Integral Options Cafe

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The 300 Workout For Women

I've posted a few times on the 300 Workout (here, here, and here). Tonight I put my most fit female client through a variation of the 300 Workout. Please keep in mind that she has been training with me for more than 2 1/2 years, doing almost exclusively compound movements (squats, clean and presses, rows, bench press, pull ups, dips, and so on). Her bodyfat has been under 18% at a couple of points and currently is around 21% or so. She is 5' 4" tall, 140 lbs, 30 years old.

This is what she did tonight:

Squats x 50 at 70 lbs (ass to floor)
One Arm DB Snatch x 50 each arm at 15 lbs
Push Ups x 50 (male push ups, not the female version)
Sumo Deadlifts x 50 at 75 lbs
Pull Ups x 50 (at 80 lb offset)
Ab Waves x 50

300 total reps in 44:03 minutes

She had to break up several of the sets into smaller units, but took very little rest. Some of the time was wasted in setting up exercises and moving to other areas of the floor, although I'm sure she didn't mind the rest. The squats were a little light, I think, since she regularly does both high reps and heavy weights.

I don't think I have any other female clients who could this workout, so it was fun to put her through this. She loves to work hard so, although she was fatigued, she didn't mind the intensity.

Unmasking the Maker of the Hillary 1984 Video

Arianna Huffington has the scoop:

For the last two weeks, the Internet has been buzzing about the hottest online mystery since lonelygirl15: who was behind the "Hillary 1984" video mashup?
Some suspected right wing SwiftBoaters. Some speculated it was the work of disaffected Democratic consultants. One blogger even pointed the finger at me.

As the intrigue deepened, the mainstream media joined the fray, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both being asked about the viral smash -- and much talk about the impact user-generated political videos will have on the 2008 race.

Well, today I can end the guessing. Last night, we sent out a challenge to the HuffPost team asking them to hit the phones and contact all their sources. As a result, we have learned the video was the work of Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean's Internet Team.

The video was posted on YouTube on March 5th under the username ParkRidge47 (Hillary Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1947).

In an email to techpresident.com, ParkRidge47 explained his reason for making the video:

The idea was simple and so was the execution. Make a bold statement about the Democratic primary race by culture jacking a famous commercial and replacing as few images as possible. For some people it doesn't register, but for people familiar with the ad and the race it has obviously struck a chord.
A friend suggested the idea after reading a New York Times article about the Clinton's campaign bullying of donors and political operatives after the Geffen dustup.

When I called Phil de Vellis, I invited him to blog on HuffPost about this, about the creation of the video, and about the explosive reaction to his work.

He has. Read his post here.

Here is the post from Phil de Vellis:

Hi. I'm Phil. I did it. And I'm proud of it.

I made the "Vote Different" ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it--by people of all political persuasions--will follow.

This shows that the future of American politics rests in the hands of ordinary citizens.

The campaigns had no idea who made it--not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs.

The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.

Let me be clear: I am a proud Democrat, and I always have been. I support Senator Obama. I hope he wins the primary. (I recognize that this ad is not his style of politics.) I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.

I've resigned from my employer, Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology to several presidential campaigns, including, full disclosure, Obama's. The company had no idea that I'd created the ad, and neither did any of our clients. But I've decided to resign anyway so as not to harm them, even by implication.

This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.

Mystery solved.

Many 2 Many: fame, narcissism and MySpace

[image source -- a good article on narcissism]

I found this somewhat interesting and insightful post at the Many 2 Many blog: fame, narcissism and MySpace. The author takes a look at the real issues behind the rising levels of narcissism among our kids. Danah Boyd thinks that blaming sites like MySpace or shows like American Idol for our narcissistic youth is missing the picture.

Here is a good passage:

My view is that we have trained our children to be narcissistic and that this is having all sorts of terrifying repercussions; to deal with this, we’re blaming the manifestations instead of addressing the root causes and the mythmaking that we do to maintain social hierarchies. Let’s unpack that for a moment.

American individualism (and self-esteem education) have allowed us to uphold a myth of meritocracy. We sell young people the idea that anyone can succeed, anyone can be president. We ignore the fact that working class kids get working class jobs. This, of course, has been exacerbated in recent years. There used to be meaningful working class labor that young people were excited to be a part of. It was primarily masculine labor and it was rewarded through set hierarchies and unions helped maintain that structure. The unions crumpled in the 1980s and by the time the 1987 recession hit, there was a teenage wasteland. No longer were young people being socialized into meaningful working class labor; the only path out was the “lottery” (aka becoming a famous rock star, athlete, etc.).

Since the late 80s, the lottery system has become more magnificent and corporatized. While there’s nothing meritocratic about reality TV or the Spice Girls, the myth of meritocracy remains. Over and over, working class kids tell me that they’re a better singer than anyone on American Idol and that this is why they’re going to get to be on the show. This makes me sigh. Do i burst their bubble by explaining that American Idol is another version of Jerry Springer where hegemonic society can mock wannabes? Or does their dream have value?

So, we have a generation growing up being told that they can be anyone, magnifying the level of narcissism. Narcissists seek fame and Hollywood dangles fame like a carrot on a stick. Meanwhile, technology emerges that challenges broadcast’s control over distribution. It just takes a few Internet success stories for fame-seeking narcissists to begin projecting themselves into the web in the hopes of being seen and being validated. While the important baseline of peer-validation still dominates, the hopes of becoming famous are still part of the narrative. Unfortunately, it’s kinda like watching wannabe actors work as waiters in Hollywood. They think that they’ll be found there because one day long ago someone was and so they go to work everyday in a menial service job with a dream.

Perhaps i should rally behind people’s dreams, but i tend to find them quite disturbing. It is these kinds of dreams that uphold the American myths that get us into such trouble.

Read the whole post.

In general, I tend to agree with some of these assertions. However, I'm not as opposed to teaching children self-esteem as the author seems to be. There is a lot of value in having our children believe in their self-worth.

Still, if we teach our children that they alone are special, and that they are more special than other people -- and fail to set appropriate boundaries on their needs and wants -- then we get narcissism. There needs to be some kind of middle ground in which our kids can feel valuable as human beings, but not more valuable than all other human beings.

I think that one path through this issue is teaching our kids about service and generosity. If we can teach them both self-worth and humility, that they are valuable as individuals but that the world does not revolve around their wants and needs, then we will have far less narcissism among young people.

What it comes down to is boundaries. Parents have gone so far in the direction of trying to build self-esteem in their kids that they have neglected to teach them boundaries around the issue of privilege. I see it every day with the kids at the high school next to my house -- kids who are driving H2 Hummers, BMWs, and other very expensive cars simply because their parents can afford them and don't know how to say NO.

The author of the cited post is correct that MySpace, American Idol, and other organizations are simply taking of advantage of what they see in these kids -- and perpetuating the myth by doing so. In the end, it comes down to parenting and socialization. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Cool Site: Greek Gods Family Tree

Do you have trouble keeping straight all the relationships between the Greek Gods? With all the incest, infidelity, and parentless or virgin births, who can figure it all out?

Ivan Kozik has done the work for us. His genealogy of the Greek Gods offers a one page family tree with Wikipedia links for each of the individual deities. Very cool.

Big Buddha Of Leshan

From The Cool Hunter:

Leshan Dafo, or Big Buddha of Leshan, is the largest stone sculpture of Buddha in the world. The colossal 71-meter (233 ft) seated statue of Buddha (dafo) is located on a cliff at the confluence of two rivers, the Dadu He and the Min He, overlooking the town of Leshan, about 50 km east of Emeishan. The Buddha is so big that one hundred people can stand on any one of its feet.

Daily Dharma: Skillful vs Unskillful

[image source]

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Skillful Versus Unskillful

Rather than dividing thoughts into classes like "good" and "bad," Buddhist thinkers prefer to regard them as "skillful" versus "unskillful." An unskillful thought is one connected with greed, hatred, or delusion. These are thoughts that the mind most easily builds into obsessions. They are unskillful in the sense that they lead you away from the goal of Liberation. Skillful thoughts, on the other hand, are those connected with generosity, compassion, and wisdom. They are skillful in the sense that they may be used as specific remedies for unskillful thoughts, and thus can assist you toward Liberation.

~ Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

Speedlinking 3/21/07

Today is the first full day of spring. Which means, in Tucson, that the temperatures will soon be unbearably hot.

Quote of the day:

"Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it."
~ Max Frisch

Image of the day:

BODY
~ 10 Keys to the Lean & Sexy Look, Part I -- From T-Nation -- "Why, if you follow Jen's 10 Keys, you'll be lean and sexy by the time you finish reading the article! Working out will be almost a formality. Well, not exactly, but these 10 keys are a damn good start to getting the look you want."
~ Having a ball with fitness -- "I thought just in case someone reading this post is thinking of what they could do to use their fitness ball better that I can point people in some kind of healthy direction."
~ Belly Fat May Drive Inflammatory Processes Associated With Disease -- "As scientists learn more about the key role of inflammation in diabetes, heart disease and other disorders, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that fat in the belly may be an important promoter of that inflammation."
~ Artificial Enzyme That Mimics The Body's Internal Engine Created By Researchers -- "The protein cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) is the ultimate enzyme responsible for all aerobic life on Earth, from bacteria to people. It is also a crucial component of the cellular machinery that generates energy in our body. With such impressive credentials, you might expect that scientists would have a clear understanding of how CcO works. But they don't, according to James P."
~ Exercise can help elderly avoid falls -- "In 2004, the most recent year statistics are available, almost 15,000 people 65 and older died from falls and about 1.9 million were treated for injuries in emergency rooms." My 85 year-old client who came to me because he was falling hasn't fallen once in the 15 months we have been working out.
~ Soy Found Protective Against Localized Prostate Cancer Only -- "The largest study examining the relationship between the traditional soy-rich Japanese diet and development of prostate cancer in Japanese men has come to a seemingly contradictory conclusion: intake of isoflavone chemicals, derived largely from soy foods, decreased the risk of localized prostate cancer but increased the risk of advanced prostate cancer." Emphasis added -- men should not eat soy.
~ Aging muscles become hard of hearing -- "As people age, neurons have to yell louder at the body's muscles to whip them into action, according to a new study, but exercise could reverse the aging effect."
~ Secret to slim kids? Just a little running around -- "Just 15 minutes a day of kicking around a ball or swimming might be enough to keep children from becoming obese, British and U.S. researchers said on Monday."

PSYCHE
~ Schizophrenia may be linked to inflammation: study -- "The key to schizophrenia may be found in a gene region thought to play a role in inflammation and autoimmune disorders, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday."
~ Fears Learned By Observing Others Are Similar To Those Learned From Direct Experience -- "Humans acquire fears using similar neural processes whether they've personally experienced an aversive event or only witnessed it, according to a study by researchers at New York University's Departments of Psychology. This is the first study examining the brain basis of fears acquired indirectly, through the observation of others."
~ Erasing the Pain of the Past -- "Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories." Sounds like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
~ Stephen Colbert was right: "Guts" actually do affect our emotional response [Cognitive Daily] -- "The relationship between the gastrointestinal system and the brain is particularly complex, but little research has explored whether there is a direct link between our physical "guts" and our emotional responses."
~ Psychodynamic Therapy Effective for Panic Disorder -- "The most common treatments for the disorder are applied relaxation training (ART), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and medication of the anti-depressant and anti-anxiety varieties, but new studies indicate that a less popular form of emotion-based therapy may be a more effective response."
~ Dieting: Baby Steps to Grown-Up Control -- "Flex your willpower muscle in everyday life." See also: Weight Loss: Shades of Gray -- "An all-or-nothing mind-set can be self-defeating."
~ Brain fends off distractions -- "Dutch researcher Harm Veling has demonstrated that our brains fend off distractions. If we are busy with something we suppress disrupting external influences. If we are tired, we can no longer do this."
~ Why some people almost always are successful -- "Here are some of the thoughts on success that I´ve come up with from reading/watching documentaries throughout the years about people such as Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry Ford. The following factors of success are just a few and I´m quite sure there are a lot more."

CULTURE
~ Baby Names: Unusual or Popular? -- "Would you rather give your child a name that lots of other children have, or a more unique moniker? Here are some thoughts on common versus unusual baby names."
~ 'Born-Again Virginity' in the Age of Girls Gone Wild -- "Born-again virginity has been debunked by research, but serious proponents of it -- from mature single women to evangelicals -- continue embrace the chastity pledge, for strikingly different reasons."
~ WH Offers Rove, Miers to Congress -- "The White House offered Tuesday to make political strategist Karl Rove and former counsel Harriet Miers available for interviews - but not under oath."
~ The rise and fall of Smokey Bear -- "Click the launch module to the left for a slide-show essay on how animals and comic characters are deployed as pedagogical aids, and what they have to teach us."
~ Attack of the zombie brands II -- "At the end of last week's article about zombie brands (the Ford Taurus, Tab soda, Life magazine), I asked readers to nominate other products, presumed dead, that have returned to the shelves. Judging by the volume of responses—more than 250—there are enough zombies among us that I'm thinking of buying a shotgun and barring the doors of my house."
~ Unconscious of a Conservative -- "FNB [see article for explanation] politics can be tricky to write about, and to pin down, because it relies on surfacing deep-seated anxieties and archetypes that, when revealed to the light of day, appear ridiculous."
~ Campaign Matters: Hillary on Anti-Hillary Video (And The New Anti-Obama Video...) -- "Hillary speaks out in favor of the anti-Hillary 1984 video, as a new anti-Obama video rockets to the top of YouTube."
~ The critical buzz on South by Southwest -- "The Austin indie festival best known for its music came to a close Sunday, and a few bands left much more famous than they were a week before—though none emerged the clear favorite."
~ The President's oh-so-noble reliance on "executive privilege" -- "There are glaring weaknesses and inconsistencies in the President's refusal to allow White House aides to testify under oath."

HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Drug firm money not always disclosed by MDs -- "Laws that mandate the disclosure of payments to physicians by pharmaceutical companies provide limited public information, according to a new report."
~ The fate of indie music as we know it -- "Even at the new rate of $.0008 per performance, applied retroactively to 2006, Pandora is on the hook for "millions and millions" of dollars in royalty payments to SoundExchange, Westergren told Salon -- far more than the company took in as revenue." Sounds like we are going to lose Pandora, the coolest music site on the web.
~ Tribe Opens Skywalk at Grand Canyon -- "The Skywalk, officially being unveiled Tuesday, is being touted as an engineering marvel. The glass-and-steel horseshoe extends 70 feet beyond the canyon's edge with no visible supports above or below." You couldn't pay me enough to walk out on that thing.
~ James Hansen Testifies to Climate Science Meddling -- "The Bush administration once again faces charges from James Hansen, a foremost climate scientist, of interfering with science in order to downplay global warming. Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and was one of the first experts to warn of the threat of climate change."
~ Wolf Population Grows in Three States -- "The number of wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming continues to grow, with at least 1,300 in the three states at the end of 2006, federal officials say."
~ The UK Will Require Carbon Footprint Labels on Products -- "You used to be able to count only the calories in your snacks owing to diet-friendly product labeling, but soon it might be just as easy go on a carbon diet—that is, if you live in the United Kingdom."
~ Poetry in Nature [Chaotic Utopia] -- "Looking at the rhythmic repetition of forms in nature, it is easy to imagine the influence of some creator, a poet who fixes each line with exact meter and measure. Yet, upon closer examination, we can see how these forms are self-creating, born from simplicity. Nature writes its own poetry."

INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Miscommunication -- From Will at Think Buddha -- "There is a curious little story from the Ariyapariyesana Sutta that has long appealed to me, a story concerning the ascetic Upaka. Upaka was apparently the first person that the Buddha met after his awakening and, if the commentaries are to be believed (which, I rather suspect, they are not), the only reason that the Buddha walked from the Bodhi Tree to Sarnath, the place of what became his first sermon, and chose not to fly as Buddhas are apparently accustomed to do, was to meet this particular character along the way."
~ What Kind of World Do You Want? -- From ~C4Chaos.
~ Once Charmed -- From Umguy at Still Seeking.
~ No God -- A follow-up to yesterday's post over at The Buddha Diaries.
~ Wright and Hirsh -- From CJ Smith -- "A fantastic Bloggingheads between Robert Wright and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh. For foreign policy nerds like themselves, this is ambrosia."
~ What it comes down to: seeing what is already more true -- From Per at Mystery of Existence.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Cool Site: About My Planet

There are a lot of news sites devoted to environmental issues, but none of them really offer a community of like-minded people. Until now. About My Planet is a newish site that offers news stories about the environment, especially the green movement and living a greener life, but also offers reader forums so that members (free registration) can share ideas and information.

If you value the green movement (ecology, not Integral), stop by and have a look around. They're still new and trying to grow their community.

Viral Campaigning -- The Anti-Hillary Video [UPDATED]

[Update: Hillary responds -- and the anti-Obama video. See below.]

I'm late to the game on this one, as many bloggers (including my buddy The Zero Boss) have already registered an opinion, but this seems to be something that is still gaining momentum in the public sphere.

The controversy centers around a viral video on YouTube that uses the classic 1984 Ridley Scott commercial for Apple and revisions it with Hillary Clinton as the Big Brother villain. Obama's campaign denies any connection to the ad, but his website is listed at the end of the ad.

Here is the original 1984 Apple commercial that aired during the Super Bowl:

And here is the new anti-Hillary ad, as posted at YouTube:

The mainstream media have picked up on this and are offering their views. Of course Fox News had to have an opinion on this, implying that Clinton's supporters might think Obama is behind the ad despite denials from his camp.

This is from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The video is a sophisticated new take on director Ridley Scott's controversial Apple ad that caused shock waves with its premiere during the 1984 Super Bowl, and shows the same blond young female athlete running with a sledgehammer toward a widescreen -- where an ominous Big Brother figure drones to a mass of zombielike followers.
But this time, the woman is wearing an iPod -- and has her candidate's slogan on her chest. And the Big Brother -- whose image she defiantly smashes with a wave of her sledgehammer -- is Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.
The tagline for the attack: "On Jan. 14, the Democratic primary will begin. And you'll see why 2008 won't be like 1984."
An updated Apple symbol -- transformed into an O -- is followed by the dramatically emerging logo: BarackObama.com.
Veteran San Francisco ad man Bob Gardner, whose work has included political campaigns for former President Gerald Ford, said the video is "very powerful" in its efforts to call for a generational change in politics.
"It puts Hillary spouting cliche nonsense to the drones -- while a fresh face breaks through," he says. "It's old versus new."
That theme -- reflecting a generational change in the relationship between media, politics, candidates and voters -- suggests that "Hillary 1984" could have the iconic power with the 21st century political generation that another classic political ad called "Daisy" represented to Baby Boomers, says Leyden. That 1964 spot for President Lyndon Johnson -- featuring images of a child plucking a daisy, which morphed ominously into a nuclear mushroom cloud -- battered GOP presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater because it, too, portrayed "a shattering of the whole world" in both political leadership, and media.

Personally, I like the ad. It's creative, it's energetic, and it does represent a drive to see a new form of politics -- a new kind of leader. I was once hoping that Hillary Clinton might be the real deal as candidate for president, but her pandering to the right and support of the Iraq War have convinced me that she is nothing more than politics as usual.

I'm still undecided about Obama, but he seems to have potential. However, the fact that so many young people seem to be excited about him as a candidate is good for politics. The youth vote has been sorely lacking in recent years. If a candidate get them motivated to participate, that sounds good to me.

What young people bring to the table, that older voters generally don't, is an understanding of new technology and how to spread information. This ad -- even though the age of the poster is listed as in his fifties -- represents the use of viral memes for the political process, a way to capture large ideas in compact ways that can be easily passed around the internets.

Viral campaigning may be the next step in activist politics. I doubt that it will be too long before we see something similar in the GOP side of things.

Many of us feel that we have lost any real voice in the political process -- that big money holds all the power. What viral campaigning might represent is the re-emergence of the voice of the people in shaping the debate. But then, I might just be engaging in wishful thinking. Still, it's nice to dream big.

UPDATE:

From The Nation blog:

It seems like everyone has weighed in on the anti-Hillary 1984 video except for Hillary Clinton. Now she's jumped in the fray, emphasizing the positive in a Tuesday interview with the local news channel NY1:
"I think anything that drives interest in these campaigns and get people who otherwise are not at all interested in politics, I think that's pretty good... I might quibble a little bit about the content, but if we get more people, especially young people, thinking about politics, I'm happy about that."

The article also links to a new anti-Obama video, which is not nearly as effective as the anti-Clinton video, even though it uses the same motif. See for yourself:

Oh, what fun this campaign is going to be.

SATIRE: Gonzales Resigns, Bush Appoints Brother as New Attorney General

From Unconfirmed Sources:

Breaking: Gonzales Resigns, Bush Appoints Brother as New Attorney General
by Dood Abides
Former Governor Bush was surprised by his omission from the list of likely replacements presented to Republicans

Washington, DC (APE) - Early this morning, President Bush announced that he had accepted the resignation of an embattled Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, and presented to a gathering of reporters his next choice for US Attorney General, his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Bush sought to assure critics that the pre-existing loophole within the patriot act which had allowed Gonzalez to originally fire and replace eight US attorneys without congressional approval, resulting in controversy for the administration was still in effect and legally allowed for the appointment of his brother. In a reversal of positions Bush now vowed to fight any effort by Congress to, what he described as "politicize the process" and attempt a rewrite of the legislation.
"Fredo has generously offered to remain on and function in an advisory capacity to Jeb over the next two years until he gets up to speed," stated Bush. "This is an important job, and well... I hope the third time's the charm."

Bush went on to state that the White House would likely claim executive privilege in regards to the possibility of future testimony from Gonzalez or special presidential adviser Karl Rove as is being considered by Congress, and described the controversy in regards to the US attorney firings as now resolved.

"I will continue to serve the president pleasure, and I pledge to make former attorney general Gonzales' transition as smooth as possible," stated former Florida Governor Bush. He went on to recognize that his appointment might come as a shock to some, particularly since he was not included on a list of likely replacements floated to congressional Republicans. He vowed to investigate the omission as one of his first acts as Attorney General.

The White House appeared to be preparing for a firestorm of criticism in regards to the move. White House special counsel Dan Bartlett scoffed at the idea that the appointment of Bush was nepotism and stated that criticism for the move amounted to nothing more than partisan politics in its basest form.

"Nobody really made a big deal when John Kennedy appointed his brother Bobby," argued Bartlett. "Much has been made of the fact that Jeb only has a degree in Latin studies, but people tend to overlook his wealth of experience in interfacing with law enforcement as evidenced by his recent handling of the Terri Schiavo case during his tenure as governor of Florida. What the Justice Department needs at this point, is a mover and shaker... someone with experience outside of the law... someone who can really push forward this administration's concerns over illegal immigration and voter fraud."

A response to the controversial appointment from Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid was almost immediate and to the point. "When you take into account the multitude of abject failures of this administration, particularly in regards to the ongoing debacle in Iraq, you have to conclude that the President's appointment of his brother is offering the American public a visit to a 'used camel lot'."

Did You Know?

This is a cool little video.

Speedlinking 3/20/07

Quote of the day:

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
~ Soren Kierkegaard

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Destroying Fat: War Room Strategies to Maximize Fat Loss -- From Christian Thibaudeau at T-Nation. "Finally, a fat-loss program we can sink our teeth into! Hmm, maybe that metaphor doesn't work here, given that this program is about how to lose fat by working out in the gym (you know, the ballsy way) instead of by counting calories."
~ When is chicken bad diet food? -- "Well chicken is very good as a protein source because it has close to no fat and is very balanced for it's amino acid profile. The trouble with chicken is that when you cook it you will find that it can get dry and you add come kind of sauce to make it less dry tasting. These sauces tend to be bad."
~ 5 Things You Can Do Right Now -- Some good training advice from Charles Staley.
~ Study casts doubt on duct tape wart cure (AP) -- Another urban myth bites the dust.
~ Sinus Study: Antibiotics Overprescribed -- "Antibiotics are commonly prescribed for the majority of patients with sinus infections even though most cases are caused by a virus rather than bacteria, according to an analysis of treatments...."
~ States push online fitness programs (AP) -- "Arleen East started the year in a rut — overweight, sedentary and plagued by bouts of depression only deepened by her unflattering extra bulk. Since those dark days of winter, the 47-year-old single mother has dropped 16 pounds from her 5-foot-7 frame. She's down to 192 and is pressing ahead with her goal to slim down to 145."
~ Eating extra soy may not promote weight loss -- "Adding soy-protein-rich foods while cutting calories doesn't accelerate weight loss, a new study shows." But it will give you man boobs or breast cancer.
~ Swell gel could bring relief to back pain sufferers -- "Scientists at The University of Manchester believe injections of tiny sponge-like particles could provide an alternative to major surgery in the treatment of chronic lower back pain."

PSYCHE
~ Short Attention Spans Serve Purpose -- "A wandering mind isn't necessarily a bad thing, say psychologists." This is good news for me -- I have the attention span of a gnat. See also: Why our minds are wired to wander.
~ God DOES Answer Your Prayers -- So says Dr, Mercola based on a meta-study of intercessory prayer.
~ Eating Disorders: A Midlife Crisis for Some Women -- I'm seeing this more and more in the gym -- in fact, the majority of anorexics in my gym are over 30.
~ Playing music makes you smart -- "Scientists have uncovered the first concrete evidence that playing music can significantly enhance the brain and sharpen hearing for all kinds of sounds, including speech."
~ Depressed Mothers Can Still Be Good Moms -- "Medically treating post-partum depression may not be enough to improve a mother's relationship with her baby, and is only part of the equation, according to a new study done in part by the University of Alberta.The other essential factor is giving struggling new mothers basic tools to read behavioural cues from their babies and effectively respond to their needs...."
~ Women Experience Different Stresses at War and After Homecoming -- "In a lengthy, well-reported story for this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine, writer Sara Corbett examined the effects of military service in Iraq and Afghanistan on women and how their experiences did and did not differ from their male counterparts. Focusing primarily on the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, Corbett spoke to many service women and veterans of combat to assess how and why rates of PTSD have been higher in women."
~ Personality Psychology -- "Individual differences make us unique - and often cause rifts. Personality psychology consists of human nature, individual differences, and psychological processes."
~ Internal Body Clock Linked to Mania in Mice -- "The manic state that is at the ancient root of the word "maniac" might result from a screwed up body clock, new findings in mutant rodents suggest."
~ Scientists study infant perception -- "U.S. medical scientists have determined infants are able to detect at least some three-dimensional images."

CULTURE
~ Bush Administration Rejects Recommendations On Health Care From Citizens' Working Group -- "The Bush administration on Wednesday rejected recommendations for revisions to the U.S. health care system made by the Citizens' Health Care Working Group in a September 2006 report, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 3/15)."
~ Why Aren't Humans Furry? Stone-Age Moms Could Be The Answer -- "A prize-winning paper suggests that humans are hairless apes because Stone-Age mothers regarded furry babies as unattractive. Medical Hypotheses, an Elsevier publication, has announced the winner of the 2006 David Horrobin Prize for medical theory."
~ Bush's health care plan not most effective: study -- "At least two of the health care proposals being presented to Congress would cover all or nearly all of the Americans who lack health insurance, and many would lower spending, too, according to an independent report released on Monday."
~ Which is Worse, Murder or Genocide? -- "This is not a moral invective but a scientific fact: We care more about one murder than a genocide."
~ It's Make-or-Break Time for Gonzales -- "Tuesday is a make-or-break day for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales." See also: White House Wants Gonzales to Stay.
~ The long constitutional path from war protests to You Tube -- "We've come a long way since "F**k the Draft." The history of free speech in America features a long proud march of embattled speakers pushing back against government authority. Whereas today's free-speech heroes pretty much just want to be zany enough for YouTube."
~ High Court Hears 'Bong Hits' Case -- "A high school senior's 14-foot banner proclaiming "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" gave the Supreme Court a provocative prop for a lively argument Monday about the extent of schools' control over student speech."
~ MySpace Launches Election Page -- "MySpace.com, the popular social networking site, on Sunday launched a section dedicated to the 2008 Presidential election." I hate the Rupert Murdoch owned MySpace.
~ Journalism and Politics Makes for Some Uncomfortable Pillow Talk -- "James Rainey has an interesting piece in the Los Angeles Times this morning that runs through a partial list of big-name journalists who are married to advisers to 2008 presidential candidates."
~ For the Christian Right, Gay-Hating Is Just the Start -- "As the Christian right works hard to make gays and lesbians second-class citizens, society needs to make a stand -- or else the same tactics will soon be used against other 'social deviants.'"

HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Mother nature still a rich source of new drugs -- "At least 70 percent of all new drugs introduced in the United States in the past 25 years come from nature despite the use of sophisticated techniques to design products in the lab, researchers reported on Monday."
~ Malaria-Resistant Mosquito Developed -- "Researchers have developed a malaria-resistant mosquito, a step that might one day help block the spread of an illness that has claimed millions of lives around the world."
~ New mechanism for producing cosmic gamma rays from starlight proposed -- "In 2002, when astronomers first detected cosmic gamma rays - the most energetic form of light known - coming from the constellation Cygnus they were surprised and perplexed. The region lacked the extreme electromagnetic fields that they thought were required to produce such energetic rays. But now a team of theoretical physicists propose a mechanism that can explain this mystery and may also help account for another type of cosmic ray, the high-energy nuclei that rain down on Earth in the billions."
~ As opinions flow through blogs and Internet, political power relocates, diffusely -- "There are many ways to define power, but Manuel Castells, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society, defines power as the ability to make people think the way you want them to think--or to convince those who disagree that they can't do anything about it."
~ Why are male antlers and horns so large? -- "Why are male ungulate antlers and horns so large? Darwin, when proposing his theory of evolution and sexual selection, suggested that the size of male ungulate antlers and horns may reflect male individual quality, and thereby be used by conspecifics as an honest signal of male sexual vigor, health, strength, hierarchical status, or ability to fight."
~ Odd Climate Fixes Weighed -- "Engineers consider everything from artificial trees to solar shades to combat warming."
~ Creepy: Spiders Love to Snuggle -- "While not usually considered paragons of tender, familial love, some spiders do have a touchy-feely side. Scientists have discovered two arachnids that caress their young and snuggle together."
~ Bird Eavesdrops on Another Bird's Alarm Calls -- "Nuthatches appear to have learned to understand a foreign language -- chickadee."

INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ God -- A response to a Sam Harris article from the Buddha Diaries.
~ New! Episode Seven of The Stuart Davis Show: Shh... The Secret!
~ Desilet on Derrida -- From Open Integral.
~ Managing your 50,000 daily thoughts -- From Sentient Developments.
~ Magliola reviews Being and Ambiguity by Ziporyn -- From Ed Berge at Open Integral.
~ Bad Science + Bad Mysticism + Narcissism + Cat Poop = The Secret -- ~C4Chaos reviews the Integral Naked discussion on The Secret.
~ 20 Ways to Become More Resilient -- A fairly integral approach from How to Save the World.
~ blank title, blank mind -- From CJ Smith at Indistinct Union.
~ Alan Kazlev on The Secret.

Monday, March 19, 2007

The 300 Workout Wasn't Hard Enough, So I Made It Harder

Last week I posted about the original 300 workout, which was done by invitation only as a challenge competition among the most fit actors. Then I posted my review of the workout, feeling it was good cardio but not much in the way of strength training.

So, being the masochist that I am, I made it harder. Here is what I did today:

25x Pull Ups
50x Squats (185 lbs)
50x Bench Press (135 lbs)
50x Hanging Knees to Elbows Crunch
50x Squat Jumps (2 x 25 lb DBs)
50x DB Snatches, each arm (35 lbs)
25x Pull Ups

300 Total Reps -- 35:20 minutes

To be honest, this kicked my ass. I did all 50 of the hanging crunches this time. But I nearly abandoned after the 50 squat jumps. The weighted squat jumps were waaay harder than the box jumps. My legs and lungs were burning so bad I didn't think I could continue. I had to take a lot more rest this time, as opposed to the other version.

The bench press was a good substitution for the push ups, which were far too easy. The squats were hard, but not out of the question -- might be able to handle 225 lbs for this.

I'm going to try yet another version of this later in the week -- I'll post the results. My goal is to create a workout using this 300 rep idea that takes about 45 minutes to complete and leaves me sobbing on the floor -- that's what I call fun.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Monday, March 19, 2007