6 workouts again last week, lost 3.5 pounds mid-week, gained some back by the end of the week.

I found a deal on a new scale that does body mass index, which I hope will make it easier and more accurate to track progress.

Last week I doubled up on Body-For-Life workouts, this week I scaled back to just stick to the plan. It's much easier to find time to go the the gym when duration alternates between 20 and 50 minutes.

• 35 days
• 30 trips to the gym
• Avg cost per visit: $10 ($300 for 2 year membership divided by visits so far)
  

I previously wrote that the Democrats are "unable to recognize that others would think differently" than they do, so they follow the advice: "Assume and accuse your opponent of doing what you do. "

I also wrote that "A Democrat strategist saying that individuals expressing concern and demanding answers and entire crowds in an uproar at Senators' townhall meetings regarding health care is a nationally organized effort."

The majority of Americans who disagree with the Obama/Pelosi plan aren't an orchestrated effort from Washington, we're Americans speaking out for liberty. But Obama, to prove my point is starting a nationally organized effort to try to get some "grassroots" efforts started that agree with him.

So when people disagree with Obama, they must be part of a nationally organized effort, which invalidates it. But when Obama has to start a nationally organized effort to get people to agree with him, that's "grass roots."

Amazing.

• AARP loses members
  AARP lost 60,000 members due to their support of the Obama/Pelosi healthcare plan.
  
  
• Snitch email closed
  The White House snitch line email address, flag@whitehouse.gov, was asking for people's personal information if they disagreed with Obama to maintain an "enemies list." (It's illegal for the White House to do this, and also illegal for them to delete a single email, so that's what they were doing). The email has been shut down.
  
  
• Government-driven death counsel removed
  The House Bill to lower health care costs included paying doctors (which of course would cost more) to talk to patients about different "end of life" options - which in order to be in this bill has to save money, so it would be promoting the cheapest way for someone to die. Protests, including Sarah Palin's resulted in the Democrats saying they'll remove that provision.
  
  
• Public option may go
  In a complete turn-around, Obama and his spokespeople are saying that government-run insurance program that was intended to bring about single-payer health care is negotiable. The problem, of course, with giving the payer (insurance) power over regulations, is that they'll make regulations for what saves them the most money as the payer.

We don't know what will happen. Perhaps as some have predicted, the Democrats will work harder to spread fear to get people onboard this fall with the swine flu scare or some other scare. Perhaps the replacement for the public option will be nearly identical just under another name.

But one thing is to be learned: Whether the Democrat leaders are going to be more responsive or more deceptive, they're now reacting to what the people are saying. We need to keep talking.

There's a lot more that's problematic in the Obama/Pelosi plan, including fining people who don't have presidential-appointee-approved insurance (and it leaves that completely open, so the presidential appointee could say no private insurance is approved, or your plan is only approved if it pays for abortion, or only if it doesn't pay for abortion), reducing payments to hospitals who re-admit a patient (if the cost of re-admitting you won't get paid, your chances of receiving health care go down).

If you haven't called and written to your Representatives and Senators, please do. If you have, do it again. I plan on calling again today.

Conservatives now outnumber liberals in all 50 states - you are not alone, and if we speak, they will hear our voices. We don't know how they'll react, but the power-grab their after is lessened when they realize their constituents are displeased as we approach future elections.

6 days again last week, and I switched to the Body for Life workout plan, plus an additional BFL cardio workout every day.

It looks like this:

• M: Upper Body Weights + 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio
• T: 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio plus another 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio
• W: Lower Body Weights + 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio
• R: 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio plus another 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio
• F: Upper Body Weights + Ab weights (usually lower body, but the upper body weights take more time, so I didn't want to stay at the gym long enough to do a full 20 minute cardio workout so I just added Abs instead)
  
• S: 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio plus another 20 minute BFL exhaustive cardio

I'm going to weigh myself once a week now, but in the last week of watching what I eat and doing the BFL+BLF Cardio workouts, haven't lost any weight.

28 days

• 24 days at the gym
• Avg cost per visit: $12.50 ($300 for 2 year membership divided by visits so far)
  

I was stopped by a few Greenpeace volunteers downtown yesterday.

Greenpeace: "Hey man, are you interested in protecting and saving our environment?"

Me: "Well, I would sound like an awful person if I say 'no,' wouldn't I?"

Greenpeace: "Hey, we should talk"

Me: "I don't think so"

Microsof teamed up with reverbnation.com to offer thousands of mp3s for free. The only catch is that the cover art that is built into the file has a microsoft ad.

Now these microsoft ads will be built into your music library forever, unless you want to go through one by one and replace them.

Microsoft ads showing up on your computer, iPod, mp3 player - forever, unless you change the album art.

I hope someone latches onto this idea and it becomes a new way to offer advertiser-paid free or cheaper mp3 downloads.

Yesterday I wrote about how Nancy Peliso and her statist allies (those who believe the government is more important than the liberty of the people, and that the state is the solution to every problem) share a quality with Sauron: the assumption that everyone thinks the way you do.

I wrote about how Pelosi accused people who disagree with her on health care of carrying swastikas and similar symbols - either calling liberty-loving Americans Nazis or saying it's a common tactic they use in protesting - but it's the San Fransisco protesters, the people who voted Pelosi into office - who use Nazi symbols, not conservatives.

Pelosi has also stated that people who disagree with her are afraid of the facts and drowning out the conversation.

Again, this is Pelosi assuming that others will do the same things she does, think the same way she, Obama, and the other Statists behind the bill think.

1. Obama says he wants his opponents to stop talking. He's the one who wants their conversation drowned out.
   

   "But I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking."
   

2. The White House has (illegally), requested that you report your friends if they are expressing disagreement with the Obama/Pelosi state run health care plan. Compiling an enemies list (it will be compiled, because it's illegal for the White House to delete email correspondence) is a scare tactic to shut down the opposing voices of the American public.
   
3. Obama spoke about why everyone should fall in line with his plan, giving a number of guarantees, then admitting he hadn't read the bill, and didn't know what it said.
4. Pelosi has been misrepresenting the bill and lying about the Americans who disagree with her.
   

The people who disagree with health care, are asking substantive questions about the facts of the bill. Obama, Pelosi, and the others driving the effort for State controlled health care are misrepresenting the facts and are doing whatever they can to silence the voices of the American voters.

Like Sauron, they are unable to see past their own desire for power, assuming that everyone else thinks like them.

We need to throw the ring into mount doom by standing up against what they're doing and voting in better representatives.

I managed to go 6 days again this week, and stretched to longer and longer cardio workouts.

I'm now switching from just cardio to a modified Body For Life workout. I did Body For Life before which was good, but I stopped because life got busier and my gym membership wasn't 24/7 so I couldn't go late.

I'm more confident now that I can do a modified BFL 6 days/week because I've been going that often for 3 weeks in a row.

• 21 days
• 18 days at the gym
• Avg cost per visit: $16.67 ($300 for 2 year membership divided by visits so far)
  

I'm most of the way through reading The Lord of the Rings to my 2 year old as a bed time story. The good guys are able to unite and trick Sauron because he is so evil, he cannot understand why the good guys would have a different motivation and strategy than he does. He assumes that they too are operating out of the desire for ultimate power. For one so old, brilliant, and powerful, he was blinded by himself, unable to recognize that others would think differently.

This is a pattern in leftist/statist politics. Assume and accuse your opponent of doing what you do. This was the case recently when Nancy Pelosi accused people who disagree with her position on health care of promoting swastikas, misrepresenting the health care bill, and stopping a civil dialogue.

To agree with Pelosi is to say that anyone who disagrees with her specific brand of state-controlled health care is a Nazi, uncivilized and un-American.

Dissenters are Nazis

What Pelosi says:	Reality:
"They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."	Pelosi's supporters use swastikas, so she assumes everyone must.

Here's some pictures from protesters in Pelosi's district - yup, the people who voted her into office. [source]

October 26, 2002 and February 16, 2003:

September 24, 2005

I recently started a 2 year membership at 24 hour fitness that I purchased at Costco for $300.

I managed to go 6 days again this week, though several times I went after midnight, and got home as late as 2am (killer!).

I've been doing a different cardio exercise every day. Ellipticals are fairly efficient. The hour on the rowing machine and another on the stationary bike were killer.

• 14 days
• 12 days at the gym
• Avg cost per visit: $25 ($300 for 2 year membership divided by visits so far)
  

Thrice in 3 days I've seen news stories on CNN while at the gym that have a common theme: The Obama administration is acting like a cheap hypnotist, telling you not to believe your ears, eyes, or experience. Only believe what they tell you to believe.

1. An Obama economic expert saying the economy is improving, but the jobless rate will continue to go up, and consumers won't see the signs of recovery, so consumer spending will stay down. Even though everything consumers see says the economy is getting worse, it's really getting better.

2. A Democrat strategist saying that individuals expressing concern and demanding answers and entire crowds in an uproar at Senators' townhall meetings regarding health care is a nationally organized effort. Even though the health care bill is a national mandate coming out of Washington, it's the concerned citizens who are the national machine that's against the citizens.

[Video of town hall objection to government healthcare:]

[Another video of town hall objection to government healthcare:]


3. Obama's ABC correspondent-turned-White House Official saying that the videos circulating the Internet of Obama saying he wants single-payer health care are an effort to mislead the public. Even though this is video of Obama himself, that's not what he thinks - even though that's what Obama says, that's not what he says.

(Here's the video of Obama:)


Reminds me of Kenny the hypnotist from Little Britain [video].

Paul tells us that "The authorities that exist have been established by God." (Romans 13:1).

Peter writes:

Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. (1 Peter..)

Titus adds:

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.

This is a conflict between American culture and Christianity. As Americans we vote and have total freedom of speech. From the beginning of our country as documented in the Federalist Papers and other sources, we Americans have been excessively critical and harsh to those who are in office.

Now an image of President Obama with his face cut open, desecrated and painted white like the "The Joker" from the latest Batman movie is circulating the net and I've begun to see it as Christians' Facebook profile images.

This is certainly a legal expression of free speech, but this sort of thing doesn't at all match up with "to slander no one," being "considerate," "true humility," showing "proper respect," "honor the king," and will certainly not "silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."

It's being a good American.

It's just not being a good Christian.