The window to my world

Much is being made of President’ Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Why would the President pick someone like this; no judicial background, has argued case very few case, most notably Citizens United v, Federal Election Commission, and really no paper trail allowing people to get an idea as to what type of justice she would be? The answer can be found in the Citizens United case.

President Obama has criticized the Supreme Court for their ruling in this case. He saw it as the Court overturning not only the will of the people (which is debatable in this case) but also the will of Congress. Pretty amazing statement if you think about it and if you have any knowledge as to how the three branches of government are suppose to function.

The Supreme Court should not be looking at the “will” of anyone, especially Congress, to decide if a law is constitutional or not. Their main job is to look at the law, look at the Constitution, and decide if the two mesh together. If they do, the law is considered to have passed constitutional muster. Otherwise the law is struck done as being unconstitutional. Little more complicated then this, but in a nutshell this is how things are suppose to work.

Obama in this case wants Justices that will kowtow to a Congress currently being ran by Democrats and an agenda being pushed by a liberal President. Much like Franklin Roosevelt wanted with his attempt to pack the court. The downside of this is that the Constitution, the document dictates how our form of government should function, becomes meaningless.

President Obama and people like him want the supreme power of deciding what laws are right or wrong to reside in the other branches of government with the Supreme Court rubber stamping their approval. This is why Obama wants Kagan on the Supreme Court, she’ll be exacting the type of Justice that ignores the Constitution and will decide cases on what she thinks is best, not what is right.

I spend some time hanging out on the Crossfit message boards, reading posts to learn more, asking and answering questions. The typical message board stuff.

This morning I posted a link to a blog post by Robb Wolf. Of course posting links to Robb Wolf’s site on the CF boards is a no-no, just like posting links to Starting Strength, so I used bit.ly to post the link. Now all of my posts have to undergo moderator approval before showing up.

Their boards, their rules, just find it amusing.

Read this blog from the L.A. Times then remember this, there are moderate Muslims but there is no moderate in Islam.

This year’s NFL draft is done and in my opinion, and many others, the Seattle Seahawks did well. Picked up a much needed tackle in  Russell Okung and help in their secondary with the selection of Earl Thomas. Seattle had many areas that needed addressing and Pete Carroll and company did a great job of filling those needs.

Even int he later rounds they got some good picks. Golden Tate gives them some help in the receiving corps, and more defensive picks in later rounds. Add in some trades for running backs and the only area they really didn’t address was a quarterback of the future. If Matt Hasselbeck stays healthy, which Okung should help in making sure he does, then this may not have needed addressing in the draft.

Looking forward to the start of the season, go Seahawks!

President Bush while in office was often criticized for going golfing. The Main Stream Media (MSM) would let go in a chorus “How can the president go golfing when there is (insert crisis of the day here) going on?” While President Bush was in office we heard this from the MSM a total of 24 times over years.

Now we have President Obama in office. Doesn’t seem to be much of a golfer, the MSM hasn’t said peep about President Obama golfing. However President Obama within his first year of office has already been golfing 32 times. Housing crisis, financial crisis, Middle east crisis, those ca wait while the glorious one golfs. Hard for the MSM to criticize someone when their lips are planted firmly on their ass.

I don’t have an issue with the President golfing. Anything that is a true emergency would come to his attention and I’m sure he’ll act upon it instead of finishing up his 18 holes. This just once again shows what hypocrites we have in the “fourth branch” of government.

Going to hell in a hand basket is my second though on Rep. Hank Johnson’s comment about Guam tipping over if morepeople go there.

Do we really deserve idiots like this making decisions for us? Which begs the question, who are the idiots electing the idiots?

Back in my teens and early 20′s I used to lift weights. By lifting weights I mean I did bench press and arm curls. Never bothered with squats, dead lifts, or other types of lifts. So you can say I never really lifted weights. Now I’m 45 and doing lifting, presses, squats, dead lifts, bench press, more squats, etc. Why at 45 do something like this?

The why in a nutshell is I want to improve my strength, which means I want to get stronger. I’m not looking to be a powerlifter or do any type of competition, this is to address in area of my fitness where I’ve noticed a weakness (no pun intended). So I went and got a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore, read through it, and decided to hit it. Here are some observations.

First, not in my 20′s anymore (duh). Currently I can’t bench press as much as I did 20+ years ago. No big surprise, muscles ain’t going to stay big and strong by themselves. Nor is my recovery time as good as it used to be. I knew this one just from simple injuries like spraining an ankle. My body needs more time to recover.

Second, like all goals I need to keep mine realistic. This goes right in hand with my first observation. As Mark Rippetoe said:

“Testosterone levels peak in our mid-twenties, hold relatively steady for another decade, and then begin to fall like women’s clothes at the kinds of parties we don’t get invited to any more.”

My strength will go up, just not as fast as it would have in my 20′s. This means I’ve been tweaking my programming. I’ll still be increasing the weights on the lifts every workout, just not as much as I was hoping to increase them.

Last reason is I want to make sure I’m functional into my old age. My son will argue I’m already old but I can still kick his butt. As we get older we do tend to get weaker. I can handle losing how much I can max for a squat, but as long as I can still squat with weight on my back then life should be doing pretty good.

So for now I’ll keep following the principles outlined in Starting Strength, maybe later after linear progression has stopped I’ll look at going to the 5-3-1 program. Plus I’ll still keep up my Crossfit style High Intensity Interval Training. You are never too old to start.

Check out their 603 PTP Program. A good way to build up your strength.

I mentioned before about Robb Wolf’s gym being kicked out of Crossfit. Now another group, Whole 9, has lost their affiliation. From the letter Whole 9 received from Crossfit HQ:

“I am writing to thank you for your year of affiliation with CrossFit and to inform you that we will not be renewing your affiliation when it expires on 3/17/2010. ..  Since you are moving in a different direction, we cannot continue to carry you as an affiliate and we feel that our continued association is no longer mutually beneficial. We wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors.”

Seems strange to me. Whole 9 has  a successful and popular program going, but Crossfit doesn’t like the direction Whole 9 was going. Probably too much strength work and not enough met-con for Crossfit’s liking. I could post some of the babble Crossfit posts at time, cream rising to the top, let’s see who has the best program, yada yada yada.

I wonder who will be next to lose their affiliation?

Maybe you should take a peek at some recent news across the pond:

Hundreds of NHS wards to be shut in secret plans

To save money, you shut things down. Don’t worry, I’m sure services won’t suffer.

Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering’

Doctor’s worried about costs, because the government tells them they got to meet the budget, and patients suffer.

If you don’t think the same things would happen here in the US once the government starts calling the shots then I got a ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.

Want to lower health care costs? Start allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, do away with the minimum package an insurance company has to offer. As a single male insurance covering the cost of pregnancy is of little concern. Allow people to purchase insurance with pre-tax dollars. Just a few things the government could do to help lower health care costs.

What we all can do is get some  exercise, eat right, and get plenty of sleep. Since this involves personal responsibility I don’t have high hopes for it succeeding.