someday i will juggle kettlebells...or maybe not. =) enjoy the rest!

It would have been a rest day but need to make up Nancy and Michael. Busy weekend coming up for me.

Congrats to Lee and Lori for opening Crossfit Sunshine Coast in Australia. Wish you all the best and hope to see you soon for a WOD.

Pfew, need this rest day for sure. Can't wait to come back fresh Sunday for some more punishme... er fun.

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.”
--Henry Ford

that being said. i CAN rest amazingly tomorrow, it's my favorite WOD ;)

stay classy

Wow ! The last 3 days have absolutely destroyed me...in the best possible way . Tomorrow i get what i need and what i want ! Peace.

Juggling KB's barefoot! Either a man or a maniac!

Thank you Jesus. A day of rest will be needed.

Made up Elizabeth today. First time with this WOD
As rx'd
16:15 I switched to the hook grip around half way through and it made it so much easier. I used to be skeptical, but now I love it.

Post WOD I tried for a muscle up. Failed three times, then BOOM. I GOT MY FIRST MUSCLE UP!

With rights come responsibility.

Temple Owl. Well done. its always a relief to get the first one out of the way. Now to go back to back..... :-)

#8

Thats awesome! I got my first muscle-up a few weeks ago and I'm so glad I'm over the hump. Once you get your first, the total reps keep climbing!

Well said Joey

tried to do angie but the pull ups hurt my neck so i quit. wall balls didn't seem to hurt so i did 150 of them.

karen as rx'd: 5:57 pr

Sleeveless in Seattle ... I get such a kick out of that name

Adam #8: Good job! Very exciting!

I took a much needed rest day today. I went to a park to do some pull-ups. I only did 4 before my hands started to hurt so I passed out on some grass in the sun instead. I was so tired that I wasn't even worried about bugs..

We'll be split jerking in Brooklyn tomorrow. I need to learn how to jerk from behind the head so I can practice BW oHS. I've been scared of them but I'm a little more comfortable in a place where I can dump the weight.

SECOND WIND TODAY.

DID 15 FULL MUSCLE-UPS 5 AT A TIME THEN 30, 95 POUND OVERHEAD SQUATS TO 12 INCH BOX.

JUST PRACTICING THE WORK SPOTS.

ROBERT S.
TUCSON, AZ.

Honestly, Martone has the longest arms I've ever seen. I need to borrow those limbs for deadlifts.

Rest Day - as rx'd!
Interesting article...
And Martone DOES have the longest arms!! HAHA

Oh thank you.

Had to zoom quite a bit. All that small lettering so close together...

This is perhaps why we should just abolish rights and just establish and absolute system that rules over all.

Life is not in complete anarchy or totalitarian rule, but rather somewhere in the middle. As long as people are bent on being dissatisfied, they will accomplish so with astonishing efficacy.

Congrats Adam (#8) on the Muscle up! I'm still a long way from getting my first one but I sure with work I'll eventually get there too =).

gaucoin: amen with the arms- wish I didn't have to fold up my legs so far to reach the bar before I have to start lifting it.

Question RE footwear for lifting. Lifting shoes vs crosstrainers/running shoes vs. bare foot. What are people's opinions about all of these? I've only lifted in tennis shoes and curious about trying some lifting shoes. Not sure I want to go barefoot.

Jeff Martone just casually talks while whipping around that kettleball "...and you just switch hands, just like that..." then I just switch hands and wham it hits the floor with a thud, again and again, and again.... Jeff you're an animal.

About the article, I couldn't agree more, I don't think that this article will get much dissent, too bad :>) My friend was a police officer in Hawaii and it got so bad for him that whenever he started one of his police guy stories, he always began with "there I was, violating this guys civil rights..." and he was one of the best, most true Red, White and Blue guys on the planet.

Have Fun, Train Hard,

Billy

AllisonNYC...

thanks. i do my very best to entertain:) i heard you went to Port Angeles HS for a lil bit, true? my lil bro was a RoughRider, woot woot!

stay classy, the sleeveless one

I can't sleep, so I'll comment.

Our democratic Republic--unlike, for example, the so-called People's Republic of China--is in intent a rational anarchy. By anarchy, I mean that our system relies, in theory, upon personal virtue to enact in a wholesome and productive way certain very general principles which guide us. It does not rely upon an extensive police power, or coercive laws of the sorts we see in autocracies like Cuba, China, Iran and North Korea.

For example, the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and ownership of property are going to mean very different things to an Amish Farmer, and to a Fortune 500 executive. Yet we have room for both of them. It is precisely the confluence of high level abstraction, and local virtue that fosters a qualitatively rich, genuinely diverse cultural life.

Paradoxically, the so-called multiculturalists are currently the principle enemies of actual, functional multi-culturalism. Prior to advent of Neoleninistic Political Correctness, we accomodated any number of cultural elements without anyone feeling a compelling need to give up all elements of their identity in favor of a generic, unrealizable abstraction. Yet precisely that demand is made now, particularly of the innovative culture whose ideals form the basis of our nation: that of Western Europe.

We need to be clear: the decentralization of liberty--and associated concrete freedoms like assembly, freedom of speech, right to keep and bear arms, etc.--is a function of the virtue of the people in question. Corrupt people--like the Chinese Communists--cannot form a virtuous culture. Because they cannot form a virtuous culture, they cannot create a free culture.

Virtue is local. It originates in the individual, and his or her understanding of what is sacred, and by extension what is worth living and dying for. Groups of people--like our Founding Fathers--who possess both personal integrity, and genuine patriotism, can form systems of government which protect those who want to govern themselves.

People who reject virtue--who do not want to govern their own passions--must be ruled by others. They must be compelled.

This is the logic of Communists. You take the "misunderstanding" of the workers--the "false consciousness" invoked inadvertently by Obama, in a mistaken public iteration of what he really believes--and you set up a system of government based not on what they want, but what someone thinks they should want. This of course is the logic of indoctrination camps the South Vietnamese were forced to live and die in once we chose failure in the Vietnam War.

On a more subtle level, this is the logic, too, of Islamic revolutionaries, most of whom were in fact influenced directly or indirectly by Rousseau, and public exhibitions of the failings of his thought in such catastrophes as the French Revolution.

If you look at Iran, for example, you have the same brownshirts beating people, just for "crimes against Islam", rather than "crimes against the People".

In a free moment today, as I was enjoying the marvelous weather, I got to thinking about the Lord of the Rings, and this concept of the Good King. This notion, of course, is central to Islamic notions of the Caliph, based on the original enlightened ruler, Muhammad himself.

In itself, this idea has a romantic appeal. It is central, in some respects, to chivalry, which originated with the Muslims.

And in point of fact, Democracy is a sort of deconstruction of this idea. It takes the nobility of the King, and distributes it generally.

And yet, one can invoke Taoist notions of the King as one who is sovereign of himself, as one who has mastered his passions. Thus, a truly great democratic Republic, in the full bloom of its potential, will be a nation of Kings.

For this reason, one can self evidently view leftist deconstructions of virtue as anti-democratic, and autocracy-bound.

And that is what this culture of "rights" is: it is precisely the rejection of ideals of personal self management. Rather than reject self pity in favor of dignity, courage, and civic duty, it rather glorifies resentment, and canonizes the transcendental Victim.

The victim, self evidently, is a passive recipient of action upon it, a sort of "lumpen" mass without volition or consciousness--outside of the State.

I see the same widespread moral disasters he does. I do however have to live in that world, which is why I work so hard to understand it, and, Lord willing, to help to change it at some point.

Yeah, what Barry said.

Wholly smokes dude that would have taken me a day to think of..

Have Fun, Train hard,

Billy

I laid down, then it occurred to me we are technically a Constitutional Republic. My point is the same, but there may be some added mileage to be gained through that distinction.

All CrossFit swings are driven overhead, whether that is using hips/arms/or a combination of both. Jeff Martone and most KB instructors teach the swing to be driven by the hips, which typically drives the bell to chest or eye level. Anyone?

“I can only say how relieved I am that I shall not be around to see the full flowering of the human-rights culture in the years to come”.

I must wholeheartedly agree with the author’s conclusion. Our society (Although he writes from the UK?) is very driven with the WIFM (What’s in it for me) mentality only further propagated by the; It’s my right, activism. I also am saddened to see such a rapidly deteriorating culture that once respected others becoming so self absorbed that people seek out ways to exercise their own rights (If even only perceived as theirs) just to show they have power over others.

It is a tragedy that our country and governments need to regulate the lives and actions of the citizenry simply because the mentality exists that if some action or thing is not regulated by law then we can get away with it and nobody can do anything about it.

I yearn for the days when being sensible, respecting others and just being responsible was what you worked towards, not these days of rat-f*cking someone just because you can. So as the author wrote:

“I can only say how relieved I am that I shall not be around to see the full flowering of the human-rights culture in the years to come”.

Need to make up Michael tomorrow night after work. Will try it as rx'd this time, did half Michael last time.

#23 Sleeveless: Whoa Yes that's true. I lived there for a few months when I was 14.

How on earth did you know about that???

I think my right to articulate Rest Day reading has been violated. Dalyrimple is normally excellent, but this piece doesn't do justice to a worthy subject.

Hells yeah I have a right to health care.

Are you a doctor? You have the right to shut the hell up with your whining while you serve me.

In the good 'ol days a man could whip his slaves. But now it's all institutionalized, insurance companies, health management companies, preferred provider networks -- Even if the government steps in to provide us, to satisfy our right to doctors and nurses and tests and medicines, it's gonna be too complicated. I'd like it to be a little simpler:

Give us a doctor willing to serve, deliver her sweet behind to our village and let her get to work. We've a right to health care. If there's a shortage of labor, it's 'cause they're not willing to work long enough hours. Make it like the old days -- make it perfectly clear who owns whom. Patients have rights. They hold the whips. Providers have an obligation to serve. They can start serving on our terms --- our rights.

We've a right to medicines. Damn shareholders are too greedy, they want the drug companies to make a profit. We need to take their money, or take the companies, and manage them without concern for profit.

We shouldn't pussyfoot around about getting what's rightfully ours. Go to your nearest clinic or hospital with a gun, demand what's yours. Nobody should object ---- everyone agrees in principle. You're just proposing a more efficient means of distribution and allocation.

gorillasoph

Remeber.. flight leave daily. If you are so bent that you feel entitled to something which you did not earn, pay for, or have as a benefit then you should move somewhere that shares the same self-centered values.
Dont be such a hater to the business of medicine and health-care.. it is just that .. a business.

#31
very funny

Barry,
That is a lot to think about.

The Art of Allowing.

To live in your own world, while allowing others to live in theirs.

Have fun, Johan

Mr. Dalrymple has at least one very interesting thing to say.

To my mind, that thing is:

“Once something is declared or believed to be a right, it carries with it a metaphysical connotation of inalienability.”

Dalrymple’s critique of “human rights”, shares with Edmund Burke’s critique of the “rights of man”, the concern that when ‘rights’ are postulated as absolute and a-historical organizing principles for human relationships, they “drive out considerations of kindness, decency, tolerance, mutual obligation and so forth: all the considerations, in fact, that make civilized or dignified existence in a crowded society possible” (Dalrymple).

He also raises the possibility that some ‘rights’ may be irreconcilable. In doing so he suggests the possibility of a constructive conservatism. He shares with Burke (and with Hume to an extent) the sense that programmatic rationalism should be avoided in favour of pragmatic rationalism tempered by fidelity to tested and productive social customs.

Dalrymple disapproves of the social ills wrought by the proliferation of ‘positive rights’ but gives ‘negative rights’ a free pass. On further inspection, it seems he does not really oppose rights that confer a “tangible benefit” per se.

Consider the right to vote: there are many states in which citizens are not given the opportunity to elect their leaders; for them, the right to vote would appear to be a positive benefit. A despot could adapt Dalrymple's words, and say that a person's asertion of the right to vote

“…sets up a deeply unattractive and psychologically damaging dialectic between ingratitude on the one hand and grievance and resentment on the other. If you receive…[the right to vote], you are not grateful, precisely because you were entitled to it in the first place. If, on the other hand, you do not receive [the right to vote], you are doubly aggrieved, first at not receiving what you want, and second at the violation of your supposed right to it.”

On further inspection, Dalrymple does not appear to be against ‘positive rights’. He is against what particular people expect to receive via particular ‘positive rights’. The positive benefits conferred by the right to vote are ok, the positive benefits conferred by a right to health care are not. Once Dalrymple lets loose his ‘metaphysical’ critique of rights, it may strike either positive rights or negative rights with equal force.

Keeping Dalrymple honest, we must understand him as critical of ‘rights’ in general. These ‘rights’ have the unhappy effect of legitimizing and solidifying the claims and interests of individuals situated at various places in the social strata. For anyone who holds a right, it is a ‘trump’, it is, as Burke feared, a potential lever with which to upset the social organization of society. Burke lived at the dawn of the rights revolution, and now, after some 200 years of ‘inalienable rights’, the trumps support not only change, but tradition and custom, in some cases reaction and oppression.

In conjunction with wise political leadership and an alert citizenry, the contest between the old and the new trumps may have an important role to play in reshaping, and reinforcing the “mutual obligation[s]”, that make “civilized or dignified existence” in an ever changing society possible.

The inalienable rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...everything else should be earned by the individual. There are no entitlements or guarantees. "Personal" rights should only extend as far as the tip of the next person's nose. KT

#31- Back the truck up pal. Keep in mind that healthcare is a business (see #32). Yes, the government, in its infinite wisdom, has mandated that you will receive care whenever you go to a Medicare-funded hospital. However, that does not give you the "right" to be a jacka$$ when you show up. The United States has some of the best healthcare in the world, precisely because it is a business. Medical professionals are, for the most part, motivated by money. I realize that is cynical, but bear with me. This motivation drives many of them to strive to be the best in their field. Knowing that by doing so their reputations will draw more clients, leading to more money. Socialized medicine is known for its mediocrity. Just ask any Canadian that comes to the States for surgery. Be happy with what you have, be appreciative towards the people that provide you with that stellar medical care, and don't think for a minute that that stellar care is a "right".(Full Disclosure: I am a registered nurse). Oh, and by the way, the next time you need stitches, walk in there with a gun and start "demanding" that your "rights" be attended to and see how far that gets you. Something tells me that you will still be bleeding on your bunk in jail...

One other thought that occurred to me this morning. Don't have time to read the comments at the moment.

Returning the (very) junior Senatores comments, he indicated that rural America is not sufficiently incensed at the loss of economic vitality in some sectors because they "cling" to religion and gun. NRA members vote Republican, and so do those concerned about the Supreme Court enacting legislation in contradiction to its historical (not Constitutional) mandate to vet legislation for Constitutionality.

In other words, they value and use the rights granted them by the Bill of Rights so much that they fail to grasp--fail to see, in an exasperating display of ignorance--that they possess much more important rights, such as universal healthcare, and an activist government that presumably would be in the business of business. That Obama, somehow, despite a lifelong mistrust of capitalism, will work to create jobs in areas that economic activity has not succeeded. And, presumably, that our extremely low unemployment rates--a small percentage of those in the socialist countries he presumably wants to emulate, like Cuba--are to be viewed as less of a problem than the lack of jobs in the precise zip code of anyone who is unemployed.

To be clear: he cares little about the actual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. He would be perfectly OK with gun restrictions, provided simply that he could get the political support. That religion is simply a tool for him, and God an abstract embodiment of the all-knowing and all powerful State he envisions, which includes full employment, universal healthcare, and the right to not be poor without also having to become middle class.

Implicitly, he views not just the explicit content of our Constitution, but the underlying philosophy of government it expresses, to be antiquated. The "right" to universal healthcare trumps the right to keep and bear arms, even though one is clearly in line with government of the people, by the people, for the people, and one is patently paternalistic and only helpful for those unable or unwilling to help themselves.

This is leftist orthodoxy. The rights of the People to be free from any differences in outcome created by differential capacities with respect to work, thrift, and intelligence trump all other rights. Free medical care in Cuba may consist in a cot, an old blanket, and some aspirin, but it is free. For that, they lost their rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, keeping and bearing arms, trial by jury, and a host of others.

It's no wonder leftists hate thinking so much. It never works in their favor, at least with respect to people posssesing a work ethic, self respect, and common sense.

"And, presumably, that our extremely low unemployment rates--a small percentage of those in the socialist countries he presumably wants to emulate, like Cuba--are to be viewed as less of a problem than the lack of jobs in the precise zip code of anyone who is unemployed."

Let me rephrase this. Our low unemployment rates are a measure of success. You have people retiring at government expense in Sweden at age 40, simply because they don't want to work, and under their system you don't have to. This leads to higher unemployment. In the birthplace of leftists totalitarianism--France--they have structural, long term, unemployment on something like the order of 15-20%. With their laws that make it hard to fire people, which guarantee how many hours you work, etc., they will be unable to create the entrepreneurial climate necessary to ever fix this. They will have 10's of millions of people who never get jobs, and spend their lives in modernistic shanty-towns, steaming and scheming. All because of economic policies they should know are counter-productive, but which they fail to change due to a complete misunderstanding of the notion of rights.

Obama looks at structural unemployment in rural areas, and somehow concludes not only that his activist interference in creating jobs is preferable to the loss of other rights--and as far as that goes, that success is even possible--but that he is entitled to feel actual resentment towards those people for not understanding how much they need him.

This fundamentally the arrogance of every architect of every large term political disaster in the 20th Century. The scale differs, of course (one hopes and assumes), but not the underlying dogmatic elitism. Intellectuals implement policies they never have to live under. If you belong to the Party, you are in charge. You never have to be one of the workers.

I work with rednecks all the time. They aren't clinging to anything, except the occasional bottle of Jim Beam. They will work all day and night, and won't complain about it. When they go home and look in the mirror, they see nothing to apologize for. This is the back our nation was built on, and which it rests on.

Dalrymple just re-affirms to me that we were right in kicking the limey's out of here some 230 odd years ago. He glosses over the essential rights that human rights activists are generally fighting for: right to vote, freedom of speech, right to practice religion of your choosing, right not to be tortured etc. and seems to imply that those who fight for basic human rights are just concerned about prisoners being able to play their stereos too loud. Classic right wing straw man argument. Never mind that his Boy Bush just admitted to ABC last Friday that he aided abbetted and approved of Condi, Rumey and Cheney et al choreographing CIA warcrimes!

"The United States does not torture" he says. But then admits to holding meetings to plan torture. I guess they figure the Dems are never going to grow a set and hold them accountable so why not just admit it! I am looking forward to the adults taking over.

#8 Congrats Adam. Quite an accomplishment for a 74yo, 19" male!
Seriously awesome job.

Never was happier to see a rest day...
Shoulders are fried

Had a great wod @ SONZ in Palm Bch Gardens. Home of my first cert coming up in May!! The owners Dana and Todd Lynch did an amazing job on their gym. The gym is absolutely beautiful. Dana took my kids, me and a bunch of other really fun cfers through a great wod:

3 hspu's
6 KTE
9 24" box jumps
11 rounds in 20 min

Can't wait to get back there, the kids are hooked

#19 - As long as people are bent on being dissatisfied, they will accomplish so with astonishing efficacy.

Yes, irrefutable - the most miserable people are those who could be other wise but choose to be 'dissatisfied.' The easiest one to think of is the union airline pilots.

Rhowk - you're torturing the use of the word torture. What about the right of the language not to be abused by anyone with an agenda? Where's the friggin' language police when you need them? Probably hanging around reading Webster's ...

Paul

Coach, thanks for the rest day.

The article is from 2004 when I was in my third and final year of teaching. If anyone wants to talk more about this, email me. I can tell you about students (still children mind you) who knew greatly about how to manipulate the system to better themselves.

Case and point, I gave students a preview mid term a couple of weeks before the midterm, told them to study the packet, and that we would have a review day or two to go over the questions. Some students did not study the packet and nearly started a riot in my classroom (this is out in the suburbs, not in an inner city school). The students were upset that they did not know the material and wanted the mid term moved to benefit their grades. They went to the administration (during my class mind you). A willing administrator asked if I would be willing to move the mid term to a later period which would give them a chance to study (this was only two or three kids). I said that it was fine. Other students complained. I told them that they could take it up with the same administrator. But to be fair to my schedule, they all had to take the test at the same time (and so that they could not pass along test questions to other students).

Long winded diatribe and may be off the mark. Just goes to show you how far students want to have their rights. And the kids were 14-15 years old.

I have an ideal about an old axiom, "your rights go so far as to the tip of my nose." As long as my bubble is violated, I care that you follow the law, but will not report those who violate a small law. If you think that I am oversimplistic, ask yourself, would you like it if someone reported you every time that you exceeded the speed limit (even though the flow of traffic is well in excess of 10 mph over the speed limit at times)?

To others that want free health care, go to Canada and see what happens. There is a SHORTAGE of doctors in that country. There are places where you need to get an appointment to see the doctor. And because of work contracts, if you are as sick as you state that you are, you should be at home. If you are at home too long, you need a doctor's note. What if you cannot get one because the said doctors require an appointment, and the time that they can see you is in two weeks? Are you going to take a two week vacation every time you get sick?

Another point for the share holders. The share holders invest in companies as a LOAN to those companies. The companies then invest in research that can benefit more of society. It took money to get the MRI machines, the ultra sound machines (and others mostly built by GE - not only are they in the business of energy, but in the medicine business as well). If you told GE that they had to take less money, there would be no incentive for them to make the new machines. No new machines, no new cures. No new cures, people die off more quickly.

Wait a minute (I am joking here), maybe I am on to something. Euthanasia caused by a lack of new initiatives in order to drive down the costs of medicine. Patents only last so long. Drugs can be generic within a couple of years. MRI machines, though. Those patents last for 70.

I just wanted to put in my own 2 cents worth. Maybe I put in too much.

I also wanted to say that POSE works! I am looking forward to coming to CA (Los Angeles - Petranek Fitness, maybe) and going to a gym there. I am incredibly sore from the new running method. It's a good sore, though. Meaning muscles are under development.

Pain is just weakness leaving the body...

guy #27
I agree with the KB guys that the swing should come almost all from the hops and legs, thus terminating around eye level. However, I can see the efficacy in bringing the bell overhead: as you get tired, you must engage the core rigorously at both the bottom AND the top.

SO....quite frankly, I say whatever feels good, do it. either way, it's a great exercise and it will tire you out.

also, anyone know how many zone blocks Matzo counts for?

Finally!

An article of genuine conservative thought. Normally it is some neo-con propaganda rag talking about how great it is to flex our military muscle or whatever. This article should be read and discussed widely.

In fact, I would be so bold as to propose that things like Iraq, Somalia, Darfur and Kosovo extend from the line of thinking that there is some legalo-moral obligation by America to preserve the rights of others and then only ends up trampling on everyone else's essential rights. This applies to the current liberal Bush-Republicans.

The liberal Democrats apply this same nonsense to all their education and health care rights.

Seems to me that before any sensible discussion about 'rights' can be had, one must define the term (lacking as previously noted any vigorous enforcement by the language police).

I say it is simple - my rights end where your nose (or property) begins.

If something has to be removed by the coercive force of govt from one citizen in order to be provided to another, that is not a right.

I have a right to liberty - there need be no govt action on the right in question until someone tries to remove or limit my right, in which case the govt is obligated (by its entire purpose) to step in a defend my right to liberty (or property, of life, or right to speak, etc).

An observation is that the 'entitlement' mentality makes people into pathetic whiners, and the general ethic that it's shameful to expect others to provide for one's own needs makes for a larger number of people to find pride in fending for themselves. I prefer the later outcome.

The thorny issues wrt right are those such as healthcare - does someone have a right to healthcare? By my definition, obviously not.

However, I think health care as much as any issue this will drive the distorion of the word 'right' such that it become a meaningless term, much to the detriment of us all.

Not being gifted with time or energy to write down what I would like to about the implication of the distortion of the word 'right' I'll leave this as it as and trust to the nearly infallible tendency of the guardian angel of the boards to deliver what I would have said anyway.

I humbly suggest today that we celebrate the property "rights" of Affiliates (and Greg and Lauren), which makes it worth their time, effort and cash to procure and maintain this program that adds to much to our lives.

Paul

the last three days were great workouts! I didn't want to rest today though, so I ran 5k. I am wondering what tomorrows WOD will bring and how much I will wish I had rested. BRING IT ON

Apollo, you break out the top-notch posts all the time.

I whole heartily agree with your minimalist take on right and extend this: that when you take a minimalist view of rights and place everything else under 'priviledge' you end up preserving all the freedoms AND priviledges in the world.

#31 - Gorillasoph - love it. Paul

Just another thought. I just came across the Petranek Fitness Baseline Challenge.

I took their line of thought and extended it to the Military Physical Fitness test and their scoring. The tables below show the results of this:

Physical Fitness Test Based upon Petranek Fitness Baseline (MEN)
Status Time (seconds) PRT Score
Elite 235.00 100
240.00 99
245.00 98
250.00 97
255.00 96
260.00 95
265.00 94
Expert 270.00 93
275.00 91
280.00 90
285.00 89
290.00 88
295.00 87
300.00 86
305.00 85
310.00 84
Craftsman 315.00 83
320.00 82
325.00 81
330.00 80
335.00 79
340.00 78
345.00 76
350.00 75
355.00 74
360.00 73
365.00 72
370.00 71
Apprentice 375.00 70

Physical Fitness Test Based upon Petranek Fitness Baseline (WOMEN)
Status Time (seconds) PRT Score
Elite 280.00 100
285.00 99
290.00 98
295.00 97
300.00 96
305.00 96
310.00 95
315.00 94
320.00 93
325.00 92
330.00 91
Expert 335.00 90
340.00 89
345.00 89
350.00 88
355.00 87
360.00 86
365.00 85
370.00 84
375.00 83
380.00 82
385.00 81
Craftsman 390.00 81
395.00 80
400.00 79
405.00 78
410.00 77
415.00 76
420.00 75
425.00 74
430.00 74
435.00 73
440.00 72
445.00 71
Apprentice 450.00 70

Excel does not like this blog or vice versa.

Just to extend this thought, I think that it may be possibly unfair (advantage to the women). Take for instance some of the fitter women that visit this site. Eva, Annie, Nicole, and a couple of others.

I KNOW pretty much for a fact that these women could possibly pass for an ELITE male score. It may just show how incredibly fit these women really are. Enough complaining. I will leave it at that.

My previous post agrees with Apolloswabble. Former Navy pilot, former Navy nuke. Yeah, we'd pretty much agree on most topics.

Enough posting. I have to study for some PE exams.

Prole,

How about we restrict the concept of "rights" to the Bill of Rights?

In what way are those restrictive to anything except a leftist program bent on bending our culture into a pattern based on rote universal conformity?

It works great for anyone who wants to live and let live. The results speak for themselves. Martin Luther King was able to effectively appeal to the Declaration of Independence in seeking not equal outcomes for African Americans, but equal opportunities to be judged "not on the color of their skin, but the content of their characters".

No conservative could have the slightest issue with this.

The problem is that you cannot guarantee equality of opportunity and equality of outcome at the same time. You have to choose one or the other. The first leads to economic and political freedom, and the second to economic and political repression.

The "rights" he is claiming to be spurious and unhelpful to actual social progress--and I will agree with your implied critique that he at times unclear in his language--are precisely those associated with programs based on equalities of outcome. Socialized medicine clearly belongs in this category, and clearly flies in the face of the right to unambiguous ownership of property, both in its physical form, and in the form of skilled labor for hire.

missed two days this week so i did the navyseals crossfit wod today:

w/ a 25lb backpack:

50 pull-ups
1 mile run
50 push ups
1 mile run
50 squats
1 mile run
50 burpees
1 mile run

wow, did i underestimate how hard that would be. 59:40

44/m/159#

Good morning everyone...Just wondering if there are any crossfitters in the St. Petersburg,FL area..I will be on vacation next week(21-25) and wanted to get a couple of WODs in..Thanxs

Saggy #45, How many blocks are in Matzo?

The Pesach Matzos are 3 blocks of carbs per Matzo or you can just cut them out totally and use better carbs like apples, etc.

Have Fun, Train hard,

Billy

Missed yesterday, so made up Michael today. Subbed swiss ball sit-ups for normal sit-ups.
19:23

Will review and post on the article later; have to do some Con. Law studying first (the Dormant Commerce Clause can bite me).

Just did Elizabeth w/115lbs. 8:12. Smoked my PR. Then I realized we're supposed to do SQUAT cleans. Back to the garage I went. Dropped to 95 lbs. Smoked my PR again. Time to move up in weight. Drink the kool-aid, this stuff works!

#43
some links are being held, but are you seriously thinking of sicking the language police on John McCain, Col. Stuart Herrington, US Army(ret)(an instructor at SERE), and Gen. Charles C. Krulak and Gen Joseph P. Hoar USMC? Please tell me what in "Five Deferment" Cheney's vast experience of avoiding military service qualifies his opinion above theirs?

Split Jerks...

I'm not great with jerks. I dump them too soon.

95 x 5 solid

1 x 105
1 x 110
1 x 115
1 x 120
1 x 125
1 x 130
1 x 132
1 x 135 FAIL I got nervous
1 x 130

5 x 95

I need to work on this but I felt better than I did when I started. 132 is a PR for me overhead. Previous PR was 125 x 5 in regular jerk.

Not very good..

Look up Aaron Russo. He's a director who did movies like "The Rose" and "Trading Places".
Yesterday, one of my customers gave me a DVD of a docudrama he did before he died lat year called "Freedom to Fascism" about the IRS and the Federal Reserve. you don't realize how close to a Police State you are. In May, you will have an national ID card. Are you ready for some goon to ask you "Papers, please."

#38 Barry Cooper

wtf

"In the birthplace of leftists totalitarianism--France--they have structural, long term, unemployment on something like the order of 15-20%"

France sucks, this is for sure. But as a typical neo-con, you are making up "facts" as you speak. There is no long-term unemployemnt rate of 15-20% in France. (I'll let you reaesrach yourself) Damn. Just like a neo-con to throw in your own "facts" and figures. As always, the truth and FACTS are neo-cons greatest fear.

From Barry #24: "People who reject virtue--who do not want to govern their own passions--must be ruled by others. They must be compelled."

I see this as the defining distinction in this issue. Those who see themselves and others as fundamentally capable of self-control can function in a society where one's "rights" only extend to the tip of another's nose. In a society in which individuals are incapable of self-control, there by definition must be an external entity with the purpose of sorting out conflicts of interest amongst the individuals. In a society of ever-growing complexity, though, the question becomes: how do we as a society re-grasp this self-control in the face of increasing opportunities and entities to which to yield it?

29 yom 225#
tried a workout from a friend
"bar hop"
10x HSPU
15 front squats @ 115lb
20x Pullups
15 push press @ 115lb
30 burpees
15 SDLHP @ 115lb
40 glute-ham sit ups
15 back squats @ 115lb
50 box jumps
Total time - 17:36

Kevin, F2F was an OK movie with a great number of liberties taken in some of the quotes. However, as far as the Real ID act and other things of that nature I agree 100%.

de Tocqueville observed that America is not a nation that will tolerate quick changes and revolutions. Slowly but surely our liberties have been taken away under the guise of either general welfare or state security, and it goes all the way back to the 'Alien and Sedition Act' and midnight appointments to the Supreme Court. Eventually there really will be a video monitor in everyone's bedrooms for Big Brother to watch over us.

#58: is it your understanding that the Bill of Rights applies to non-Americans working to torture and murder Americans, Europeans, fellow Arabs, and Jews? That seemed to be the point, but you were incoherent.

If you are wanting to make the case that you believe we ought to ban torture in all cases, would you consider the cost of millions of dead acceptable, if the only alternative was torture?

If you want to make the case that we need to be judicious in our use of torture, and that in most cases it is either ineffective, or counterproductive (for political reasons), I would agree with that.

If you want to extend that argument to a blanket indictment of the Bush Administration for pursuing policies calculated to protect America as well as possible, you will need to make that case. Bush and McCain may differ on means (I will note in passing that the President of the United States is George W. Bush; Richard Cheney is his Vice-President) for protecting America, but are united in the beliefs that there are groups dedicated to undermining our freedoms, and killing Americans wherever possible, and that maintaining the peace in Iraq is strategically and morally necessary.

If, on the other hand, we were by misfortune and effective propaganda to elect Obama or--to a lesser extent--Hillary Clinton, we would face a draw-down absolutely devoid of any reference to military necessity, and without deference to the Generals actually in the conflict. Frankly, without even gratitude. Obama seems to view the military as the enemy, and his only talk about actual use of the military--as for example in proposed incursions into Pakistan--is for purposes he knows full well won't be approved by anyone in any position of responsibility, so he can talk tough, but never need to do anything but cut funding to the military, presumably while cooking up some half-baked humanitarian missions he will abandon the second people start dying.

With respect to #60: are you unaware that Drivers License information is shared across state lines? That a Police Officer can ask for your license, pull your records from another state, and know your arrest history?

You don't know the first thing about Fascism. If you want to look at a nation on that path, though, look at Venezuala. They are openly suppressing dissent, or were last I checked. Chavez didn't get his "Jefe for life" vote, but one senses he hasn't given up his dream to make paupers of millions just like his hero Fidel Castro.

Whenever a leftist uses the F word, it means they have reached the point where they are content to countenance that doctrine somewhere in the world.

Actually, for something completely different, I had a thought today I'll share.

I've given much thought to notions of salvation. Salvation--soteriology in academese--consists in my view in the movement of return. You have ideals. The ideals get broken, because humans "sin" in both political and theological senses. For example, Thomas Jefferson--one of the most vocal opponents of slavery--refused to curb his habit of shopping like a girl, and was perforce never able to free any of his 200 slaves. He never freed Sally Hemmings. He owed too much money.

Do we take those facts, and condemn him in toto, without factoring in the concrete good that he did in his life? This is an interesting question.

Reading much leftist rhetoric, I finally concluded today that what we might term leftist "salvationism" consists in the doctrine that anyone who has once victimized someone else, can only be forgiven by voluntarily assuming the Victim mantle.

America tolerated slavery. Therefore white Americans must be victimized for this crime, so that the balance can be rectified. It is a literalistic, materialistic mindset, in which no systemic thinking is possible.

The question is not "how can all of us working together create something that is truly Good and noble, and better than anything that came before". The question, instead, is "how can the deformation of the social body created by this crime be inverted, so that the equation is balanced?"

Yet, this logic is emotional, and therefore not amenable to rational assessment. How much, for example, is enough of the sackcloth? How long do I, as a white American, need to apologize for sins my forebears--all of whom arrived in America after 1865, and none of whom lived in the South--didn't even commit?

Ought black Africans who kept slaves--and who keep slaves to this day--to be punished the same way as white Americans? If it isn't racism, what do you call it?

The essence of Neoleninism is attack. It is attack on the notion of intrinsic dignity, and the tool is whining. Whining corrupts not only the person doing it, but the person working to respond to it. Since the one person is rejecting responsibility, and the other is assuming a mistaken responsibility, social order is disrupted. Ultimately, since the accused are only going to take so much abuse, the State gets involved. This is the goal of Leninism--the subordination of all people to the State.

Where do all of you want to be 50 years from now? Do you want to live in a state where no one is poor, but no one is free? Do you want to be told what to believe by scientists who insist only their version of events is correct, and by politicians who insist any thinking that deviates from theirs is by that very definition wrong?

I don't want to be told what to think by anybody. And if I want to "cling" to guns and religion, that is my right as an American. You do your thing, I do mine. That's the essence of the American way.

#61: fair enough. The rate is only double that of the US. The 20% number was among youths under 25. Here is a link from 2006, which explains in large part why Sarkozy was elected. The system wasn't working.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4816306.stm

The difference between 10% and 5%--both slightly high relative to France and the US--is roughly 3 million jobs in France.

Your input is appreciated, though.

I will add that I am not a Neocon. Are you a Communist?

Amy 37/63"/126 (gaining some weight)

made up Nancy today, scaled
5 rounds
400m run
45# OHS, 15 reps
14:44

Smoked! How fun.

#60

"If you are wanting to make the case that you believe we ought to ban torture in all cases, would you consider the cost of millions of dead acceptable, if the only alternative was torture?"

is an episode of "24", those who actually deal in reality like McCain, Col. Stuart Herrington, General Charles C. Krulak (USMC Ret.), General Joseph P. Hoar (USMC Ret.), and have DIRECT experience and expertise in these matters are explicit and succinct:

ALL forms of torture, including but not limited to Waterboarding, against ANY human being are illegal and immoral.

Not only because it is an ineffective intelligence gathering tool, not just because it is counterproductive to our foreign policy, but mainly because it is offensive to who we say we are as United States Citizens, and to our core moral beliefs as human beings.

Clear enough?

And lookey, didn't need 15 paragraphs!

You'll have to google the above names and torture, my links keep getting blocked.

M/24/195
Baghdad EOD

Made up Micheal today....was out on mission all day yesterday.

20:58 PR by 4 min. NICE!!

Allison,
Those numbers are impressive--don't take anything away from yourself. Have you tried a women's bar? I'm going to buy one based on recommendations on the message board. My home gym will become a reality!

Barry,

Based on your comments at #53, I think we might agree (with different levels of commitment) on the following:

• the Bill of Rights offers the American people significant protections against state-enforced cultural conformity (and a Leftist program of cultural conformity - I'll take it on your word that such a program actually exists)

• it is not possible to guarantee equality of opportunity and equality of outcome at the same time (in a free society, though you might be able to in the most extreme totalitarian state).

Here is where we might disagree:

• the Bill of Rights can be altered to include positive rights and still protect American citizens against state-enforced cultural conformity
• the Bill of Rights, as it exists, does not guarantee equality of opportunity because opportunity is not only a bundle of legal rights, it is also a bundle of economic/social/sexual attributes.

Let me add that I'm ok with inequality of opportunity, and that I'm not in favour of a 100% wealth transfer tax (although that might be the easiest and most meritocratic way to increase equality of opportunity) so long as all Americans enjoy a base line of opportunity from which they have a fighting chance to compete.

I was walking my dog through the park the other day and this lady told me that I need to clean up after my dog. Clean up after my dog, when he hadn't done anything yet except pee. Am I supposed to carry baby wipes and clean poles, grass, and trees where my dog pees? Plus my dog craps out in the woods or in tall grass. He's funny that way and won't go in short grass or out in the open. What can I say, I have a modest dog.

This stated, my dog hadn't done anything and this lady says I need to clean up after him because there are kids who come down to the park, specifically to play in a Hardscrabble league. While walking JD, short for Jim's Dawg, I thought "Gee, what gives her the right to tell me what to do? I'm a grown man, pay taxes, and because I don't have kids and I'm walking my dog, I now have to look out for her kids or something?"

No signs are posted, and there is no curbing your dog ordinance in Clayton, but this lady who has children who I guess plays in this league has this new right to tell me what to do.

I guess she has more rights than I do because, as I found out from the Clayton Government web site, she's the League President of the local Hardscrabble League, even though it's a public park owned by the city and maintained by a portion of my recently paid 1.5% income tax.

Now the kids and their parents of this league throw around a bunch of litter, and I do mean a whole freakin' lot. Considering I am at the park rain, snow, or shine 365 a year to walk my dog, I am there MUCH more than they are, and I use the park wisely. I pick up their trash or any other trash I happen to find on my route (James the Good Citizen), I report when their kids ride quads through the park and leave rivets in the grass (I guess that's another right they have), or drive their trucks through the creek when they get their license, but I get nagged by some no-real-job, non-income-tax-paying-baseball-mom to tell me to take care of my dog.

Does anyone see the irony here? Maybe the correlation between people in power having more rights or assumed rights versus guys like me who aren't Presidents, yet I put in more time in the community? (I help clean the sidewalks for the elderly in our town along with a few other men BIG fun in the winter, plus other things too).

The very next time I was walking my dog she was there AGAIN and asked me if I cleaned up after my dog. The bored-out-of-her-mind--with-nothing-better-to-do-b-tch was checking up on me. I told her "F-off lady, you ain't the s-it police" which I guess left her stunned.

Maybe that should be the appropriate response to buttholes who like to create new rights and force them upon others.

29/f/112

rowing michael

3 rounds of:

1,000m row
50 back ext
50 sit-ups

23:24

eric did it with me, we finished at the exact same time.

pre: wux2
post: huge breakfast, smoked salmon omelette with hashbrowns and TOAST. my god it has been so long since I had toast and butter. yum

I'm sure Mr. Dalrymple's article was just as interesting when it was written criticizing abolitionists by claiming that giving blacks freedom would only make them lazy and destroy society. I'm sure it was just as logical when it was criticizing suffragettes saying that women would be happier without the burden of the vote. I'm sure it was just as fascinating to read his intellectual predecessor's take on how the Equal Protection Act would only make non-whites and women lazy and entitled because if they couldn't overcome the overwhelming racism and sexism of the time, then they just weren't working hard enough.

I'm tired of reading perspectives on rights from the privileged. Next time you want to argue that rights are bad for people, let's hear it from someone who has ever been denied one of Mr. Dalrymple's "general and negative" rights. I bet you'll have to do some searching.

"• the Bill of Rights can be altered to include positive rights and still protect American citizens against state-enforced cultural conformity
• the Bill of Rights, as it exists, does not guarantee equality of opportunity because opportunity is not only a bundle of legal rights, it is also a bundle of economic/social/sexual attributes."

This is socialism, pure and simple. Yes, some people are born wealthier than others, but they are wealthy because someone in their past worked hard to earn that money. The overwhelming majority of American millionaires are first generation, and the basic process is very simple. Poor greatgrandparents come over. They don't speak English. The parents work their tails off their whole lives to make sure their kids get good educations and go to college. The kids go to college, and get decent jobs. They raise their kids to understand the system, and they take full advantage of it through either advanced education or entrepreneurialism.

You want to change that. You want to say that there is something wrong with having money, despite the obvious and unarguable fact that most everyone in this nation who has money, earned it. You want to give money--you will call them opportunities, but they amount to unearned handouts--to people who don't want to follow this system.

We have free public education. Most poor people never take full advantage of it. We have free libraries. Most poor people never take full advantage of them. We offer educational loans and grants targeted to low income families. They are used, and are effective where the work ethic and genuine desire for advancement is present.

The problem is that leftists cannot abide by the failure of their policies. When they fail--and they always fail to a greater or lesser extent except where virtue is present in the form of personal responsibility and work ethic--they blame the fact that they didn't go far enough.

Even today, you will hear people argue that the "War on Poverty"--which supposedly ended in the 60's, but which in effect is still going on today to a less extent--only failed because it was underfunded due to the Vietnam War. Sargent Shriver said that explicitly.

Yet, you have to understand what it consisted of. By and large, it consisted in giving people money with no strings. It presumed that money would be used to further the cause of finding work, and leaving poverty to join the middle class. With immigrants and the newly poor, this does seem to happen.

However, it also created structural poverty here in the United States. Read this link from Thomas Sowell:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3864

For example, look at this quote:

"The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty.

In various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959 -- that is, before the magic 1960s decade when supposedly all progress began. The rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards. "

The simple fact is that leftists do not look at the consequences of their ideology, because it is foundational to their identity. Having rejected tradional morality and religion to "save" the world, they have to save the world, even if they destroy it in the process.

That, or they can remember what was common sense to most of them when they were kids, and go back in time to when things actually made sense, and they didn't spend all their time defending the indefensible. The movement from leftist to traditionalist is quite easy, and eliminates a lot of intellectual gear-grinding.

Rhowk,

Bush and Cheney have apparently authorized it or tolerated it in some cases. They obviously have different views. You cannot prove a case one way or the other simply by citing who supports it and who doesn't.

You also have to realize that in the "real world", the one you imply Bush doesn't live in, they can figure out ways to get torture done without involving Americans. This allows us to state publicly and without dishonesty that we oppose it in all cases, but if a really hot case comes up, we have ways and means.

I will note you ducked my question. Self evidently, if that is the choice, any rational human would choose torture. You can argue that it is unlikely that would come up, which is almost certainly true. However, you cannot claim that could not come up. In that case, you want all options open, and that is the basic position I understand Bush to have taken.

Should torture be only a weapon of last resort? Yes. Frankly, I don't think it works most of the time, and is inferior to skilled interrogators doing their job in other ways.

At the same time, whether you like it or not, it will remain on the table, if nothing else will do. I will note, too, that we routinely kill people in the War on Terror. Waterboarding is far short of that.

By the way, where do Hillary C. and B. Obama live? Do they live in the "real world" with Krulak and McCain? They want to start pulling out of Iraq immediately, regardless of what the people on the ground, who live in the "real world" say. Since neither of them has even been in the military, unlike Bush--who was in fact a trained fighter pilot--does that matter?)

#65 Barry,
I asked you to view the movie, then tell me what you think. So you attack me and you don't know me well enough to question my intellect. So go impress the girls with your pseudo intelligent BS.

There is a difference between inalienable rights and entitlements. The problem is most people want to define entitlements (which can be given or taken away at the discretion of the authorized provider) and the inalienable right that we all have as human beings and can not be repudiated. There are many people that spend their waking moments perverting entitlements into "inalienable rights" and make a pretty good living doing so.

Since we subject ourselves to laws that have been established according to the common good of the people, there is a limit to what our "rights" are. For example, the law may limit your loud music to a level that does not invade my peace and quiet. My desire for complete silence is limited to your right to listen to music at a level that the population has deemed OK. The laws and ordinances keep everyone's personal rights meter in check. Now, where there is no enforcement, the individual's rights meter goes out of control. Look at areas that have no respect for the established law. People have no respect for each other or their property so they kill, rob, loot and basically behave like animals. They make their own rights and liberties as they see fit, all the while denying others their right to safety.

It is my opinion that once you break the law, you give up all of your entitlements. Criminal? Work for your food in prison or have your family bring it to you. Welfare? Better start working for it. You should have to pick up trash or some form of community service to receive welfare if you are able bodied. I don't mind my taxes helping out the infirm and elderly, but if you have arms, legs and can walk and talk below the age of 65 you should have to work in some way for you welfare check. We're lucky in this country. You go to the hospital, they'll give you initial treatment. If you lived in some of the places I've been in South America, you go to the emergency room and they'll treat you, but if you need some pain killers or Penicillin to go along with that your family better go down to the pharmacy PAY UP FRONT in CASH!

Rant complete!

What's with all the pseudo-intellectual right-wing garbage on this blog?? Note to you so-called conservatives: the country is finally waking up to the failed economic and trade policies that help the few over the many. (How's the dollar doing today??) Also, the fear-mongering card is now officially played out. Sorry, though it worked for awhile, we are americans and will not be scared into submission. (see crossdressing Rudy Giuliani's (a.k.a. Mr. 911,911,911) miserable failure of a campaign. Even John Mcsame is arguably the most liberal republican available. Getting the nod as a simple recognition of political fact: after the corruption of the republican 109th congress, the obvious failures of hyper-capitalism (really fascism), and the subsequent "thumping" in the '06 elections, its awful hard to be a conservative these days.

Saturday AM class at Brand X
à la Jonesworthy

84 72 60 48 36 24
Squats

42 36 30 24 18 12
One arm db snatch
21 18 15 12 9 6
HSPU

Pack and puppies scaled reps. Which I failed to write down.

Took me 40:18 for big dawg reps with modified HSPU.

One in the hopper. Should hopefully make it out.

#74 Richard: so in your view the right to be a whiny leech on society is equivalent to the right to vote?

I already showed that Martin Luther King was operating within a conservative framework in articulating the notion that if blacks are willing to shoulder responsibilities, they should be given opportunities. This is a valid and in my view correct position.

What you are doing, in effect, is calling anyone who objects to the notion that people who do nothing and contribute nothing are still owed something, racists. This is very plain jane, vanilla ad hominem. That it is the stock in trade of Neoleninists should surprise no one.

Kevin,

My thought is that people that understand their own views can articulate them here. Anyone who feels the need to use prepared propaganda films is not serious. I have received literally dozens of YouTube videos on any number of topics from people. I don't watch them. If the people sending them had valid arguments, they could make them here, and hyperlink supporting data as needed.

With respect to the girls, do you honestly think debating on this site is increasing my chance of getting lucky? Would adding a pocket protecter and flood pants add even more glamour and allure? As we all know, chicks dig guys who spend hours typing on the internet.

This has nothing to do with impressing anyone. It has everything to do with working to get these things right. You and I will live in the world we are creating now. If we allow sloppy thinking, cowardice, and opportunism to dictate the direction our society takes, we will reap the rewards we deserve.

In my own view, had we taken a different path in 1964, we would have no ghettoes today. The "problem" would have been solved by African Americans themselves. The poison of free money was no less harmful and no less addictive than crack cocaine.

#77: after that incoherent rant apparently consisting entirely of slogans lifted from the Daily Cause, are you seriously going to suggest you even know what authentic intellectual activity would look like? You're obviously not an intellectual, so how can you claim any ability to comment on the contributions of others?

Gorillasoph: maybe I didn't get something about your post, but it scares me.

A few years ago, watching a lumberjack competition, I heard a story about one lumberjack- he had lost a toe during a spring board competition and public health care (it was in Canada) did not allow for him to have is toe reattached. I want my toes!

If I could poll the readership here I would simply ask this:
Am I the only one who reads Barry Cooper's post five times and still needs a translation? This is not meant to be insulting. In fact, I sometimes get so absorbed in the depth of his post that I forget what the rest day topic is about...

Charles, try being in the gym with him. If he is not reading, he is pulling my trees out of the ground with a bear hug. Dude reminds me of the X-Men character "Beast" with his new spectacles.

So I am reading through the comments and yet again there is so much either blatant misstatements or misunderstanding.

First off, Barry is NOT a Neo-Con. What the hell is wrong with you angry pinko-s? Learn your definitions.

The article was very accurate. The problem is the term "right".

I have a right to public education.
I have a right to health care.
blah blah.

Look you can do what ever you want so long as it is not illegal under the eyes of the law.

The Bill of Rights only Protects certain Rights from the Governments ability to make certain actions not a right.

However, nothing the government can DO or FURNISH is a "right", it is an "entitlement". Rights are what we have because, well we have them. The government did not give, bestow, or award them.

With this being said, it is clear that whinning gets you entitlements and corrupt politcians (ie. Lawyers and Beaurocrats) mhelp you believe those entitlements are rights so you will grant them power which they will use to take people's stuff away for more distrobution and power for themselves.

Since Dale saran is a friend, I know that he knows how i feel about this. It is a bad idea to elect a lawyer to high office. A trial lawyer is even worse, with Ambulance Chasing Trial Lawyers the absolute second worst. Hence why John Edwards must never be taken seriously again for any high office.

There is only one type of lawyer who is worse than the Ambulance chasing Trial Lawyer. This creature is called the Activist Lawyer. currently there are two of these running for President, both were influenced by Saul Alinski, a true meat-stick of a Weasle who wrote the book 'Rules For Radicals'.

The reason they are the worst relates to this topic. Straight silver tongue. These guys make it a priority to make everyone feel/think? like a victim.

"Joey, how does that work?", you ask. You see it is like this. You see the world around you as a not so comfortable place. Since this is the nature of things you should not be alarmed. However, here comes the dooms-day-ers. "You poor soul, you are struggling aren't you?". "Sure, is that bad?" "Why yes it is, look over their, they are not." "Oh" "I can make it more even for you" "ok" "I just need your vote"

So instead of helping things, which government by nature has a very tough time doing, the newly elected or re-elected weasle crushes the successful guy, bring him down to the other persons level. he knocks on your door looking for another political "donation", shows you how he made things 'even' and drives off in a limo while you and your neighbor are both in the same situation that only you were in before. Happy now?

Side Note: The government only does 2 things well. Kill people and break things. Hence, it is why the military is the only successful government organization, since it is actually their mission statement. Every other agency kills people and breaks things even when it not in their mission statement and not nearly as well or efficiently.

#75

No, not last resort. Off the table completely. Your scenario, like most of your opinions, is a complete work of fiction. If millions of lives are at stake and torture is the only way you can think of to save them then those millions are truly screwed in having you for a decision maker. Because torture, according to people who are actual experts in the field, DOESN'T WORK!!!

Read the article It's Our Cage, Too by the Marine Gen.s, read the article by Col. Stuart Herrington, their point of view is valid because they have actually been involved in the nitty gritty of interrogation. Your opinion is pure immoral regurgitation of the Fox Party line that has absolutely no basis in any of the facts of the matter. Boy Bush, Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfeld knowingly BROKE THE LAW and should be held accountable for doing so.

Bush a trained fighter pilot? Trained to do what? Go AWOL for a year and a half? get so hopped up on coke that he couldn't take his physical, and had his flying privileges revoked? Please, go tell John McCain how Bush is a trained fighter pilot, I'm sure he needs the laugh.

Actually, historically torture works quite well, you just need to confirm the information, but that happens with any intelligence gathering method. Of course loud screaming in a cold strange placewill do wonders on the uninitiated for that matter. That water-boarding stuff worked real well too. Just ask the guys who did it.

Thought very serious about this WOD, then came up with a better idea... Angie!!

IT2 Eric = 22.17
AGC Jeremy = 22.23

(i win)

cheers

Barry, CCT Joey and other,

Why don't we avoid "neo-con", "leftist", "pinko" etc, and deal with arguments instead of labels?

CCT Joey,
A natural right that isn't set out in legal code and is not protected by a justice system is an intellectual construct (a useful one for those facing tyranny or abuse of process) but is not a "right" in the sense of a claim to a legal protection. If there were no legal code and no justice system (attributes of governments), your natural rights would be unenforceable. Your statement that "rights are what we have because we have them", implies that your property is your property because you can hold on to it. It seems this would weaken the notion of 'right'.

What is Alberto Gonzales if not an activist lawyer?

You may be correct that what the government does well is kill people and break things, but there are things it does poorly, because if it did not no one else would. The lacuna in the argument that the market will take care of things (like unsafe food, unsafe labour conditions, unsafe transport practices) on its own is that it has not, historically happened. The Chicago pork canners did not regulate themselves, government had to step in. West Kentucky mining operations did not, of their own accord, put in place labour practices that protected their workers. Workers exercising their right to freedom of association, and then the government had to step in.

Would it have been better for industry to do this on its own? Perhaps. But the point is that they didn't, and, wouldn't.

Barry,

I agree there are abuses in the publicly funded university system. How do you feel about public universities using public money to fund corporate lobby groups?

Barry,

Theodore Dalrymple would be happy to see most people here confirmed his point...
As an American, I only have those rights granted by our Constitution. If I get arrested, I am informed of my legal rights .
There are no other rights I should expect throughout my entire life. Healthcare is not a right. Abortion is not a right . Food, water, and shelter is not a right ...
Paying taxes affords us the opportunity to provide input to the government on what additional services the nation as a whole should get to benefit from; but to suggest that any of those services is a right is kind of foolish. Nobody gets exactly what they personally want out of a government system - it is supposed to benefit the greater good of the entire society.
As a human race, we need to understand that we are what we make ourselves. We should expect as much out of life as we are personally willing to invest into our own lives.
If you want health care for you and your family, pay for a health plan for you and your whole family... It may mean that you have to get a job and earn money to pay for it.
If you want a Free Tibet, go to Tibet and inspire the people to oevrthrow their government... You may get killed in the process, but that is sometimes the price of freedom.
If you want to live your life and do anything you choose to do, just make absolutely certain that your choices do not interfere with anyone else (and in today's society, there isn't a lot you can do that won't affect someone else).

Lots of words here and I don't think a whole lot was really said. After reading all of the posts (okay I admit I skipped Barry's last one or two because I wanted to finish today) only one thing stuck...and it was a "side note":

#84 - CCTJOEY

Side Note: The government only does 2 things well. Kill people and break things. Hence, it is why the military is the only successful government organization, since it is actually their mission statement. Every other agency kills people and breaks things even when it not in their mission statement and not nearly as well or efficiently.

The last part could be worded a bit better, but hey...we all make mistakes typing. I think that statement could apply to just about every rest day article. The government should get out of the business in which it is not good.

I was gonna say something, but I changed my mind. I think I'll go to my dungeon of pain & suffering and workout instead. It's much more fun than arguing.

Melissa- most intelligent thing Ive read since Prole's post.

Prole, the point I would argue is that it was not "government" that stepped in. It was public awareness that stepped in, which caused elected officials to act.

Sorry James, I was looking for YOUR contribution. Did I miss it somewhere?

#86

Actually torture does not:

Two problems with torture
It's wrong and it doesn't work, according to interrogation expert STUART HERRINGTON

Google the phrase or his name and torture, I tried to post the link a couple of times but no dice. He was an army interrogator during his 30 year career, and the author of "Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World". Also he taught in the Army's SERE program so I would say he is more expert in the subject than any one here. The article also lists his email addy. Maybe you and Barry should drop him a line and tell him why your theories trump his experience. Might be good for a laugh.

Made up "Michael" from yesterday:

36:11

rhowk, I will not argue that it is wrong. I would also offer that it is no where nearly the preferred method of gathering intelligence because people will say anything when scared. The follow on discussion which you are sure to argue within is defining torture. You see you are only looking at one side of the scope. Through he reverse side of the lense is propaganda. A bit of hunger, or sleep deprivation and the enemy can use reactions of the "tortured" to cause a reaction by the outside world.

You mind is closed because you are so concerned with painting with your brush, you don't understand the painting. It is not about just what we do it is about what they do. The pictures of SEN McCain brutalized does not cause a particular reaction to the outside world? Very effective indeed. This is about coercion. You don't think that AQ and Taliban methods of torture were not effective in PR battles and intimidating locals? You don't think threat of torture did not keep Saddam in power?

Wake up.

rhowk, here is video that might help others understand you ranting point of view. Filled with Progressives who think the President is a Criminal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsSfB4i-DsE
Not WFS, Progressives in their natural state, so impressionable young children should not view.

#98

Thanks for proving my point even though you did so inadvertently.

"You don't think that AQ and Taliban methods of torture were not effective in PR battles and intimidating locals? You don't think threat of torture did not keep Saddam in power?"

Exactly. That is what makes them, and I'll put this in Bush speak so you'll be sure to understand, the "evildoers". More importantly it makes them much much less effective both as warfighters and as leaders. You really should read the article by STUART HERRINGTON, he has seen both methods employed, that is modern interrogation techniques that he used to turn fanatics to our side and gather real, high value information, and the BS you and Barry keep regurgitating from Fox news. His techniques have a documented track record of real, effective results. Yours /Fox's also has a well documented record, and it sucks.

What it really comes down to is a contest between a steam engine and diesel locomotive. My grandfather worked on both, and put it very simply: We didn't switch because diesel was cleaner or a "better" idea, we switched because diesel engines pulled more weight for less money.

Yes the taliban and saddam used torture. No we should not, not JUST because it is immoral and reprehensible and causes everyone to turn against us, but because modern interrogation techniques "pull more weight for less money".

Really, read his article. Every single one of your/barry/fox's points are dealt with in a very concise and informative way. Look to the beam in thine own eye before explaining myopia to me.

As for defining torture, I don't need to. It has already been done and laws have already been written against it. What is lacking is not definitions or laws, but the courage to enforce them.

Hey Joey. let me flesh that out for you- My contribution is point out that post #88 is most on point with respect to the reading yall are discussing. I thought his questions were polite, and not for the faint of heart. Until that point my contribution was to pay attention until, like Melissa I realized the discussion was starting sag- whereupon I was reminded of my abdomen and decided to follow her lead.

hope that clears things up.

Rhowk, your point was that it was NOT effective.

I give you The P.O.W Code Of Conduct

ARTICLE V.
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

Take note of the 2nd sentence of that article.

" I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability."

Why is that there, if Torture is not effective? How hard could it be to evade questioning, let alone be pushed to the best of one's ability if there is no duress. I will tell you why, rhowk, people spill the beans when tortured! and a lot of other useless crap too.

You want another reason, because the Japanese, Chinese, N. Koreans, and N. Vietnamese knew it to be the case as well and used it on our people.

Tell you what, why don't you just petition to remove that sentence from the Code of Conduct and from our training. Since you have it all worked out, please explain it to the enemy as well.

Now I will tell you that some have argued that it is pointless to train to resist. That movement is headed up by none other than SEN McCain. Now ask yourself why a guy who is known for never "giving in", thinks it is pointless to train to never give in. Would it be that in order to resist to best of one's ability, that we must accept that everyone has a breaking point? If everyone has a breaking point, then...

As for Stuart, I read the article. I would hope he feels that way. If not, would be no need for him. Any pipe-hitting MFer with a pair of pliers and a blow torch could extract all the pertinent info. Good on him.

Before you start throwing me into a group, you need to research your assumption. I have NEVER said I am for torture. I have said that Waterboarding is NOT torture however, IMHO.

You however are on the cusp of mindless ranting again about FOX news which actually agrees with you that Torture is BAD and that waterboarding should be considered torture. So outside of your progressive illusions you and FOX are in bed together.

Like I said, you do your research. The guys that actually did the Waterboarding said it worked, therefore if waterboarding is torture, then torture did indeed work. That time it worked in time to save lives. Therefore you are wrong about it not working, which as one trained in SERE, I knew all along. And no, I am not traumatized by water.

Thanks for the effort to condition your argument in your most recent post as "not as effective" in your metaphor. Nice try to save face, but you already lost the argument with your facts being screwed up because your opinion of this President and Administration clouded your ability to to acknowledge human nature and historical fact. Pretty smart guy, that President is, to do that to you.

It is like clubbing baby seals around here tonight.

James, gotcha. Feel free to hop in, the water is warm.

Don't have time to read everything, but wanted to confirm one thing.

Rhowk: your logic is that in a Presidential candidate, two things are essential.

An unambiguous rejection of all means of extracting coerced confessions.

An unambiguous committment to value, honor, and defer to the opinions of the men actually fighting the war.

Given this, the unavoidable conclusion is that you will be voting for McCain in November, since both Democrats want to pull out of Iraq regardless of what the Generals say.

Is that correct? Will you be voting for McCain?

" don't want to be told what to think by anybody. And if I want to "cling" to guns and religion, that is my right as an American. You do your thing, I do mine. That's the essence of the American way."

That's what I was getting at a week ago Barry, but you told me I was wrong for standing up for that,
we finally agree! You opinion is valid, I never said it wasn't but so is someone else's. However in this forum it seems only the left is wrong and bunched together as one group. (Hey, if you could give me a definition on where Leftist thinking starts that would be great) Here's an example that confuses me, I just can't find life so straight forward as you, maybe you can sort it out.

What do you make of Mugabe? He's Right wing, yeah? He's importing weapons from China (far Left - I got that one ;)But the South African Transport Union (far-ish Left, yeah? )refused to unload the weapons, blocking for a while their use. So I am thinking in this case the Right is wrong, the far Left is also wrong but the Leftist union is doing the right thing! right? phew. O.k. you've worked out I am no genius but I agree with this unions stand, its feels morally correct. I mean that dude lost the election but says 'business as usual boys, waste anyone that disagrees'. That can't be right.(or good - ugh another crap term) I dont think I am ready to break out the red flag and start waving, maybe I need a pink one ;) 'cos In this instance, I agree with a union.

Now, second point: can we expect a little nation building there soon? If Iraq was not about oil isn't Zimbabwe an option too? It's seems like Africa gets left to it's own devises whilst the middle east get the focus yet I can't see a difference, other than oil or maybe proximity to Isreal.

" don't want to be told what to think by anybody. And if I want to "cling" to guns and religion, that is my right as an American. You do your thing, I do mine. That's the essence of the American way."

That's what I was getting at a week ago Barry, but you told me I was wrong for standing up for that,
we finally agree! You opinion is valid, I never said it wasn't but so is someone else's. However in this forum it seems only the left is wrong and bunched together as one group. (Hey, if you could give me a definition on where Leftist thinking starts that would be great) Here's an example that confuses me, I just can't find life so straight forward as you, maybe you can sort it out.

What do you make of Mugabe? He's Right wing, yeah? He's importing weapons from China (far Left - I got that one ;)But the South African Transport Union (far-ish Left, yeah? )refused to unload the weapons, blocking for a while their use. So I am thinking in this case the Right is wrong, the far Left is also wrong but the Leftist union is doing the right thing! right? phew. O.k. you've worked out I am no genius but I agree with this unions stand, its feels morally correct. I mean that dude lost the election but says 'business as usual boys, waste anyone that disagrees'. That can't be right.(or good - ugh another crap term) I dont think I am ready to break out the red flag and start waving, maybe I need a pink one ;) 'cos In this instance, I agree with a union.

Now, second point: can we expect a little nation building there soon? If Iraq was not about oil isn't Zimbabwe an option too? It's seems like Africa gets left to it's own devises whilst the middle east get the focus yet I can't see a difference, other than oil or maybe proximity to Isreal.

Prole,

I'm not opposed to government regulation of private enterprise. Where there are gross and obvious abuses, and collective bargaining/union is not able to address them, then I think it perfectly acceptable for the government to step in.

The question is one of degree. We have moved from cases where the literal lives of the workers were at stake, to where the government is trying to change our social order through taking money from people who earn it, and delivering it to people who have not. The first crime weakens incentive and corresponding economic growth. The second crime weakens the welfare recipient, who is thereby enabled to "earn" a living without work, and who suffers corresponding moral decline.

The case can be made without too much difficulty that the destruction of the black family relates closely to the War on Poverty. It is not that these girls have kids to get more money--although there was a time when leftists ran everything when that may not have been far from the truth. It clearly IS the case, though, that they are largely shielded from the consequences of their lack of responsibility. And the simple fact is that if you have a kid before you graduate from high school, you are almost certain to be poor your entire life.

You are correct that rights are best understood as a heuristic template by which to define actual legislation. Within our Consitutional tradition, it is stated explicitly that whatever authority is not given to the Federal Government by the Constitution rests with the states.

I have long been arguing that nearly all moral issues--and Welfare is clearly a moral issue--should be decided by the States. If Minnesota wants to copy Sweden, they should. If Texas wants to eliminate all Welfare whatsoever, they should be able to.

A large part of our problem is neither Blue States nor Red States can fully live out their own ideals. They are restrained by an activist Federal Government. This was not the intent of our Founder's. They wanted a rational anarchy, where authority for nearly all issues was retained locally, and only issues requiring strong central authority--most notably issues of war and peace--were to be the province of the Federal government.

The problem that arose is that leftists saw in the Federal government the potential power to coerce social changes they could not persuade the American people to adopt voluntarily. Perhaps the most blatant and egregious violation of the both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution was the Roe v. Wade decision. If you read the Bill of Rights, you will not find a right to abortion.

Do it. Read the Bill of Rights. There were only ten of them to begin with, and you can derive Roe v. Wade with the first 15, if memory serves.

It is not the case that all government regulation is intrinsically bad. OSHA is not a bad standard. Even with it, I see a lot of unsafe things going on. It's not bad that some levels with regard to food safety exist. One can debate the proper extent of these things, but I consider that range of discussion to be that of moderation. Each State should be able to do what it wants, and to some extent that is the reality.

Where I see problems is in the coercive use of government power to overcome the inability of activists to make their cases to the voting public. Free markets and demcracies are based upon self restraint, and constant negotiation. If you don't want to be regulated, don't screw up. If you want to change something, convince people it is desirable.

As linked above, simple free market economics were working to free African Americans from generalized poverty long before the War on Poverty. That War added nothing to the operations of the free market system, and detracted the values of thrift and personal responsibility from those unfortunate enough to believe that the government was actually helping them.

Our Constitution is by design a minimalistic document. It understands the power of demagogues to sway people to unhealthy and unwise courses of action. It intentionally limits the potential damage the Federal government can inflict on the States.

All of that has changed. Our legal system has become perverted.

You talk about Alberto Gonzalez. Please. He fired at-will employees either because they were incompetent, or they were not following the political views favored by the Administration. Politics matter, which is why Clinton fired all of the first Bush's people. They were unreliable.

Gonzalez, instead, worked judiciously to fire only those who were specifically considered to be the wrong people for th job, for whatever reason. It was alleged that he was trying to interfere with corruption investigations. This allegation was made without any evidence, and in point of fact we are six months or a year down the road, and you know what? Nothing has turned up.

Gonzalez got taken out by activist Democrats solely to make Bush look bad. He was in fact doing his job well, and was not covering up anything. He violated no laws, and his primary fault seems to have been his underestimation of the viciousness of partisan Democrats.

Glyn,

I agree with their decision. I'm not opposed to Unions, per se. They are a necessary part of the self-regulation of free markets. They are the counterpoint to Trusts and monopolies. Quite often, they are ridden with anti-capitalistic radicals, and out and out gangsters, but there is nothing in my philosophy that opposes them on principle.

Joey,

Beast, huh? Well at least you are comparing me to Frazier and not Niles. He was always my second favorite X-Man, after Wolverine.

Long one in the hopper.

Here's a fun little bit while we wait to see if my Paragraph Collage makes it out.

Deconstruction is the consumption of one narrative by another.

Logically, if the goal is increased human happiness, that narrative which best acts to increase it--as measured by Black Box success--is the best one.

On this score, conservatism works, and leftism does not. Traditionalism works, and revolutions do not. The Bill of Rights works, and the Egalite of the French does not.

Barry #106,

Here's my drive-by:

1. You’ve set out a false opposition between “conservatism” and “revolution”. Having done so, it might be more appropriate for you to substitute “validly” for “logically”, since your proposition does not describe a relationship between a set of conditions that exist in the real world, but a relationship between concepts that you define to suite yourself. As a matter of style, why don’t you let your interlocutors evaluate whether your propositions are “logical” (unless, of course, this is a contribution to your own private diary, then, by all means tell yourself how logical you are)?

2. Was the Bill of Rights the product of “tradition”? Or, was it rather a self-consciously iconoclastic reformulation of the principles upon which human relationships should be founded, and by which government authority should be restrained? Did all my textbooks get it wrong? Did Washington, Hamilton et al fight for the re-entrenchment of feudal social obligations and monarchical sovereignty?

Barry, 106

My apologies, where I used "false opposition", I meant "false dichotomy" (good thing I didn't characterize my post as "logical", boy, would I have egg on my face).

Prole,

The use of opposition is a tool of thinking. Logically, of course, there are no oppositions in the real world. Black is not the opposite of white, as both exist on the continuum of visible light which contains radiant energy in both the higher and lower frequency ranges which are visible.

However, this does not eliminate its utility at times in developing broad stroke patterns. Friend/Enemy is quite often a useful dichotomy, and the definition of both can be usefully changed over time, without the need to delete the category of "opposition" from use in human discourse and dialogue, as you implicitly want to do.

Our "Revolution" was little more than insisting on the traditional rights of Englishmen more than was acceptable to King George. Things like "no taxation without representation". We rebelled in the name of rights--primarily property rights--that were well entrenched in the English tradition, and were supported for that reason by conservative men in the English Parliament like Edmund Burke.

This approach differed, as you no doubt know, from that of the French, whose legacy exists today on that part of the political spectrum that insists we fail in Iraq, even if it is bad for them, bad for us, and counterproductive to the cause of Justice generally.

Again: you abuse words. You posit an abstraction--that my use of Reason may not be shared by you, and that therefore Reason itself is in this case suspect--then substitute poorly conceived arguments that ostensibly complete the argument.

Yes, I defined the words as I conceived them. Yes, I created a dichotomy. And no, you have offered nothing constructive as an alternative.

If you are wondering if I am going to back off from stating the truth as I see it, you are going to continue to be disappointed.

However, I would submit for more general consumption that this basic dynamic is very literally why most of our most learned academics would be hard pressed to organize a scouting expedition, much less prosecute and win a war that relied upon moral clarity, and firmness of purpose.

Anyone who says anything that is unsuitably ambiguous draws out the hyenas instantly, who point out that your use of word might differ from that of someone else, and is therefore not "ontologically anchored", and thus suspect.

In the end, no one says anything anyone else really understands, and certainly not something that is actionable. That is why the entire corpus of what is sometimes termed leftist "thought" consists in criticism. It builds nothing, and begins and ends with the destruction of ideals and institutions they perceive to be in the way of their conception of progress.

Of course, they can't define progress either, so mostly what you hear is hysterical shrieking, mocking condescension, incoherent mumblings, and silence whereever the really important discussions actually lie.

Prole has been commenting for a number of Rest Days now, and I still have no clue where he stands. This tells me he either doesn't know, or he is a Leftist. In the first case incoherence is the logical outcome of muddled thinking. In the second case, it is the planned outcome of a rational assessment that if people knew just how far that person was willing to go to pursue socially destructive programs, they would cease listening instantly. Obama has to be very careful for this precise reason.

Clinton was a Republican in her youth. Obama has been surrounded by Marxists his entire life. In his childhood, they were simply in his home. As an adult, he has sought them out, and retained their friendship.

I really hope my other post makes it through. There was nothing objectionable in there.

"Prole has been commenting for a number of Rest Days now, and I still have no clue where he stands. This tells me he either doesn't know, or he is a Leftist."

Another false dichotomy!!!

Where's my merit badge?
(that one's for you CCT Joey)

"Prole has been commenting for a number of Rest Days now, and I still have no clue where he stands. This tells me he either do