Jay

They're spammers.

Just a quick comment on trickle down economics for now. Trickle down only works if these rich people are actually spending the extra money they will have under such policies. But as they are rich they don't have to spend that money. They can just stick it in the bank. It doesn't necessarily create jobs, get money down to the poor. But if you directly give it to the poor there is no doubt that they will spend it. And as long as someone is spending it, jobs are being created. Also even if trickle down does create jobs, etc it does so in a haphazard fashion. Whereas you might now have a job, but not one that necessarily pays enough to get proper nutrition/healthcare, etc. And maybe you don't anyway, it's all been left to chance. You must admit that the whole idea of trickle down is counterintuitive and the evidence supporting it is not so great. Finally the proof shows that right wing economic policies don't work. The loan stipulations of the IMF/WB have been a disaster. Really, their failure rate is almost perfect. But the mainstream media (controlled by highly biased billion dollar interests) does not report on this subject. More later.

Nature is about competition. People chose cars over trains. So, therefore people chose what was best for people. No, back in the 30's the automobile and tire industry used their power to get train tracks pulled up all over the place. The pushed the train system out with their superior concentration of power. People have not had a choice at all for over 50 years in the US. I would love to have taken a train to work all these years. Instead I've been forced to commute for on average an hour a day through crappy traffic and I've had near misses on serious accidents a couple of times to. If has not been the most efficient in any way at all. As in my first post they have indeed halted any alternate government system. In so doing they have killed over 10 million. That doesn't count the USSR at all with their 10+ year drop in life expectancy, etc. That doesn't count those who have died of malnutrition thanks to the disasterous structural adjustment loans of the IMF/WB, CIA funded coups, etc. Etc. Any country that did not go to authortarian rule, did not have a chance against the violence, covert CIA ops, etc that the US brought to it. They most recently got rid of Aristide in Haiti in 2004 for doubling the minimum wage. In 2002 they tried to get rid of Chavez in Venezuela, he has not descended to authoritarian rule despite how he has been attacked. He will probably be killed eventually. Because that's what is done by the winners in capitalism: whatever they can get away with, because the losers die, better not be a loser.

Very leftist. I agree with you. You are right about the corruption and war. Capitalism means war though. Seriously capitalism is a competition where the loser is free to starve. It's common sense that it leads to war and there is plenty of evidence which supports this. Ah, so for example we should just donate to charity? The problem if you live in a capitalist system where you always have some financial insecurity (no safety net/could end up on the streets/starving/etc) then even if currently you have plenty of money to give someone else in trouble, you really shouldn't because you just might happen to need it someday for yourself. So you sit there with your money in the bank while others suffer malnutrition, etc. If instead you put together say, a charity bank that 50,000 people donated to, then just in case things went bad for you, you could take money out of the chartiy bank, etc. This "bank" is basically a government.

So, where is the limit and who decides it? Having a child is a personal commitment and a decition usually made by 2 individuals. The government or anyone else for that matter has nothing to do with their choice. Oh sorry, I wasn't saying that the government should limit reproduction. Supposing resources were being used correctly there's no need to do that anytime soon. This is a sort of communism. I agree with it. Maximizing profits is not the same as being efficient as possible. In anything you want to be highly efficient but only in capitalism does maximizing profits become the sole concern. Maximizing profits can mean doing a lot of things that are detrimental to the employees and the environment. In socialism/communism maximizing profits does not need to be the primary concern. Yes, on that being a companies sole purpose but No, on communism, etc being another version of capitalism. You seem to be defining capitalism as efficiency which just isn't quite right. They are virtually never successful though. Individuals are not as strong as corporations. Only if they manage to unite together in huge numbers do they have a chance. And doing so is extremely difficult. It is not a fair fight. A billion or million dollar corporation against a bunch of disconnected individuals. The one has millions of dollars to move in an instant in any direction by the orders of one person or a board of people. The other has virtually no money to work with and no way to move as quickly as one. (They basically would have to invent communism/socialism to have a chance.) It's a hugely unfair battle. Capitalism ensures these huge concentrations of power and these unfair battles. Communism tries to reduce concentrations of power. No country or region has ever made it to communism. Alot have had revolutions and then went into the stage of proletariats dictatorship. The capital never gets fully negated. The reason is of course that you try to work against the principle of the equation of energy in -> energy out mentioned above. Since noone will gain anything by thinking out better methods for production (there is no gain for the individuals energy surplus), very few will try. This leads to producing less stuff, more ineffective. First, if you have time, could you read this? http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html It's a very brief summary of US interventions in the politics of foreign countries. I post it to point out that the US has done it's best to stop communism from developing anywhere. Secondly, this idea of efficiency (which I don't think is a good way of defining capitalism as I mentioned above) goes to the idea that capitalism is a competition. Communism (in the entire world), would not be a competition. You would not need to maximize profits. You could be less eifficient and still have plenty of food, shelter, etc. Those less efficient wouldn't have to starve to death. Those companies who are less efficient as a result of not polluting as much, would still be able to survive. Thirdly, although the USSR obviously had some undesirable traits, they went from a third world nation monarchy to industrialized in 30 years. No other country in history has ever done what they did. Sure in some ways they were very inefficient/Didn't have as nice toys to play with. Lack of worker incentive resulted in crappy products, etc. They needed to make some changes. Of course they had Stalin's authoritarian rule, etc. But then look at what happened when they switched to capitalism. The country collapsed. Life expectancy dropped 10+ years. They've become a third world nation once again. Of course it's different for each person. But of course we should try to help each other reach it. Just like a large group of people would have to work together to take on a corporation that is harming the environment/people, people in general have to work together if we are going to maximize happiness.

What's free communism? Capitalism is about competition. And the losers are destroyed. In the US the car beat the train, and the result is this asphalt jungle, tons more pollution, and probably millions dead in car wrecks over the years. (Not to mention lost time that could have been spent each day reading/sleeping/something while commuting to work each day on a train. What would have actually been best for the people was irrelevant. ...and the oil wars. And supporting/installing right wing dictators in oil rich countries....

Yeah, right. I'm afraid I'm going to need proof. So let's take it slow then offense. I don't want to write a big long all encompassing essay. For starters with "too many people" there will be too much pollution for the planet to handle. I assert that in pure capitalism corporations don't have incentive to care about pollution. They have concern to produce the cheapest product possible. That furthermore, individuals generally can't actually vote with their dollars for a more expensive product (that has less pollution tied to it) as living in a capitalist society, they have to worry about having enough to eat and a place to live. Sure they may have decent savings in the bank, but they never really know what the future may hold. They may get fired and blacklisted from their profession, etc. There is always potential disaster for 98% in capitalism. In communism there is at least a chance that some goal would be primary other than maximizing profit. They can be primarily concerned with human happiness. They can admit that the greenhouse effect is very real and begin to take the hard but necessary steps to do something about it. OK. Your turn to say something.

Any dog breeding causes a dog to go to the dog shelter and/or die. Any human breeding causes a human to go to the adoption agency and/or die. The whole point of being against breeding is to stop these deaths. What does it being your own flesh and blood have to do with it?

I guess you're talking about the communism part. Do you want to start a thread and discuss it? I'm happy to.

Wednesday OACs Couple speed pullups and chins One arm negative from top- Can't hold top but with bar just above head (halfway down) I come to a stop and held it for roughly 5 seconds on each side. This is an improvement from Monday. Then I start descending and picking up speed. I let go 75% down as it starts feeling like my bicep is going to rip off the bone. One arm negative 60/70% down- Definitely got a little concentric movement then held for 6 or so seconds on each side. Tried one arm negative 85% down- but just fall immediately. Maybe tired already. Dead hangs with 40 lb dumbell- 23 seconds on right. 16 seconds on left. Tried a two finger pullup but grip/fingers were wasted. Again I improved. Thursday Just right arm. OAOP (one arm overhead press) same as last time, 40, 50, 60, 70, and negative with 80. Could hold lockout much easier but didn't do a lockout for time this time. OApushups-first put arm too close in and didn't get anything, then maybe put hand too far out and got 2 and maybe had another. Negative w/10lbs. Maybe held it for a second at weak point. OAdips-Lockouts and partials. Pushing against the wall with my left arm made it ache. So no more of these for a while. Friday Today my biceps are still sore from the negative/static OACs on Wednesday. Should I take the day off? I decided to see how I felt for OAPs which don't hit the biceps as much. Couple pullups fast-Left bicep is no good. I hurt the left tricep by applying Armstrongs pullup program to bench press and immediately followed this by hurting the left bicep by doing a somewhat high intensity variation of GTG. Got to rest both the tricep and bicep for a while. Front Levers-can almost extend one leg all the way out. But this still made my left elbow hurt so no more of this for a while either. Static/negative right OAPs 50/60% up-held static for 5 seconds then stopped. 30% up-had some concentric (5/10%up) and then held for 5 seconds. 50/60% up- another 5 seconds static. 15/20% up, held static for only a few seconds and then negative. Maybe I was tired but I think I'm very weak down at the very bottom. Will do these first in the future. 100%up, not even close. The top is harder with OAPs. Otherwise OAPs aren't any harder than OACs it seems despite chins being much easier than pullups. Friday night Was going to try to squat 183x20. But it just wasn't happening. Felt too heavy, especially considering I have to good morning the weight to get it racked. Also my back felt wrong. At the bottom it hurt my back and I couldn't even get too parallel. So instead deadlifts. They felt fine. Just did 153x3 for 5 or so speed sets. I want to alternate a speed workout with a heavy workout. Hit it, every 7 days. Then did some pistols, eh. 7 reps each. Saturday Right arm overhead press 70 for a hard single. Then static hold with 70 just short of lockout for 30 or so seconds. One arm pushups-barely did one on right (harder than last time but maybe static hold tired me? Then tried one with elbow way out instead of tucked in and it was way easy. That's the problem with one arm pushups. Slight change in form makes them much harder/easier. Hard to gauge progress. Did easy left one armer with elbow out. (Shouldn't have although elbow feels OK.) Then did right one armer with 12 lb pack. Got the eccentric very controlled with 22lb pack but failed halfway back up after static for a couple seconds. Sunday Weighed just 209 this morning. Never gained the weight back from fasting but then I've been living off soup/stews for quite a while now. One arm chins (on right only) Static near bottom-4 or so seconds. Weaker than in middle but not as bad as last time as I was fresh I guess. Really need to keep hitting this part. Static attempts at top-I come down a few inches before I go static. Made my right elbow ache when I was doing it. In the middle static was easy. Added 9.5lb pack and almost held static. Very controlled negative down to the bottom. Single deadlift rep with 153. I have soreness in back and hamstrings from last time. Front levers-this didn't hurt my left elbow today. Came a little closer to extending one leg. Did a strong negative with a 9.5lb pack in the bottom half of the movement today. That was good improvement.

With a chinup you get more biceps work and less back work. What back work you get is more thickness and less width. Opposite with pullups and the wider you put your hands on pullups the less thickness and more width up high. With mixed grip you just get the results of a pullup on one hand and a chinup on the other.

In terms of reducing suffering it's the same. From the anti-pet breeding argument, you've condemned a third worlder to starvation Will. But I'm not anti-pet breeding, so you've done nothing wrong in my book.

Sinister, try to see things from her point of view. I don't agree with her but I remember a time when I could literally feel like I was that cow or whatever that was about to be slaughtered. And IF I could feel that way all the damm time it (which I never did) I would certainly be A LOT more emotional about things. I would certainly always get very angry, etc. I don't think someone telling me that I was nuts would have done any good.

I don't see this difference as meaningful. Starve to death or be executed. Which would you choose? After you make breeding illegal, these rescue organizations aren't going to be able to specialize for very long. Yes, so? I know this and was just pointing out that many vegans are being hypocritical. Yes of course I do. Why are you even asking? Errr, well I just gave a reason in this thread. What part didn't you understand? Yes of course not. Wrong. No that's fine. I don't feel like discussing this with you though. I don't think you are really listening to what I'm saying, so we're just wasting each other's time. I don't have a problem with pet breeding. I don't think that is the real problem. I think the problem is just a general lack of compassion. I think it best to focus on the meat eating and how unnecesary it is than to go on about pet breeding or talking about things like "specieism" or whatever. I think that stuff just makes meat eaters dismiss us.

There are tons of vegans who have decided to not have kids for that very reason, among others. SOme young vegans have even gone as far as having vascetomies (spelling?). I know and I suppose the vast majority are against breeding so that means they are at least being consistent. But that they aren't breeding is really NOT a good thing. If all vegans quit having children, veganism doesn't have a chance. I disagree. With communism and veganism there would be plenty of room on this planet for twice as many humans. With capitalism (and meat eating) we will always be overpopulated.

One of the excluded books is about Jesus as a child. He killed quite a few people as a child. No joke. This was before he started using his powers just for good. (The Gospel of Infancy Thomas). Example: 4 Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." (2)And all of a sudden, he fell down and died. (3)Some people saw what had happened and said, "Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!" (4)The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, "Because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. He's killing our children!" Will, I don't think we can assume he did what other Jews regularly did though. Of course, you're speaking as if it's a given that he existed. When actually it appears unlikely he ever did at all.

People donate money to the church mistakenly thinking it's going to a good cause. Mother Theresa was a big culprit in this. Transferred many, many, many millions donated to her straight to the Vatican while her "hospital" couldn't even afford pain killers. The Vatican refuses to divulge just how much money they have though. Anyway I read the FAQ that NakedDragon posted. The argument for christian veganism wasn't very good. Some impressive mental acrobatics concerning the fishes and loaves. If I was a christian, I'd definitely eat meat.

Here's another: One arm dips. Use a kitchen/bathroom counter or something real solid and support your body with one hand while putting the other hand out straight away from you against a wall to stop from falling over. I tried this today. I couldn't complete a whole dip but I could hold the lockout position for 30 seconds or so. Could only go halfway down and still make it up. This is like (almost) a double bodyweight dip so you have to be pretty strong for it.

You only weigh 60 lbs? Just kidding. Reps with 105 added didn't result in a OAC for me. We need to get some video of this or at least some pictures. I'd consider it the most impressive athletic feat I've seen a vegan do. It's far more typical to squat 500, run a marathon fast, get cut, bench 400, etc, than it is to do a OAC. 3 reps is especially good.

I've get this. It's easily remedied by doing a neck stretch. Grab right side of head with left hand by reaching over the top. And pull head sideways towards left and hold for 10 seconds or so. Gets rid of it for a few days at least. Whenever my hands start falling asleep again I just do the stretch again.

If you're vegan and eating healthy, the health benefits of alcohol aren't worth the bother.

I think the one potential good of drugs is that you can look at things from a new way. But they're really not worth it for that. You can look at things from a new way without drugs. I notice good musicians always seem to take drugs. I think that's more because they end up desperately suicidal and turn to music then to try to feel better. And they are trying to assimilate also. It seems that a lot of artist types are really concerned with trying to fit in/be cool or whatever. Which seems really strange to me. But I remember I always got dissed because I was getting degrees in engineering and didn't dress right for them. I was stereotyped and dismissed.

Monday One arm chins Good day. OAC w/ middle finger assist-flew up OAC w/ pinkie assist-1 inch short on right, 2 inches short on left OAC negative-I start by putting both top sides of feet (with socks) against walls. Easy to hold OAC at top that way. Then take away one foot. Still easy to hold. Then take second foot away. I start swinging a little and can't hold top position, about 30% down though I slow to just about a total stop. Then very slowly begin to descend until about 60% down I begin to pick up speed. 5 to 10 seconds this takes. There is minimal friction from the top side of my socked foot against the wall. It just stops me from swinging a little. I think it's the centrifugal force of the swing that makes it harder without touching my foot to the wall. Then did static hold 65% of the way down. Held it for about 5 seconds on each side. Then tried controlled negative not attempting to hold it static. By now I was already pretty tired. Came down in about 2.5 seconds on right and was able to hold dead hang. Came down in probably less than a second on left (much weaker on this side now???) and had to let go before the dead hang lest I wrench my shoulder or elbow loose. Then did one arm dead hang with 40 pound dumbbell in other hand (chin style, last time did pullup style). Held 15 to 20 seconds on right. And 12 seconds on left. Didn't get good grip on left and grip is all that gives out on this. So little weaker at top it seemed but all in all I improved today. Tuesday One arm overhead press-40, 50, 60, 70x1 (no leg drive). Negative w/80 at weak point, couldn't hold it static. Then held 80 at lockout for 20, 30 seconds. One arm pushups-making sure to keep shoulders parallel to floor. Got a single this way on right but not left (keep twisting up) Did single negative with 10lbs extra (very hard, couldn't hold it static but was controlled in a slow descent). One arm dips-one hand on kitchen counter and other out straight against wall so I don't topple over. Could not do a single full ROM this way. Must be the equivalent of well over 100 pounds added for weighted dips. Probably 150 to 200. Did static hold for 20 or so seconds, left tricep feels wrecked. Hope it's OK. Left arm has been bothering me for a while thanks to Armstong's pullup program. Maybe need an extended rest.

Hero, you do understand what a one arm chin is? Not a one hand chin where you grip your wrist with your other hand. These are one arm pullups: http://www.crossfit.com/cf-video/onearmpull.mpg If you can do that, then we really need to get a video of it and put it online. And I don't mean to doubt you, that's just phenomenal if you are able to do that.

I'd like to see animals bred for intelligence. And the same with humans. Also I like diversity; german shepherds, sheep dogs, siamese cats, etc. I'd hate to see them all blended together into nondescript dogs and cats with no special traits/abilities. I don't think making breeding illegal is the right way to go about saving unwanted animals. Any vegans who disagree should of course never have children, as there are tons of people starving to death all over the place that they could adopt instead.