Today's Internets - "So what can we do? We can make noise."

JCVD FTW.

I just saw that NSA post and you'd posted something the other day...  And I know what you mean, but I look and think 'what can we actually do?' I mean, other than wholesale revolution and and just cleaning house of entire govt. agencies (which would probably require the former) what change can we affect? Do you ever feel that way? - Front Toward Enemy: 

"It’s dark out there, and it’s easy to say, well, yes, but it always has been (and that’s not true - it’s been darker, it’s been lighter, but right now? It’s pretty damn dark). It’s easy - and very attractive - to be cynical and disengage, or to simply disengage through ignoring everything, but neither makes anything better, and neither leads to solutions.

So what can we do? We can make noise. We must make noise. We’re all busy, yeah, but you know what? A lot of us are online, and it takes a minute to find the email of your senators or your congresspeople, and you can find their office phone numbers, too. You can take five minutes to write an email and say what you think, what matters, and to let your representatives know that you will remember what they do and what they say. You have to follow through; we all have to follow through, with praise and condemnation alike.

And no, it doesn’t feel like nearly enough, but it’s a start. Being informed, informing others, looking at facts and trying to verify them (and that can be hard, too; there’s disinformation on all sides, and conspiracy theorists to muddy the waters, too).  If enough people start to push, any boulder can be moved. We have to fight despair. We have to fight that exact feeling of helplessness, because that is exactly how we’ve gotten where we are - made to feel powerless, so what’s the point?"

Doug Stanhope’s ‘Beer Hall Putsch,’ a Stand-Up Album - NYTimes.com:

 "Mr. Stanhope... has said that there is no such thing as addiction. “There are only things you enjoy doing more than life,” he said."

Schneier on Security: Conspiracy Theories and the NSA: 

"I've recently seen two articles speculating on the NSA's capability, and practice, of spying on members of Congress and other elected officials. The evidence is all circumstantial and smacks of conspiracy thinking -- and I have no idea whether any of it is true or not -- but it's a good illustration of what happens when trust in a public institution fails. The NSA has repeatedly lied about the extent of its spying program. James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has lied about it to Congress. Top-secret documents provided by Edward Snowden, and reported on by the Guardian and other newspapers, repeatedly show that the NSA's surveillance systems are monitoring the communications of American citizens. The DEA has used this information to apprehend drug smugglers, then lied about it in court. The IRS has used this information to find tax cheats, then lied about it. It's even been used to arrest a copyright violator. It seems that every time there is an allegation against the NSA, no matter how outlandish, it turns out to be true.

All of this denying and lying results in us not trusting anything the NSA says, anything the president says about the NSA, or anything companies say about their involvement with the NSA. We know secrecy corrupts, and we see that corruption. There's simply no credibility, and -- the real problem -- no way for us to verify anything these people might say. It's a perfect environment for conspiracy theories to take root: no trust, assuming the worst, no way to verify the facts. Think JFK assassination theories. Think 9/11 conspiracies. Think UFOs. For all we know, the NSA might be spying on elected officials. Edward Snowden said that he had the ability to spy on anyone in the U.S., in real time, from his desk. His remarks were belittled, but it turns out he was right...

It's time to start cleaning up this mess. We need a special prosecutor, one not tied to the military, the corporations complicit in these programs, or the current political leadership, whether Democrat or Republican. This prosecutor needs free rein to go through the NSA's files and discover the full extent of what the agency is doing, as well as enough technical staff who have the capability to understand it. He needs the power to subpoena government officials and take their sworn testimony. He needs the ability to bring criminal indictments where appropriate. And, of course, he needs the requisite security clearance to see it all. We also need something like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where both government and corporate employees can come forward and tell their stories about NSA eavesdropping without fear of reprisal...

Trust is essential for society to function. Without it, conspiracy theories naturally take hold. Even worse, without it we fail as a country and as a culture. It's time to reinstitute the ideals of democracy: The government works for the people, open government is the best way to protect against government abuse, and a government keeping secrets from its people is a rare exception, not the norm."

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: 

Exactly this - So one of my psych professors explained the...: 

"So one of my psych professors explained the difference between introverts and extroverts the clearest way I’ve heard: Introverts expend energy socialising, extroverts gain energy from socialising. That’s literally it, it has nothing to do with intelligence, or even how much you enjoy spending time with people. An introvert can like going out but just find it exhausting.and an extrovert can happily spend a few days alone. With all the stupid misinformation about these labels about this seems the clearest way to define the terms."

America's next president had better believe in restoring liberty | Dan Gillmor | Comment is free | theguardian.com: 

"When people say, "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide," ask them if it's fine to install cameras in their homes, not just in the living room but the bedroom and bathroom. Ask them if they'd mind wearing a microphone and video camera every day, so others can check on what they've said and done. You are guilty of something. I guarantee it. Lawmakers have created countless new crimes and punishments, and allowed law enforcement to extend old laws in dangerous ways. Have you ever told anything short of the absolute truth when filling out an online form to use some service? We can charge you with a felony for that. And, by the way, we don't need to convict you at trial. If you are a target, we can ruin you financially if you try to defend yourself. This is what we expect in banana republics and police states, not here. And as the surveillance state expands, it will create more targets among people like you."

Dave Branch tells how Renzo Gracie broke a man's foot without touching him - Bloody Elbow: 

"He told the amazing story of how Renzo once broke a man's foot without even touching him. Yes, you read that correctly. He never touched him. Here is the story, as relayed to me by Dave: He told me a story about one time when he was in Brazil. There was a bully that kept f***ing with him, right. Renzo said that he couldn't beat the guy, because the guy was much bigger than he was. The bully, in Brazil, he was like a good soccer player or something, so Renzo tricked him.

He told the bully to meet him at the beach. Renzo took two boxes, and one of the boxes was empty, it was just an empty box. He took the other box, and he put it over a small boulder. He told the guy, 'I bet you my man, I can kick this box farther than you into the water.' Of course he kicked the box that didn't have a rock on the inside of it. He kicked the hell out of that box [laughs]. The bully is like, 'Aw man, you can't kick this box farther than me', and the guy went to kick the box as hard as he could, and he broke his foot. I don't care if you're a fan of the Gracies or not, that story is awesome. It's not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the brain in the dog. Renzo Gracie is a very smart dog."

My inner child is confused, yet happy now.  Of course, I was in high school when The Little Mermaid came out, so not so much "child" then. 

majQa’!WIL WHEATON dot NET | WIL WHEATON dot NET: 

"Today, I walked past a guy who had a really cool Klingon Empire tattoo on his forearm. I thought to myself, “I should totally say qapla’ to him!” But before my mouth could form the word, another part of my brain said, “shut up, you fool! He’ll think you’re making fun of him!” I hate it when my brain fights with itself, so I just said, “Dude, that Klingon tattoo is badass.” He looked up at me and said, “thanks, man!” He took a couple steps away, stopped and turned back to me. He said, “actually, I guess I should say qapla’!” “Dude!” I exclaimed, “I was totally going to say that, but I didn’t want to be That Guy.” He pointed at his tattoo and sheepishly said, “well, I’m clearly That Guy, so…” “Oh no,” my brain shouted, “I made him feel bad!” Thinking quickly, I gave him the Klingon salute and said, in my gruffest Klingon voice, “Today is a good day to be That Guy.”"

Training.

9/8 - 25 chins/50 pushups for time - 2:17 -- weighted hyperextensions, bodweight rows, pushups, band face pulls, band dislocates, deep breathing & ab vacuum

9/7 - foam rolling/self myofascial release

9/6 - rest/off

Outstanding work - Bodybuilding.com - Body Transformation: Man On Fire!:

Today's Internets - The "It's Always Sunny..." Addendum.

"It's Always Sunny..." is a bastion of inappropriate humor, so let's have the frats welcome the Freshmen ladies, in their honor.

Today's Internets - Education Edition.

Liberal Media's Call for Bombing in Syria Ignores History | Mediaite: 

"These humanitarian interventionists understand what the most famous progressives of all time made clear, that the obligation to rescue the unfortunate comes with an obligation to kill. What they don’t understand or willfully ignore is the lesson of history, which is that when the United States has taken on the responsibility for the well-being of humanity, it has destroyed far more lives than it has saved...

Though the Holocaust is often invoked by humanitarian interventionists, the results of the American assault on the Nazi regime were hardly a victory for humanity. American bombers not only terminated a substantial portion of the  civilian populations in France and Germany, but there is also substantial evidence that the Nazi leadership accelerated the killing of Jews as a result of American entry into the war...

More recent progressive-led humanitarian interventions were smaller-scale but yielded similar results. Bill Clinton‘s incursion into Somalia killed 18 American soldiers and hundreds of Somali militiamen and civilians, and brought no improvement to the world’s most misgoverned country. Likewise, NATO’s bombing of Kosovo left hundreds of civilians dead and gave the upper hand to the Kosovo Liberation Army — an organization described by Clinton’s own special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, as “without any questions, a terrorist group” — which conducted its own campaign of ethnic cleansing after the war."

Schneier on Security: Our Newfound Fear of Risk: 

"While technology has made us much safer against natural risks like accidents and disease, it works less well against man-made risks. Three examples:

- We have allowed the police to turn themselves into a paramilitary organization. They deploy SWAT teams multiple times a day, almost always in nondangerous situations. They tase people at minimal provocation, often when it's not warranted. Unprovoked shootings are on the rise. One result of these measures is that honest mistakes -- a wrong address on a warrant, a misunderstanding -- result in the terrorizing of innocent people, and more death in what were once nonviolent confrontations with police.

- We accept zero-tolerance policies in schools. This results in ridiculous situations, where young children are suspended for pointing gun-shaped fingers at other students or drawing pictures of guns with crayons, and high-school students are disciplined for giving each other over-the-counter pain relievers. The cost of these policies is enormous, both in dollars to implement and its long-lasting effects on students.

 - We have spent over one trillion dollars and thousands of lives fighting terrorism in the past decade -- including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- money that could have been better used in all sorts of ways. We now know that the NSA has turned into a massive domestic surveillance organization, and that its data is also used by other government organizations, which then lie about it. Our foreign policy has changed for the worse: we spy on everyone, we trample human rights abroad, our drones kill indiscriminately, and our diplomatic outposts have either closed down or become fortresses. In the months after 9/11, so many people chose to drive instead of fly that the resulting deaths dwarfed the deaths from the terrorist attack itself, because cars are much more dangerous than airplanes.

There are lots more examples, but the general point is that we tend to fixate on a particular risk and then do everything we can to mitigate it, including giving up our freedoms and liberties.

There's a subtle psychological explanation. Risk tolerance is both cultural and dependent on the environment around us..."

Awesome teaching photobomb via 22 Teachers Caught Being Awesome, 18 College Professors Who Clearly Have a Sense of Humor  & 15 Awesome Teachers You Wish You Had

Greg Rucka Speaks Wise - Front Toward Enemy: 

"I’m going to be 44 in November, and at this point, not speaking my mind or telling the truth because something may come down the line later seems a foolish option."

Interview Exclusive: Joe Rogan Explains Everything, Part II - Bloody Elbow: 

"We're still discovering things every day. There are all sorts of studies coming out saying, ‘oh, fish oil is causing cancer.' Then you look deeper into that study and the study gets debunked a few weeks later. It doesn't cause cancer, it's just a shitty study. It's very difficult to figure out what the f**k is actually going on. It's really hard. We can certainly learn more about diet and the human body, but we do already know a lot...

One of the most underrated aspects of exercise is the effect on the mind. I have friends that are really intelligent who sort of pooh-pooh taking care of the body as if it's some sort of egotistical, vapid approach. I think they're doing their mind a disservice by not clearing out all the cobwebs that come from stress and hormones building up. There is all sorts of fight or flight shit going on and reward systems that are in place in your body that are not being managed by day to day society working in a cubicle or sitting in your car in traffic. There are all sorts of things that your body doesn't do that it's sort of designed to do. For me, one of the best ways of staying level is forcing myself to exercise extremely hard. "

The Biggest Unanswered Questions About Marvel's Agents of SHIELD: 

"Joss Whedon usually writes about underdogs. How do you make SHIELD the underdog? We asked Joss Whedon about this, and he responded: 

It's something we've been joking about since the beginning. "They're a ragtag group of faceless bureaucrats who control your every move!" On some level, we'll be having our cake and eating it too, which is a delightful phrase for hypocrisy. But on some other level, we'll be broaching the issue in a way which is not trivializing it. If we're dealing with it as writers and the audience is dealing with it, then the characters need to deal with it as well. Sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D. will be the thing that makes it all better, and sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D. will be the thing that makes it worse. It's a very grey area, and that's part of what makes it exciting."

John Kerry Blasts Washington’s "messianic enterprise”; says “moralism can be very defeating for the United States” - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"The man who today is attempting to convince the United States to go war based on the principle of moralistic intervention, was in November 1971 telling a hilarious William F. Buckley (sample line: "He is, as you will note, from Boston") that moralistic intervention is the root of America’s foreign policy rot:

...I think this is one of the great fallacies of our foreign policy at the present moment. Interventionism, as well as globalism, both stem from the same kind of moralism. And in a certain sense I think that moralism can be very defeating for the United States and its undertakings. It gets us into a sort of messianic enterprise, whereby we have this impression that somehow we can go out and touch these other countries and change them, and I think this is what in a sense led us into Vietnam." 

TSA is officially allowed to lie to you in order to cover its ass - Boing Boing: 

"The TSA is allowed to lie in its responses to Freedom of Information Requests. Its court-granted ability to lie to the public it nominally serves isn't limited to sensitive issues, either: they're allowed to pretend that they don't have CCTV footage of their own officers violating their own policies, even when they do."

TSA continues to improve experience of rich people - Boing Boing: 

"More evidence that American travel is headed for a two-tier security theater that is reasonable and light for rich people and business travellers, and increasingly awful and invasive for everyone else: as Pre-Check expands, people who fly often enough to make it worth spending $85 will be able to keep shoes, jackets and belts on and avoid pornoscanners (including the new more radioactive versions). Us dirty foreigners, as well as people who save carefully for one trip every couple of years to see their families, will get the ever-expanding Grand Guignol treatment, especially since everyone with any clout or pull will be over there in Pre-Check land, getting smiles and high-fives from the TSA."

The DEA's paid perjurer - Boing Boing: 

"Andrew Chambers was a paid informant for the DEA from 1986 to 2000, says Brian Sonenstein of Just Say Now, a cannabis legalization organization. "During that time he collected more than $4 million from the federal government and gave false testimony at least 16 times during that time period." AZCentral reports that Chambers was "featured in 2000 on the ABC News broadcast 20/20. He admitted giving false testimony about his criminal history, saying, 'I just lied about it. I didn’t think it was that important what I did.'” Naturally, the DEA has "reactivated" Chambers."

LOL - TFM Photo | Bringing out the best in women. TFM.: "Bringing out the best in women. "

Wow - Brutal moment a jaguar stalks and ambushes a caiman before dragging reptile into water and killing it | Mail Online:

Fascinating - Schneier on Security: The Effect of Money on Trust: 

"Money reduces trust in small groups, but increases it in larger groups. Basically, the introduction of money allows society to scale."

Training.

9/5 - bench, dips

9/4 - squats, single leg calf raise

Awesome work - NO REST DAYS:

Training.

9/3 - press, Gironda db swings, Arnold press, neck nods/rotations, db shrugs, neck harness

9/2 - deadlift, seated machine row, lat pulldown, weighted hyperextensions, weighted chins, 1A db row

8/31 & 9/1 - rest/off - snorkeling/swimming/rock climbing

Food Log.

8/26 - coffee, milk, water, protein powder, banana, peanut butter, chocolate milk, preworkout 1MR/Pump HD

8/27 - coffee, milk, water, protein powder, banana, peanut butter, Craze preworkout, Caveman Cookies, eggs, rice, butter, karaage, ZMA, chocolate milk

8/28 - coffee, milk, water, protein powder, cream, 1MR preworkout, steak, pork chop

8/29 - coffee, milk, water, protein powder, 1MR/Craze preworkout, steak, chocolate milk, ZMA

8/30 - coffee, milk, cream, protein powder, banana, eggs, bacon, water

8/31 - coffee, milk, Coke Zero, sausage egg McMuffin, chocolate shake, airplane food, beer, cocktails, crab salad, duck curry, rice, Snickers

9/1 - inst coffee, creamer, sugar, can coffee, chicken & rice, chocolate milk, M&Ms, cookies, beer, cocktails, fried chicken, salad, Thai pancakes w/peanut butter & chocolate, Hershey's chocolate

9/2 - inst coffee, creamer, sugar, water, ham & cheese sandwiches, airplane food, 1MR/Craze/Pump HD preworkout, protein powder, milk, karaage, water

Today's Internets - "Cry for Help."

Today's Internets, PT II - "Interesting that when people survive a horrific incident where others are killed..."

Ongoing NSA work | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | theguardian.com:

 "In 2008, President Obama, when he was a candidate for President, had this question-and-answer exchange with the Boston Globe: 

"Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

OBAMA: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. "As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent." 

Given that not even the most ardent interventionists for Syria contend that the bombing is necessary for US national security, how can a military attack on Syria without Congressional approval possibly be reconciled with that position? When the same issue arose with Obama's war in Libya in the absence of Congressional approval (indeed, after Congress expressly rejected its authorization), State Department adviser Harold Koh was forced to repudiate Obama's own words and say he was wrong back then. Who will play that role this time? "

No.

Bro Leaves Epic Morning After Note Under the Toilet Seat About a - BroBible.com:

That's some good casting, right there - James Spader to play villain in next 'Avengers': "James Spader will play the villain Ultron in the next Avengers flick, Avengers: Age of Ultron due out May 1, 2015. Spader will play the powerful robot villain in the film to be written and directed by Joss Whedon, who made the first Avengers in 2012." 

Captivating Klan rally photo gets new life via social media | www.ajc.com: 

"It is a photograph not easily forgotten. A black state trooper peers down at a tiny white boy in a crisp white Ku Klux Klan outfit as the child touches his reflection in the trooper’s riot shield. Photographer Todd Robertson readily admits he captured the moment by simply being in the right place at the right time while covering a Klan rally in Gainesville for the local newspaper nearly 21 years ago. “The picture sparked a lot of interest and conversation then,” Robertson said. “That’s what a picture is supposed to do.” Now social media has given the image new life. After the picture appeared over the last year on photo blogs and in Facebook posts, an article by The Poynter Institute, a journalism training organization in Florida, brought the iconic image even more attention."

"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was able to locate the officer, Allen Campbell, through the Georgia State Patrol. By interviewing and searching public records, the AJC was able to locate someone who may be the boy, now close to 24 years old, and his mother, but phone calls and emails left for this story were not returned. Did state trooper Allen Campbell think of the boy after that day? “No, I really didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t even know the photo had been taken until someone called to tell me it was in the paper.” Campbell recalls the day the photo was taken as just another work day. As the Klan rally unfolded, Campbell said his mind was on the Labor Day cookout he was missing. Not race relations. “I was ticked off. It was the last holiday of the summer. But here I am at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Gainesville, Georgia, protecting the rights of the Ku Klux Klan,” he said...

“I didn’t even see the boy at first,” said Campbell, a youthful 61-year-old with an easy laugh. “I was too busy thinking about my weekend being ruined. I looked down to see what on earth could be bumping on my riot shield.”

...Over the years, Campbell covered numerous racial protests around Georgia, including the infamous Forsyth County demonstration in January 1987 when 75 marchers led by civil rights activist Hosea Williams were met by some 500 Klan members and sympathizers who overwhelmed police lines. “Rocks and bottles were flying,” Campbell said. “We were not prepared. We didn’t have riot helmets. We didn’t have shields. I was focused then on what was a dangerous situation.” Campbell also worked the following weekend, when 20,000 people, including Coretta Scott King and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, returned to Forsyth County. He was among the 500 law enforcement officers and 1,700 National Guard members keeping the peace. “Now those were some rough times,” he said. The Gainesville rally of September 1992 “was more of an inconvenience,” he said. “But I was sworn to uphold their rights, their freedom of speech.”" 

You’ll Be Surprised at This List of Each State’s Favorite - BroBible.com: 

"The good folks at Pornhub released a heap of information about the country's porn habits last week, and we now know each state's favorite porn-related search terms, as well as which part of the country stays on the site the longest. (The South, in a landslide.)" 

‘Black budget’ summary details U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives - The Washington Post: 

"U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget. The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress." 

"Lee H. Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who chaired the House Intelligence Committee and co-chaired the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said that access to budget details will enable an informed public debate on intelligence spending for the first time, much as Snowden’s disclosures of NSA surveillance programs brought attention to operations that had assembled data on nearly every U.S. citizen.

“Nobody is arguing that we should be so transparent as to create dangers for the country,” he said. But, he added, “there is a mind-set in the national security community: ‘Leave it to us, we can handle it, the American people have to trust us.’ They carry it to quite an extraordinary length so that they have resisted over a period of decades transparency. . . . The burden of persuasion as to keeping something secret should be on the intelligence community, the burden should not be on the American public.”"

Feds Won't Sue to Stop Marijuana Use in 2 States - ABC News: 

"Despite 75 years of federal marijuana prohibition, the Justice Department said Thursday that states can let people use the drug, license people to grow it and even allow adults to stroll into stores and buy it — as long as the weed is kept away from kids, the black market and federal property. In a sweeping new policy statement prompted by pot legalization votes in Washington and Colorado last fall, the department gave the green light to states to adopt tight regulatory schemes to oversee the medical and recreational marijuana industries burgeoning across the country. The action, welcomed by supporters of legalization, could set the stage for more states to legalize marijuana. Alaska could vote on the question next year, and a few other states plan similar votes in 2016."