Uhm, isn't this a thread about people's physique goals? Why should someone who likes Steve Reeves' physique give a single flying fuck about the "progression" of bodybuilding?



No. People are saying "I like this physique and this is my goal physique and what I'm working towards." People who are saying that are trying to build a physique, not make some point.



And caring about how bodybuilding has "progressed" and what passes for an appealing "progressed" physique today doesn't make those "others" sheep? Please...



That depends on your definition of "blow him away" I guess, but even if there objectively are so what?

Yes... "acknowledging" that you have no responsibilities and that what you do doesn't matter because someone else, who has your best interests at heart, is in charge and everything will be OK will result in increased peaceful feelings. Of course, so can pretending (that was the word you really meant to use, wasn't it?) to be an billionaire ex-astronaut President who volunteers at the local fire department, maintains 8% year around without gear and lives the life of James Bond.

What the... is that Dennis Quaid in a "Hollywood ripped" bodysuit? If so, the pecs leave something to be desired.

To be fair, *those* fabulous boobs were removed by starvation a long time ago, in Angelina's quest to get back to her birth weight. Indeed that entire, smoking hot Angelina was removed. DAMN YOU ANOREXIA! DAMN YOU.

I agree. Much better in the before pic. She could have lost 5 lbs and been smoking.

Agree that the body is a trainwreck... but what's this about a cute face? Really?! You must be joking - or blind. That nose has more steps than a mall escalator! 

The article is already linked in the post you quote. A quick Google search will reveal more information if you are interested. However, you are unlikely to find any details. The Government releases only very general and non-descriptive statistics.



No. I don't know what your position on the topic is. I'm merely stating my position.


 

I don't believe we ought to (or that our Constitution does) shackle our military with legal considerations in the battlefield. If someone is killed in a firefight, so be it. However, if someone is apprehended and under the control of the U.S. Government I believe the Constitution begins to place limits and afford the apprehended person some rights (how many rights depends on whether they are a citizen). I fully realize that this position is not necessarily consistent with legal precedent, but it is my position nevertheless.



I write to them whenever they are contemplating a bill that I believe is flawed or which I feel curtails my liberty. Which is to say fairly frequently.



Nonsense. We were no more vulnerable on 9/10 than we were on 9/12. We are only marginally less vulnerable today, since cockpit doors are reinforced and passengers will no longer idly stand by and allow a plain to be hijacked. Beyond that, it's mostly security theater that has done little keep us safe and make us less vulnerable, and more and more surveillance.



With people who say things like what you say below, we are going to be well on our way soon...



I'm afraid I have to call nonsense. This isn't a reality - it's a position that you cannot support with facts; you cannot even provide facts to support the lesser position that the changes we've made so far have helped make us any safer. The sole exception is that cockpit doors are now reinforced (a good thing), something which is completely uncontroversial.



We are as vulnerable today as we were on 9/10, but we are less free and have been spoon-fed this silliness that to ensure our security we need to sacrifice some things and that most of those sacrifices will not affect the average Joe. Which brings us to this part of your reply:



You know, I was never a particularly big Star Trek fan, but a couple of years ago, on a lazy Monday night, I stumbled upon an episode involving some sort of sham legal proceeding against the Captain, who replied: "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged." Those are wise words - perhaps too wise for a silly TV show - and you may want to read them again.

I will ask you to read about the case of Brandon Mayfield and to reconsider not only whether these changes affect the average Joe but to also consider whether that really matters anyways...



It's certainly true that the NSL statute was on the books long before 9/11. However, the scope and use of National Security Letters dramatically increased in the post 9/11 world - we are talking about tens of thousands of requests per year which compel the production of a wide range of information (from library to medical records). Up until recently the NSLs by the FBI imposed blanket gag orders (unconstitutional prior restrictions on speech) and earlier even prohibited the recipient from contacting a lawyer in connection with the NSL.

You may argue that it's not an example of a right that we have lost since 9/11, but before then the Government could not compel my local library to reveal the list of books I checked out or my doctor to show them my lab results. After 9/11 they can. So I don't think your argument is on very solid footing.

Besides, are you sure that you want to make the argument that "well it's OK if it happened before 9/11" anyways?



Jose Padilla was an example; after a long ordeal, he was eventually transferred out of the brig, and allowed access to counsel and tried in a Court of law, but not before being held incommunicado and forcibly medicated for a while, while the Government claimed that he was not entitled to a lawyer or access to the Courts. It may be easy to simply dismiss his experience because of his goals - goals which I do not support - but the Constitution doesn't say that only good, honorable, upstanding citizens are afforded the rights reserved to citizens.

I can't think of any other names or specific cases right now. But does that matter? The Government has already asserted that they can do this and isn't that enough to send a chill down your spine?



I didn't follow that particular story too closely, but it was my understanding that he backed off on whether this could be done inside the United States and that outside it was a whole 'nother ballgame. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.



I beg to differ: here is a Court before which only the Government appears and whose decisions are not published. If this doesn't qualify as a "secret court" in your book, I don't know what will.



A clandestine group holding secret meetings is exactly what they are. You can argue that there may be legitimate reasons to have such a Court. I may even agree with some of them. But that doesn't alter the nature of the beast: a secret court, holding secret meetings.



Tell me, how can you appeal a decision that you do not know was made?



"Judicial review" is probably a bit too strong. According to an article I read (it may have been on Wikipedia) less than 0.02% of all Government requests are rejected per year. It sounds as if "rubber stamp" is likely a much better term, although without having access to the requests and the decisions, it's hard to be sure one what or the other.



Only partially true, at best. The fact is that the use of the FISC dramatically increased and its authority has been significantly broadened since 2001.



It's not alleged. It's a fact, which could have trivially verified by typing the names I provided into Google or searching for "extraordinary rendition".

To answer your question, no I do not - but the absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence. But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that no Americans have been targeted, does that make extraordinary rendition and surveillance programs acceptable, or the use of the State Secrets privilege to prevent a lawsuit proper or even palatable?

I don't think it's particuarly brilliant either. I don't really offer anything that others haven't already said; I just summarized things. With that said, I do think that it points out that we've lost more than we realize when casually thinking about the question, which is scary exactly because it seems that we (collectively) will happily sacrifice freedom in lieu of security.



Looking forward to it!

I'm sorry, but youtube videos referencing someone whose business involves peddling gold and silver ($11,000/ounce any time now!!!) while writing alarmist books about the coming collapse for the dollar (it's been coming now for almost a decade... is it here yet? the hot appetizers are gonna get cold soon!) and who sees conspiracies don't count for very much in my book.

Do you have some objective evidence, perhaps?

That's a ridiculous argument. Do you also believe that your car belongs to the company that made it?



The simple fact is that you cannot justify that position or the position above. You can claim it's true, of course, but you cannot justify it. And I don't think anyone should give any weight to your unsubstantiated claims. They are blatantly wrong.



Countries which made gold ownership illegal banned gold outright, with little regard for the shape or the issuer. Short of restrictions imposed on Nazi gold, I know of no other cases in modern times where gold was restricted based on hallmarks. That's not to say that it didn't happen. You could provide some references perhaps?



Oh well, if we're going to talk about Romania, that changes everything! I mean, shit, let's plan our lives around what the Communists running Romania after WWII did...



You can melt down, refashion and will to progeny a gold eagle issued by the U.S. Mint just as easily as you can melt down, refashion and will to progeny a bar from Engelhard. Ironically enough, Karatbars are the least flexible here.



Privately vaulted gold is trivially turned over. The 6102 Executive Order required that all gold be turned over (listing only a handful of exceptions) whether it was held by people or corporations and regardless of form or issuer, and provided for penalties for non-compliance. Private companies complied readily.

And sure, you can keep your gold vaulted in another country, but that comes with a host of other issues. First and foremost is that you've doubled your risk. You now have to worry about the legal environment in your country and in the country in which your gold is vaulted. If the company vaulting your gold is incorporated in a third country, you've tripled your original risk and have to worry about yet another legal environment.

Beyond the fact that the company that owns the vault still operates within the legal framework of the country in which the vault is located you also have to consider that the company could be compelled to appear before a Court in any country in which it does business (since by doing so it has, likely, subjected itself to the laws of said country).

Of course, there's also the issue of ease of access - something you frequently bring up. How easily can you access that gold if it's, say, Germany and you're located in the United States? The time difference alone could be an issue.



In other words, your risk of confiscation by legislative action has increased by 100%. Got it.



It's true that *I* am not operating under Saudi laws. But you're mixing apples and oranges. My booze isn't kept in a vault in Saudi Arabia. If it was Saudi laws vis-à-vis alcohol would certainly apply. Not to mention that pouring a glass would be a huge pain in the ass.

100%? Did we see the same movie?

That's true. I don't think that a "long term store of value" (if that's what you want to call gold) makes sense unless you already have a couple of hundred million in other assets.



Actually, you do own it. You have no legal basis to claim otherwise.



Please provide a reference for this extraordinary assertion.



Perhaps they can't - but, contrary to your assertion, this doesn't only apply to "gov't issued gold." But don't take my word for it; look at Executive Order 6102 which contained the following text in Section 2: "All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933 [...]"



It's unclear why you think that privately issued gold is special, or that private vaulting makes a difference. If you are afraid that your gold is subject to confiscation by the government, then it doesn't matter who issued it and in whose vault it is stored. Again, don't take my word for it. Look at Executive Order 6102. Under it you'd be turning your privately issued, privately vaulted LBMA GDL gold.

People are loading up their pickup trucks with gold a gram or two at a time encased in credit-card sized chunks of plastic? What would a a one gram gold bar cost me right now?

It's unclear why you say it does not exist. Can you elaborate, providing some specifics and facts? And please, keep in mind that not every gold ETF is about physical gold.



Oh come on... let's bet for fun and profit! And yes, yes I will

Multiple, in fact. The wikipedia article lists a few of the cases that ended up in Court. The numbers cited in the wikipedia are startling:  In 2003 they issued 39,346 requests, in 2004 another 56,507 requests and in 2005 another 47,221. I don't have easy access to newer statistics, but this is a very real and legitimate concern, even with recent decisions striking down the "gag order" portion of the law in question.



On the matter of where we detain people, does it matter if it's outside the United States or inside? Either we stand for freedom and the rule of law, or we don't. Whether it's in Quantico or Guantanamo Bay the U.S. Government is the entity exercising control and jurisdiction and hardly anyone would argue differently. Let me make one thing very clear: I'm not necessarily opposed to Guantanamo Bay, nor do I think that it is legally or morally necessary to provide detainees access to U.S. courts. But I believe that anyone under the control and jurisdiction of the U.S. Government is protected by the Constitution (to varying degrees) and that the system that what we have in place now is a travesty.



But the problem is that, having spoken out against them, you then reduce everything to TSA and belts. This is the kind of Orwellian stuff that we all - regardless of party affiliation - ought to be outraged about. We ought to be contacting our Senators and Represenatives on a daily basis, until they finally listen to us and stop this insane descent into some kind of crazy police state.



You may want to read into the travesty that was the NSA warrantless surveillance case at AT&T; the legal case is Hepting v. U.S.. When the Government tried to invoke the State Secrets privilege, the Court denied that request but the Government appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Before the 9th could rule, legislation was introduced and passed that granted AT&T (and others) retroactive immunity for past violations, and the Court remanded the case to the lower court. The government then moved to dismiss based on provisions found in the new law. Their motion was, of course, successful.

The privilege was successfully asserted in a case brought by El-Masri against the CIA. El-Masri, under a process known as "extraordinary rendition" was taken by the CIA from Skopje to Afghanistan where he alleged he was tortured. His name was was identical to that of someone on a watch list. The suit was dismissed upon the Government's assertion that the case would "present a grave risk of injury to national security." The particular danger it would pose was never specified.

The privilege was, again, successfully asserted in Arar v. Ashcroft. Apparently, requiring the Government to explain why Mr. Arar was sent by the Government to Syria instead of Canada would present a grave risk to our national security.

It's easy to dismiss all this stuff and argue that none of this happened to Americans and we're all fine and dandy and perfectly free. But the facts tell a different story. This country was founded - and flourished - on some core ideas, ideas so fundamental that to abandon them means to abandon our "soul".

Absolutely.



This isn't about your belt or the idiots manning the TSA checkpoints and performing their version of kabuki theater.

This about National Security Letters - which government agencies could issue to compel the production of documents without the signature of an impartial Judge and impose a muzzle on those who receive them preventing them from exercising their First Amendment rights.

This is about the assertions by the Government that they can detain - indefinitely and without access to counsel - Americans; worse still is the assertion that the President can order that Americans be executed, summarily and without any due process.

This is about secret Courts, such as the U.S. FISCR, granting the Justice Department ridiculously wide new powers to use communications intercepted without warrants in the course of intelligence operations in criminal cases.

This is about the Government invoking the state secrets privilege to kill civil litigation on cases involving renditions and surveillance programs.

I could go on. There's more at stake than your belt OzmO, even if you cannot see it. I urge you to ask yourself one question: How many freedoms lost will it take, before we are no longer a "freedom country"? Hmm?

Of course you are. You're happy when gold goes up, you're happy when gold goes down. It's unclear why that is, but hey, as long as you're happy!



Your "colleagues"? That's a funny way to refer to others who bought into this nonsense that gold will, any day now, become the preferred medium of exchange and ought to be stockpiled a gram at a time.



Perhaps it is. I don't see the difference one way or the other: the spot price for an ounce of gold is dropping faster than a free-falling ounce of lead



Why are ETFs a scam? Not everyone cares to hoard gold under their mattress, and ETFs allow people who are inclined to own gold to do so in a form much more convenient: purely electronic. I know, you don't like this electronic mumbo jumbo and only feel safe when you have the real thing there, so that you can trade it with the many businesses that will accept bullion any day now!



The true value of an ounce of gold is whatever the market thinks it is. How about a bet? I'll bet you that the price of gold will have crossed the $1,300 threshold by July. If it does, then you pay me $1,300 (U.S. dollars, in cash please). If it doesn't, I'll deliver a shiny one ounce gold maple coin to you. I'm even willing to send the coin today to a respected getbigger to hold in escrow.



Does your girlfriend have a background in economics or did she graduate with a degree in advanced crayoning?

Whether you have to deal with it or not isn't the issue. Whether the loss is against the average person or not isn't the issue.

No. It's money taken from me by force today, in lieu of future payments I may not want and may not collect. It's money that is unavailable to me to use or otherwise invest. Why should I be forced into such a system, instead of being able to plan my own retirement how I want to?



What you choose to call it is irrelevant. It's a tax in the sense that I'm forced to pay it at the point of the Government's proverbial gun.



No. It's money taken from me by force today, to insure me for an eventuality that may never materialize and against which I may not wish to be insured. It's money that is unavailable to me to use or otherwise invest. Why should I be forced into such a system, instead of me being able to insure myself against risks I consider important?



Again, what you choose to call it is irrelevant. It's a tax in the sense that I'm forced to pay it at the point of the Government's proverbial gun.

Everybody knows the tax system is extremely unlikely to change - and everybody acts like that's a big secret. We might cut taxes a bit here while raising them a bit there. We might raise a tax rate here and add a loophole there. And so on...



I've no idea if he made a million dollars or not - it's irrelevant. If he really believes he's undertaxed (he said he is) and is rich (he said he is) and he believes that the rich ought to pay their fair share (he has) then he should prove it by voluntarily overpaying.

The argument "Well, I feel like I ought to pay more and make the argument that it's my moral duty to pay more, but I'm not required to under the current tax code so I won't" doesn't hold water. Either you believe what you say and stand by your convinctions, or you either don't believe what you say or don't stand by your convictions.



It's hypocritical to argue that you don't pay enough in taxes and to not lead by example by choosing to pay enough today even if the law doesn't mandate it.

Yes.



Depends on what you mean by change. The changes, such as they are, are not really substantial. You can keep on painting over shit from now until the end of time. You'll just end up with paint-covered shit.



Obama believes that the rich - a category in which he voluntarily includes himself - don't pay their "fair share." If he really believed that and in the ideology he claims to believe, he wouldn't wait for tax reform. He would lead the way and pay the difference today, and urge other rich people to do the same. This would not only be a powerful gesture but also provide the impetus for real change towards reforming the tax code to further the goal of the rich paying "their fair share."

As I type this, 24KT is furiously typing a missive about how now is the time to buy gold, a gram at a time, fears about a bubble aside.

To call "stupid" someone who believes that there was a drill conducted by officials with live explosives in the middle of an unsuspecting civilian crowd with media all around isn't a personal attack. It's stating a fact.



The presence of a bomb sniffing dog isn't surprising. There are bomb sniffing dogs that walk down the Las Vegas strip sometimes. And in every large airport in the United States.

That aside, even if runners were told it's a drill, what does that prove? It's entirely possible that there was, actually, a drill scheduled or in progress. Let's assume, arguendo, that there was. So what? Correlation doesn't imply causation.

Criticizing a system that you claim makes you underpay (while knowing full well that the system won't change) makes you a hypocrite if you don't take advantage of the opportunity to pay what you actually think is fair.

Talk is cheap... If Obama believes he pays too little, let him pay what he thinks is fair by donating the difference to the United States. And the same goes for Warren Buffet. If you want to prove you mean what you say, act don't just talk.

Ahmed, are you stupid or really fucking stupid? This doesn't mean that they were conducting a drill you buffoon. It mean that the bomb squad found something suspicious (i.e. something they believed might be a bomb) and were going to do a controlled detonation of it; this is very much standard procedure. And this was after the explosions at the Boston Marathon.