Friday, June 13, 2014

"You gotta be who you are in this world, right? No matter what."


The Feminist Leader Who Became a Men's-Rights Activist - Cathy Young - The Atlantic: "Karen DeCrow, the feminist attorney and author who served as president of the National Organization for Women from 1974 to 1977, died of melanoma last Friday at 76. Although her passing was widely noted in the media, most the obituaries and tributes overlooked the more unorthodox aspects of her work. A lifelong champion of women’s rights, DeCrow was nonetheless skeptical about many key aspects of latter-day feminism, including its focus on sexual violence and male abuse of women. She was also, for much of her career, a men’s-rights activist...
DeCrow raised eyebrows in 1981 when she served as defense counsel to Frank Serpico, the former New York detective and whistleblower, in a paternity suit. Serpico claimed the plaintiff had used him as a “sperm bank” and lied about being on the Pill while knowingly trying to conceive, and asserted that he had a constitutional right not to become a parent against his will. (The family-court judge, a woman, ruled in Serpico’s favor, but he lost on appeal.) DeCrow, by then a lawyer in private practice in Syracuse, New York, endorsed Serpico’s argument on feminist grounds. “Just as the Supreme Court has said that women have the right to choose whether or not to be parents, men should also have that right,” she told The New York Times, calling this “the only logical feminist position to take.”

In a 1982 letter to the Times, she wrote that since men have no legal power to either veto or compel an abortion, it is only just that they shouldn’t have to pay for a woman’s unilateral decision to bring the pregnancy to term: “Or, put another way, autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.” DeCrow also championed men’s rights as fathers, arguing for a “rebuttable presumption” of shared custody after divorce...

DeCrow was willing to do it, and to say that many divorced mothers whose professional lives would benefit from shared custody were unreasonably opposed to this option—not only because of the social stigma of being viewed as “bad moms” but out of sheer hostility toward their ex-husbands. In a 1984 Father’s Day column, DeCrow described a conversation with a client, a divorced mother of three who was having childcare troubles because of an unusual work schedule: “‘What about the father?’ I asked. ‘Is he willing to take them during those hours?’ ‘Their father?’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s just what he wants!’” To some feminists, this may sound like a troubling echo of misogynistic stereotypes of the spiteful ex-wife; but to DeCrow, it was a human issue, not a “gendered” one. In a 1994 interview, she lamented that “in the battle between the sexes, men and women will go practically to the end of the earth in illogical, irrational ways to give each other pain.”"

...in the early 1990s, she applauded Katie Roiphe’s critique of “rape-crisis feminism,” The Morning After, as a courageous challenge to a “new puritanism” that depicted women as perpetual victims of male predation. Recalling the bad old days when girls were taught to deny both their brains and their sexuality, DeCrow was tangibly impatient with the idea that “being whistled at, or even slurped at” amounted to “oppression.”"

...There were other heresies, too. DeCrow, who started her feminist journey by fighting sex discrimination in the workplace, contributed a foreword to Warren Farrell’s 2005 book, Why Men Earn More, which argued that the pay gap is due largely to men’s and women’s different workplace behavior and career choices; understanding these patterns, DeCrow believed, could help women’s advancement."


Scott Adams Blog: School Shootings 06/13/2014: "I know you're furiously trying to determine if I am pro-gun or anti-gun so you can decide how much extra to hate me. So let me state my position as clearly as possible: I am pro-data. And the data is incomplete. Obviously there's a strong correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths. But how much of that is causation as opposed to correlation? One can never know if Americans own guns because we're violent people or we're violent because we own guns. Isn't it likely to be some of both? Common sense says that having guns lying around the house makes gun violence more likely. But we don't know if the accessibility factor is 10% of the story or 90%. Maybe the rate of stabbings would skyrocket if guns disappeared and that would close some of the violence gap. My point is that it's hard to size the problem of gun risk, and that matters because the goal is low risk not zero risk. If we wanted zero risk in all things at the expense of personal freedom we would fill every swimming pool with bubble wrap...

We also can't know if gun ownership will ever protect future citizens from the tyranny of the government. One argument says that the army has the biggest guns and so citizens are effectively defenseless if the government becomes a dictatorship. Therefore, owning a gun doesn't protect you from the government. The counterargument is that if an American becomes a dictator, every one of his friends and extended family members would be bullet-riddled by the end of the week courtesy of the gun owners. What would be the point of becoming a dictator in a country where you can't leave your enclave and you just killed most of the people you care about with your actions? I think gun ownership does add a thin layer of protection against a risk of a dictatorship by rational leaders, but that risk is of unknown size. How do you value the thing that might happen but doesn't?

The only thing I know for sure is that the "It is in the constitution" argument is misplaced. No matter what the founders had in mind at the time, we have the option to change it. So the question is what makes sense today, not what a bunch of hemp-smoking slave-owners thought hundreds of years ago. I'm curious if you think you have enough data to form an opinion on the topic of American gun control. Gun control qualifies as common sense, but in my experience common sense in the context of insufficient data is irrationality in disguise."


New Ruling Shows the NSA Can’t Legally Justify Its Phone Spying Anymore | Opinion | WIRED: "The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said no this week to tracking your movements using data from your cell phone without a warrant when it declared that this information is constitutionally protected. The case, United States v. Davis , is important not only because it provides substantive and procedural protections against abuse of an increasingly common and highly invasive surveillance method. It also provides support for something Christopher Sprigman and I have said before — that the government’s other “metadata” collection programs are unconstitutional."


The Heart of the Matter: Iraq, Vietnam, and Why US Foreign Policy Elites Won't STFU: "With Iraq splitting into three (eight years ago, I explained why this was going to happen and why the US should get behind it), I wondered whether any establishment media outlets would refer to a civil war there.  I did a search for the applicable terms, and came up with… not much.  Apparently, if it’s happening in a Designated Enemy Country like Syria it immediately gets called a civil war.  But if it’s happening in a country we ourselves destroyed, we can't bear to be overly accurate and descriptive in our nomenclature, so it’s just "militants."

I also searched for “Iraq Vietnam.”  Because you don’t have to be a historian to remember that this sounds an awful lot like the endgame in Vietnam...  Here, I was intrigued to see that my search returned one big hit:  a Daily Beast article by the ultimate foreign policy insider:  Leslie Gelb.  According to the headline, "Iraq Is Vietnam 2.0 And U.S. Drones Won’t Solve The Problem."

...Gelb supported the war in Iraq.  He was part of it.  He lent it triple-distilled establishment cred.  So how incredibly psychologically convenient for him that “the problem” isn’t the war he supported, the war that killed up to 500,000 Iraqis and turned another 4,000,000 into refugees (in a population about 20% the size of America’s), the war that destroyed whatever infrastructure was holding the country together. No, the only problem is the Iraqi government. And it actually gets worse from there.

...this notion that when America “squanders” (rare moment of honest nomenclature there) the lives of its soldiers in foreign wars, we’re doing it for the good of the people of the countries we invade, rather than for our own selfish ends?  It’s the psychological gift that keeps on giving, enabling people like Gelb to go on supporting America’s wars because America’s wars really aren’t wars at all, no, America's wars are in fact simply the magnanimous gifting of freedom and democracy to poor benighted peoples overseas, bestowed in beneficence by a generous, loving, enlightened people.  Gelb’s subtext is right there, though it would be considered uncouth in his circles to say it plainly:  You're welcome, Iraq, you fucking ingrates.  Now no more freedom gifts for you until you show us you’re mature enough to use them responsibly...

If our “good guys” can’t supply this motivation for themselves, Americans should have learned by now that we in our goodness and kindness and sacrifice cannot supply it for them. That’s the central lesson of warfare for more than half a century. That’s the essential moral Americans can’t seem to learn. 

More pure American beneficence!  More foreign ingrates! And… I’m sorry, but holy fucking shit, that is "the central lesson of warfare for more than half a century”?  That is "the essential MORAL Americans can’t seem to learn”?  That America is good and kind and sacrifices selfishly, but that’s not enough to supply foreigners with the proper motivation? That someone can say something like this out loud while maintaining a brand as a Serious Foreign Policy Expert rather than being castigated and shunned as a moral monster is stunning."

  


I dug on The Equalizer tv show when I was a kid.  This looks to hold up pretty well.  Denzel in full "Man on Fire" mode.


Training - "No such thing as excuses."

6/13 - squats, calf press, leg xt, hip xt, stairs







UFC books first strawweight bout in history as Claudia Gadelha takes on Tina Lahdemaki in Atlantic City - Bloody Elbow: "The first 115 lb women's bout in history is on its way, with the booking of former Invicta FC fighter Claudia Gadelha against Finland's Tina Lahdemaki."


 Before And After Fat Loss: "lightasafeathertofitasafiddle: Don’t be afraid to lift weights!! I only weigh ~10bs less in the second picture.  In the first picture I’m 25 years old and wouldn’t lift more than 5lbs out of fear of getting bulky. I took the bottom pictures today on my 29th birthday. I can squat my body weight ;) "
   

"Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe, here in this great Hall of Justice, are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled."

'Justice League' is coming May 2017, Warner Bros.' DC movie roadmap revealed - Batman News: "According to a new report from Nikki Finke, Justice League will hit theaters just one year after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in May 2017. When the Justice League movie was officially announced, a May 2017 date was rumored and now it appears to be confirmed. Finke also claims to have info on Warner Bros.’ DC Comics movie roadmap, which they plan to reveal next month at Comic-Con. In addition to a Justice League movie in 2017, Wonder Woman will be getting her own movie that summer as well. Superman will get his own solo movie again in May 2018. Here’s the alleged roadmap: May 2016 – Batman v Superman July 2016 – Shazam Xmas 2016 – Sandman May 2017 – Justice League July 2017 – Wonder Woman Xmas 2017 – Flash and Green Lantern team-up May 2018 – Man Of Steel 2"

Tough to beat.

You know, I remember that Time magazine from '84 - because I'm old and my dad had subscriptions to Time and Newsweek - and I remember the aftermath and ongoing deluge of "healthy" low-fat "food" items that were fucking everywhere [and still are to this day.] Foods stripped of naturally occurring good fats and replaced with huge doses of sugar and whatever other chemical shitstorms of ingredients manufacturers pump into them. Lucky me, I lived right smack dab in the middle of the worst nutrition advice in the history of food science. The last 50 years kicked off with, pretty much, Ancel Keys and his debunked 7 countries study and the political meddling [ongoing] into diet and nutrition led off by the McGovern commission, and the farming subsidies that guarantee that the country vastly overproduces wheat and corn and finds its way into our diet...

Remember, don't trust the media, don't trust "science reporting" especially, don't even trust "science" - and research for yourself any scientific claims to see if it matches up with your own n=1 experiences. Think for yourself and question authority. Always.

Drink water. Eat animal protein [including full fat dairy, if you can tolerate it], vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and starchy tubers. You can survive off other food, sure. But don't fool yourself into thinking it's good for you.


This looks rather brilliant.  Michael Keaton's Birdman Movie Is Batshit Insane, In A Good Way: "There's so much going on in this trailer it's hard to even piece out the narrative, which is allegedly this: "A washed-up actor (Keaton) who once played an iconic superhero must overcome his ego and family trouble as he mounts a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim his past glory." We cannot wait to see what Iñárritu (who directed Babel) does with this subject material. It is RIPE for the crazy fun."



Wonder Woman and her gorilla army.  Because comics.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Training - "...I suggest you err on the side of training harder."

6/12 - chins, dips, neck harness, bridge, pullups, ab wheel, neck nods/rotations, wrist curls/rv wrist curls

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Do You Train Too Hard? | FLEX Online: "In my early days of training and competing, little was known about the concept of overtraining, and my training partners and I didn’t really speak of it. When we felt run-down or had a few lousy workouts, we took a day or so off, made sure we got enough sleep and food, and usually came back stronger than ever. Nowadays, many young bodybuilders seem to be terrified of overtraining, but I suggest you err on the side of training harder, because overtraining isn’t that easy to do."




Timeline Photos - Michelle Lewin (www.modelmichelle.com): "In case you missed it / Si aun no lo habias visto: 2009: 148lbs-67kg 2014: 120lbs-54kg"
  
  




   

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

"The trouble is..."

Father's Day... - Anthropasaurus: "FATHER’S DAY IS COMING UP. I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE I CAN MAKE UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN I TELL THEM MY DAD’S DEAD."



Woman Dies in Jail Because She Failed to Pay a Fine--For Her Child's Truancy From School - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "DiNino, 55, of Reading, was found dead in a jail cell Saturday morning, hours after she surrendered to serve a 48-hour sentence. She had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999 as the Reading School District tried to keep her children in class, most recently at a vocational high school. Died alone in prison. Over truancy."


Miss Indiana Is Normal | What Would Tyler Durden Do: "Twitter erupted during the Miss USA Pageant with praise from women happy to see Miss Indiana and what they referred to as a normal sized woman. That means unlike her beanpole competitors, she sucked on more than one chili dog outside the Tastee Freez. Fat acceptance advocates think that sporting a gunt is tantamount to goddess empowerment. As a practical matter, it is easier to encourage a fatter standard of normalcy than it is to do Pilates and lay off the cheese cake bites even when cycling. No, not that kind of cycling. The praise for Miss Indiana is refreshing in a day and age where the average American weighs 674.3 pounds and requires motorized wheels to purchase bulk boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats at the store..."

You know what happens to the "average" in a nation of the obese?  That's right, the "average" is fat.  Mss Indiana Mekayla Diehl's body is not 'normal' or 'average' - Los Angeles Times:
I'm sorry, but if you're over 160 at 5'3" and your waistline is bigger than mine...  I'm not saying it's guaranteed that you're overweight, but that's the way the smart people are betting.

The Free Enterprise Director Is Making The Ultimate Star Trek Fan Film: "Fan-made Star Trek projects are 10 Federation credits a dozen. But Robert Burnett isn't just any fan — he's the director of the beloved Trek romantic comedy Free Enterprise, and now he's focusing his talents on a movie chronicling the first Klingon war. Set after Enterprise and before the Original Series, Axanar will be a 90-minute movie about "The Four Years War," as mentioned in the TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy." The video above is a trailer for the prequel, a short named "Prelude to Axanar," which has already been completed and will debut at this year's San Diego Comic-Con in hopes of generating enough interest to fund the Axanar movie proper."



Broken America.  Kid Twirls a Pencil in Class, N.J. Threatens to Take Him from His Dad and Requires Blood and Urine Testing - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "In April, Ethan Chaplin was twirling his pencil in class when another kid—a bully, according to Chaplin—called out: "He's making gun motions, send him to juvie!"  The 13-year-old was yanked out of school and thereby commenced his 15 minutes of fame as sites like Huffington Post, as well as local cable news stations, took up his cause arguing that a suspension for pencil twirling was zero tolerance run amok...  

Ethan was back in class quickly, but too often these zero tolerance cases have second- and third-order effects. In Ethan's case, long after they thought the incident was resolved, his dad received some very scary paperwork from the state of New Jersey threatening to revoke his custody rights..

"I received a letter from them saying they had found an incident of abuse or neglect regarding Ethan because I refused to take him for psychological evaluation," Michael said. Panicked by the letter, Ethan's parents took him in for the evaluation, where he was required to give blood and urine samples...

Meanwhile, 13-year-olds may be idiots sometimes, but they're not dumb. Remember, the whole incident was triggered by a kid savvy enough to know that raising the specter of even a fake gun is a powerful weapon in the bullying wars."


This would be awesome, and only corporate fuckery prevents it from being so.  This Fan-Made Trailer Would Be The Ultimate Superhero Movie | - BroBible.com:


Libertarians Versus the War Hawks - Reason.com: "Most libertarians believe our attempts to create or support democracy around the world have made us new enemies, and done harm as well as good. We want less military spending...

Some conservatives respond to that by calling us isolationists, but we're not. I want to participate in the world; I just don't want to run it. I'm glad Americans trade with other countries—trade both goods and people. It's great we sell foreigners our music, movies, ideas, etc. And through dealing with them, we also learn from what they do best...

But hawks like Bolton ignore parts of reality, too.  They are quick and correct to point out the danger of Iran going nuclear. They are not as quick to talk about the fact that Iran has a population three times the size of Iraq's—and the Iraq War wasn't as smooth or short as then-Vice President Dick Cheney and others assured us it would be...

If it's realistic to acknowledge that America has dangerous enemies, it's also realistic to acknowledge that going to war is not always worth the loss of money and lives, and that it makes new enemies. War, like most government plans, tends not to work out as well as planners hoped...

Occasionally government acknowledges mistakes in domestic policy—but that doesn't mean it then becomes more efficient. It usually just spends more to try, and fail, to fix the problem. It's the nature of government. Politicians don't face the competitive incentives that force other people to make hard decisions.  Candidate Obama garnered support by criticizing Bush for costing money and lives through a protracted stay in Iraq. But that didn't stop President Obama from putting more money and troops into Afghanistan. In his first term alone, Obama spent about three times as much in Afghanistan as Bush did in two terms. Did we win hearts and minds? I don't think so. The Taliban may still retake the country.  Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world. "


The Importance Of Standing Your Ground: "Do Not Listen To Others’ Characterization Of Your Actions 
(...whatever third party) may claim that you are an asshole, that you are selfish, that you are giving an ultimatum etc. As to the first two things, congrats yes you are. Be selfish and be an asshole—it is your life and if you do not want to tolerate something, then don’t. Same thing with the supposed ultimatum...

Your Ground Is Completely Subjective 
There is no person other than yourself who can decide where to draw the line, and what ground to stand upon...  The point is that your ground is your ground."




This is pretty deep geek stuff, but I laughed.