?” “Nah.” “Well, whatcha waiting for? Go get something to eat! They’ve got this chocolate éclair cake for dessert; it’s incredible. You better hurry up ‘fore it’s all gone!” “I’m good. I’ll check it out later.” “When do you eat? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat here. Do you ever eat anything?” “I eat every day.” “What are you, watching your figure or something? You watching what you eat? You don’t have to worry about what you eat – you’re young!” Wow. Thank you for enlightening my life with your well-reasoned nutritional acumen, hefty 54-year-old lady that I work with. Why must the humans around me constantly say such dumb, dumb shit? I suppose it’s because I respond with whatever half-hearted statement gets me away from them the fastest...

Now, you say I don’t have to worry about what I eat because I’m young, right? Interesting. Amazing that, with everything else you do around here, you’re weaving the role of volunteer nutritionist into your agenda. Do you think, though – just maybe – that if you had started worrying about what you ate when you were young, you might not now look like 250 pounds of walking éclair cake stuffed in a blouse and set atop a pair of asinine “rock and tone” platform sneakers? Do something with those horrible shoes. Please. Eat them if you’d like. Just don’t wear them. The last thing you need is more distance between yourself and the surface of Earth. Or more fucking éclair cake. Or to continue standing here interrogating me, rocking and loafing, critiquing my mysterious dietary habits."

Dear Mark: Obesogens, Tots Who Hate Veggies, and Pregnancy Recovery | Mark's Daily Apple: "...youngsters (babies and toddlers) are the most intuitive eaters around. They’re unaffected by fast food advertising. They’re not subject to pressure from peers toting bags of Gogurt, chips, and Lunchables. For that reason, I’m not too worried about a little kid who hates veggies.

Look, vegetables are bitter. They contain various toxins, and as adults, we’ve learned to appropriate and appreciate those toxins and turn them into full-fledged hormetic stressor nutrients. All those phytochemicals that abound in colorful vegetation that Primal and vegan eaters alike champion? They’re actually toxins that induce a hormetic response from our bodies and upregulate our antioxidant systems, thereby improving our health. But we’re adults. We’ve been eating these foods for a long, long time. Even if we don’t exactly love the taste – but most of us do learn to love the taste – even if they’re still kinda bitter, we know that it’s for the best. We can rationalize eating something that might not taste great because we know that it will improve our health. Eventually, we might even learn to honestly enjoy the taste.

But a toddler? A toddler just has access to the basic senses, which he’s still figuring out. It’s only been a year or two that he even got a handle on all that sensory data streaming through his eyes or ears, or interacting with his tongue. He’s not going to enjoy a sip of $200 wine, and he’ll probably turn up his nose at the sauteed dino kale you’re urging him to eat, regardless of its freshness. He’s not going to rationalize the consumption of a bitter vegetable for his own good, because it’s icky. Icky trumps all in toddlerland. That’s could be a good thing, too. It may be that small kids are less equipped to deal with hormetic stressors (whether they’re plant polyphenols or light bursts of radiation) than we are, and their tastes are constructed thusly. The hormetic threshold could be a whole lot lower in tots.""

Training.

3/4 - Russian Pullup Program D11 14/14/12/10/8 -- P90X2 D22 Chest + Back + Balance & X2 Ab Ripper  -- glute bridge [gtg] 5x30, hip thrusts 2x20 

RossTraining.com Blog: "In summary, be realistic with your expectations. I’m all for getting beastly in the gym, but there is no such thing as being too good for a bad day. If I find myself stuck in a rut, I do what I have always done. I work, work, and work some more. I continue to grind until I am back on top. Sure, I may trip or fall at times, but I always get up and keep moving forward. My approach may sound a bit crude or archaic, but it’s always worked for me. I’m not about to change. +++++ When in doubt, outwork everyone else."

Pic via http://hellyeahyougotthis.tumblr.com/

Food Log.

2/20 - coffee, milk, water, turkey, onion, bacon, sour cream, guacamole, Diet Coke, chocolate, peanut butter
2/21 - coffee, milk, cream, MP Assault, Monster Amino, water, turkey, onion, bacon, sour cream, guacamole, Monster Milk, Monster Multi, peanut butter, MP ZMA Max
2/22 - coffee, half & half, water, MP Assault, Monster Milk, peanut butter, milk, hamburger, shredded cheddar, bacon bits, beer, MP ZMA Max
2/23 - coffee, half & half, water, MP Assault, Monster Milk, peanut butter, milk, Monster Multi, Monster Amino, strawberry infused water, Coke Zero, salad bar, chocolate chip cookies, Jack & Coke, MP ZMA Max
2/24 - coffee, half & half, cream, infused water/strawberry, pizza, beer, chicken bites, ranch, garlic sauce, Diet Coke, M&M's
2/25 - coffee, cream, water, infused water/strawberry, Monster Amino, MP Assault, water, MP ZMA Max
2/26 - coffee, half & half, cream, QuestBar[s], Monster Amino, water, MP Assault, Chipotle barbacoa bowl/dbl meat no beans/rice w/guac & sour cream, MP ZMA Max
2/27 - coffee, half & half, infused water/cucumber & mint, salad [spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, shredded cheese, ranch], Girl Scout Cookies, milk, Diet Coke, marscapone
2/28 - Questbars, MP Assault, MP Amino, coffee, half & half, water, steak, bacon, peanut butter
3/1 - Questbars, coffee, half & half, water, Monster Multi, Cherry Coke Zero, Greek yogurt, cheeseburgers w/spicy guacamole
3/2 - MP Amino1, MP Assault, coffee, half & half, water, cheeseburger sliders, beer, McDonald's burgers & Shamrock shake, Questbar, peanut butter
3/3 - coffee, half & half, tuna, mayo, avocado, tomato, beer, ice cream, peanut butter cups, pita chips, sour cream, ranch

This.

Today's Internets Mojo.

Brickbat: Neutering the Sheepdogs - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Officials at Florida's Cypress Lake High School suspended three students who wrestled a loaded gun away from another student. The student with the gun was pointing it at a student and threatening to shoot him when the three grabbed him and took the gun away. A local TV station reports they were given an emergency suspension of three days because they were part of an "incident" with a gun."

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan - By Vali Nasr | Foreign Policy: "Holbrooke encouraged the creative chaos. "I want you to learn nothing from government," he told me. "This place is dead intellectually. It does not produce any ideas; it is all about turf battles and checking the box. Your job is to break through all this. Anyone gives you trouble, come to me."

...But my time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience. The truth is that his administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy initiatives.

Holbrooke never succeeded. Clinton did -- but it was often a battle. It usually happened only when it finally became clear to a White House that jealously guarded all foreign policymaking -- and then relied heavily on the military and intelligence agencies to guide its decisions -- that these agencies' solutions were no substitute for the type of patient, credible diplomacy that garners the respect and support of allies. Time and again, when things seemed to be falling apart, the administration finally turned to Clinton because it knew she was the only person who could save the situation.

...the president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans. The Obama administration's reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns.

...Early in the process, Holbrooke came back from a meeting at the White House. "You did a good job," he said. "The secretary [Clinton] was pleased with her material but wants her folders to be as big as [those of Defense Secretary Robert] Gates. She wants color maps, tables, and charts." Clinton, continued Holbrooke, "does not want Gates to dominate the conversation by waving his colorful maps and charts in front of everybody. No one reads this stuff, but they all look at the maps and color charts.""

Battle-Tested | Foreign Policy: "...we never went back to the fundamental choice about what do we really need to do. We hide choices. We never talk about choices because choices are hard and choices mean making a decision. Choices mean taking responsibility for who makes the choice and which choice they take.

...I spent a lot of time in places where we surged troops over the last several years. There is discrete impact. I've seen districts where security has improved. It's incontrovertible. When you send in additional numbers of U.S. troops, good things generally follow -- but for a discrete period of time. We didn't achieve the sort of aggregate impact that we saw in Iraq. And we all know the reasons why. Ultimately, I step back and say it was not a wise expenditure of resources. Stepping back even further, we fundamentally failed to grasp the politics of that country [Afghanistan]. Our solutions were simply not tailored to the environment. And ultimately I think in many parts of the country -- it's already happening -- things will essentially revert back to their natural order.

...We took some of the most decentralized people in the entire world and imposed one of the most centralized constitutions on them. It's ludicrous that President Karzai appoints a district governor and a district police chief. I'm telling you, the people where I come from -- Rome, Georgia -- would rise up if the president appointed the county commissioner. It's crazy."

What Went Wrong in Afghanistan? | Foreign Policy: "Many have argued that the problem with the Afghanistan intervention is that it "wasn't done right": If only we had not been distracted by Iraq, had tackled the right warlords, pursued the correct counterinsurgency strategy, and surged earlier, it would have been fine. But they are wrong. The problem was much more basic: The West was trying to do something it couldn't do, and it was trying to do something it didn't need to do. Its basic assumptions were wrong. Afghanistan did not pose an existential threat to international security; the problem was not that it was a "failed state." The truth is that the West always lacked the knowledge, power, or legitimacy to fundamentally transform Afghanistan. But policymakers were too afraid, too hypnotized by fashionable theories, too isolated from Afghan reality, and too laden with guilt to notice that the more ambitious Afghanistan mission was impossible and unnecessary."

Think Again: The Pentagon - By Thomas P.M. Barnett | Foreign Policy: "The military's Chicken Littles want you to think the sky is falling. Don't believe them: America has never been safer."

Fuck Mother Teresa, basically.  

Mother Teresa: Far from Saintly | ScienceBlog.com: "The problem is not a lack of money—the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars—but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s Passion. The world gains much from their suffering,” was her reply to criticism..."

Yeah, he did.

Stefan Struve Reports He Incurred Broken Jaw in Bout With Mark Hunt | Full Contact Fighter

Cardinal Keith O’Brien Acknowledges Sexual Misconduct - NYTimes.com: "Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, acknowledged Sunday that he had been guilty of sexual misconduct, a week after he announced his resignation and said he would not attend the conclave to choose the next pope. The moves followed revelations that three current and one former priest had accused him of inappropriate sexual contact dating back decades."

Community of the Wrongly Accused: Prominent rape victims advocate doesn't want false rape accusers prosecuted: "Longstaff writes: "We are working with three [rape accusers] facing criminal charges. Several others were prosecuted for harassment after their rapists made counter allegations and were believed." Longstaff takes it as a given that any woman who makes a rape accusation should be believed -- even in those cases where police have overwhelming evidence to charge for making a false rape claim, and even when the false accuser is convicted. "Such prosecutions [of false accusers] must be stopped," she once declared. She called such prosecutions "a concerted witchhunt." Longstaff's coddling of rape liars is not something rape victims favor.  Every rape lie diminishes the integrity of every rape victim; every unpunished rape lie undermines the public's confidence in the way rape is handled and makes juries reluctant to convict even those who ought to be convicted. But Longstaff's grandstanding isn't for the benefit of rape victims, it's for Longstaff."

 

Training.

3/3 - Russian Pullup Program D10 14/12/12/10/8 -- P90X2 D21 Recovery & Mobility -- chins x18, pushups x40 

3/2 - Russian Pullup Program D9 14/12/10/10/8 -- P90X2 D20 Balance & Power

Today's Internettery - "Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves?” - Friedrich Nietzsche.

America, Liberia, Myanmar: The Anti-Metric System Holdouts: "...the metric system, the international system of measurement now officially adopted by all but three nations in the world: Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), Liberia -- and the United States."

The Cosplay Of ECCC - From Muppet Stormtroopers To Unlocking Jessica Nigri - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors:

RossTraining.com Blog: "Earlier this week, I awoke to a message on Facebook from someone involved in a heated debate about training strategies for fighters. Apparently, an argument broke out on his page and he wanted my thoughts on the subject. He asked for me to comment on the thread. Unfortunately for him, I declined the request as I’m not interested in arguing online about anything. I didn’t even waste time to open the link. Whatever was being argued has no bearing in my life or the real world. There is no prize or glory involved in winning online debates. Is it even possible to declare a winner?

...The next time you consider arguing online, ask yourself what it offers in return. Understanding that time is finite, is it worth wasting it over an online dispute? Isn’t there a more productive way to use your time to help reach your goals?"

WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR:

Warren Ellis' Notebook:

Karen De Coster » Milk Machine Aims to Hook Kids on Chemical Sweeteners: "As a solution to sagging milk sales, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) are petitioning the FDA to “amend the standard identity of milk” and other dairy products. That is, the proposed solution to sluggish industry sales is to hook more children on dairy products by adding chemical sweeteners. Dairy special interests want to be able to add high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and other chemicals to milk while bypassing the requirement that the products be labeled “artificially sweetened.” The attempt is to pass this off as a health benefit for children because the chemical sweeteners are not considered to be sugar."

Captain Power's Underground Training Site: Everything DOESNT happen for a reason retard...: "I  personally can't stand it when someone says "things always happen for a reason".  As soon as someone says that I automatically start to hate them.

...I am going to give you the "REAL" reason why things happen. 

Your grandmother died: She was old 

You got laid off: Either you were annoying, bad performance, or company wide layoffs 

You got dumped (Women) :  You put on weight.  You didn't have enough sex.  You are too needy

You got dumped (Man) : You are lazy, and/or boring."

 Do you know what I think?  I think NOTHING happens for a reason. 

You wake up and your car has a flat tire? FUCK IT 

You have a bad head cold? FUCK IT 

It's going to snow over the weekend? FUCK IT 

Worry about the stuff that you CAN control, and stop avoiding your problems with stupid statements like "things happen for a reason""

Better at the link/with gifs - Friendly Atheist, padalecky: suicidallyreckless: #prime example...:

Captain Power's Underground Training Site: ANCESTRY.COM is for losers!!!: "I'm not going to lie, at one point I started looking up my ancestors to see when they came into Ellis Island, and what they did for living. But do you know what I discovered?? 95% of the population where either farmers, or fisherman.... Do you know what else I discovered?? Mostly everyone married a girl that grew up on their street, or at least lived within walking distance to their parents house. My advice: Forget about some skeleton buried in the ground that you used to call grandpa, and focus on yourself!!"

ChAoS & PAIN: The Inaugural Empedoclean Day: "I'm not in the business of getting the most of the least- I'm in the business of getting the most.  I don't mind spitting in the face of the laws of diminishing returns if it means I can get or do something awesome, because I'd much rather be fucking awesome than simply better than most. 

...This is why I have to look back, for the most part, and not at the present for inspiration, and why I invoke the deeds of so many old-timey lifters.  They gave two shits about efficiency.  They climbed tall mountains because fuck mountains.  They'd whack back a shitload of opium and racewalk from Paris to India just because.  They lifted heavy weights because it was fucking fun, and they'd do crazy shit because it amused them, like lifting a grown man overhead with one hand and running up and down a flight of stairs a few times while holding a beer in the other.  They needed no more of a goal for doing impressive physical feats other than the fact that they thought it was cool, and because other people said they couldn't or shouldn't.  That shit is fun, and it's why I'd be much more at home with a pack of 14th Century Mongols than the assholes populating any Ikea on the planet."

Lack of sleep 'switches off' genes - Telegraph: "Getting fewer than six hours' sleep per night deactivates genes which play a key role in the body's constant process of self-repair and replenishment, according to a new study. Our bodies depend on genes to produce a constant supply of proteins which are used to replace or repair damaged tissue, but after a week of sleep deprivation some of these stopped working. The findings suggest that chronic lack of sleep could prevent the body from fully replenishing itself and raise the risk of a host of diseases, researchers said."

Today's Internets.

I am a creationist. God was created by man.:

"Billy has separated his food.  He is an obsessive.  Maybe he writes computer programs."

Training.

3/1 - Russian Pullup Program D8 14/12/10/8/8 -- P90X2 D19 X2 Yoga -- superset chins/dips 3x8

Awesome.

Today's Internets.

Winning on many levels - Made these for the WBC protest earlier today. : reddit.com:

Strength Training 101 | Nerd Fitness: "First of all, lets face it: Putting everything else aside, life is EASIER when you’re strong.  Carrying groceries? One trip. Children to carry? No problem. Car stuck in the snow? Push it out with ease. Plus, whether you’re 100 lbs overweight or just need to lose the last 15, strength training is one of the most effective ways to burn fat and build muscle. Lifting has been shown to halt and even reverse sarcopenia – the reduction of skeletal muscle that occurs as we get older  - which helps us stay independent (and out of a nursing home) and live longer..."

Bradley Manning: the face of heroism | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: ""Manning's motivations in leaking, he said, was to 'spark a domestic debate of the role of the military and foreign policy in general', he said, and 'cause society to reevaluate the need and even desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore their effect on people who live in that environment every day.' "Manning explain[ed] his actions that drove him to disclose what he said he 'believed, and still believe . . . are some of the most significant documents of our time' . . . . "He came to view much of what the Army told him — and the public — to be false, such as the suggestion the military had destroyed a graphic video of an aerial assault in Iraq that killed civilians, or that WikiLeaks was a nefarious entity. . . . "Manning said he often found himself frustrated by attempts to get his chain of command to investigate apparent abuses detailed in the documents Manning accessed. . . ."

Manning explained that he was leaking because he wanted the world to know what he had learned: "I want people to see the truth … regardless of who they are … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public." When asked by the informant why he did not sell the documents to a foreign government for profit - something he obviously could have done with ease - Manning replied that he wanted the information to be publicly known in order to trigger "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms". He described how he became deeply disillusioned with the Iraq War he had once thought noble, and this caused him to re-examine all of his prior assumptions about the US government. And he extensively narrated how he had learned of serious abuse and illegality while serving in the war - including detaining Iraqi citizens guilty of nothing other than criticizing the Malaki government - but was ignored when he brought those abuses to his superiors.

...Manning is absolutely right when he said today that the documents he leaked "are some of the most significant documents of our time". They revealed a multitude of previously secret crimes and acts of deceit and corruption by the world's most powerful factions. Journalists and even some government officials have repeatedly concluded that any actual national security harm from his leaks is minimal if it exists at all. To this day, the documents Manning just admitted having leaked play a prominent role in the ability of journalists around the world to inform their readers about vital events."

Dennis Rodman will save us all.

Bob Woodward embodies US political culture in a single outburst | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "As Brian Beutler points out: "the obscure type of budget document Woodward's referring to is called a duly enacted law — passed by Congress, signed by the President — and the only ways around it are for Congress to change it. . . . or for Obama to break it." But that's exactly what Woodward is demanding: that Obama trumpet his status as Commander-in-Chief in order to simply ignore - i.e. break - the law, just like those wonderful men before him would have done. Woodward derides the law as some petty, trivial annoyance ("this piece of paper") and thus mocks Obama's weakness for the crime of suggesting that the law is something he actually has to obey.

How ironic that this comes from the reporter endlessly heralded for having brought down Richard Nixon's presidency on the ground that Nixon believed himself above the law. Nixon's hallmark proclamation - "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal" - is also apparently Bob Woodward's.

...All of this, of course, is pure pretense. Is it even remotely plausible that Obama is refraining from engaging in military action he believes is necessary out of some sort of quaint deference to the law? Please. This is a president who continued to wage war, in Libya, not merely without Congressional authorization, but even after Congress expressly voted against its authorization. This is a president who has repeatedly argued that he has the right to kill anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, not only due to Congressional authorization but also his own Commander-in-Chief powers. If Obama really wanted to deploy that second aircraft carrier, he would do so, knowing that journalists like Bob Woodward and members of both parties would cheer him. This is just a flamboyant political stunt designed to dramatize how those Big, Bad Republicans are leaving us all exposed and vulnerable with sequestration cuts."

I don't care, that's just funny.

Greg Rucka, FTW.