A large man approaches the front door to a house in the suburbs and rings the doorbell.  It’s answered by a middle-aged woman with a polite, but confused look.

“Are you Sarah Connor Palin?”, the man in sunglasses asks with a thick accent.

“Yes”, she responds, and immediately notices a small, red dot moving up her shirt towards her forehead.

Bang.

Now fortunately the Democratic National Committee doesn’t have a time machine or bodybuilding cyborgs.  But as the saying goes, “there’s no time like the present”, and the DNC or their proxies are already on the hunt to pre-emptively “terminate” any potential opponent for the 2012 election.  Their squad of Terminators obviously isn’t going around with firearms, smashing through walls and doors to get their prey.  The target isn’t the actual members of the Republican opposition, it’s those individuals’ credibility which has been marked for termination. And in the interest of reserving Obama’s stay in the White House for another four years, this political machine feels no pain, no mercy, and absolutely will not stop until that credibility is dead.

Since shortly after the election, this squad of robots has been out in full force, running down a list which began with (and continues to include) Sarah Palin, moved on to young and popular Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and now includes the fiscal conservative Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford.

All three individuals share the potential for a successful run at the oval office in 2012, and all three have been subject to the kind of vitriol that would earn a Republican all sorts of lovely labels including “sexist”, “racist”, “bigot”, among other things.  Governor Sanford had no doubt triggered all kinds of warning alarms in DNCNet when he displayed inexcuseable gall by daring to close his mouth when the federal government attempted to cram $700 Million of national taxpayer’s money down his throat.

So what is the weapon being wielded against Mr. Sanford in this case?

He went for a walk.

Literally.

The Governor of the state of South Carolina took a few days off to go enjoy the natural beauty of the state  he governs and hike the Appalachian Trail.

And for this, he’s been accused of everything from having a screw loose to having a secret gay tryst with Rush Limbaugh.

I personally don’t care either way about all of this.  I just want to document it so that when my descendants wistfully ponder “the good old days when things were simpler”, this may be around to let them know that ultimately, shit never really changes.

Although they probably won’t get the Terminator reference by then.

Edit: Shortly after I posted this, Governor Sanford held a press conference during which he admitted to flying to Argentina to rendezvous with his mistress. My point about the Terminators stands, but it’s as if the Republicans are willingly walking into the line of fire at every opportunity.

Sigh, they really need to split the GOP. If they can lose the “moral majority” then there won’t be the epic, Ted Haggard-level of hypocrisy when they, as all humans eventually do, screw up. You can’t stand on upon a pedestal looking down on others if you’re up there banging hookers, soliciting gay sex in mens rooms, and cheating on your wife.

As I mentioned in the post below, my back is killing me after my mostly successful attempt at creeping up on a 400lb squat (375lbs) this past Saturday. Well I didn’t have any nifty ice packs anywhere, and didn’t want the condensation from a regular bag of ice bleeding out onto my desk chair, couch, etc. To boot, I had things to do and couldn’t just sit in one spot for an extended period of time.

Then I had a mild eureka moment and solved the problem. Here it is:

Step 1: Fill a ziplock bag with ice (duh)

Step 2: Open up the drawer by your oven

Step 3: Remove the oven mitt from said drawer, and insert bag o’ ice

Step 4: Put oven mitt between your waistband and sore back, go about getting shit done

Now, if that last picture gave you a headache (pretty hard to get a decent picture of one’s own back), then you could probably use a variant of this solution, but it’d probably require some duct tape thereby making it a bit less elegant. Depending on your cold tolerance you might want to decide if you want the mitt against your skin, or between your underwear and shorts/pantaloons/ass-less leather chaps (hey, I promise not to judge your lifestyle as long as you don’t make jokes about my choice in pain relief treatments).

Matt Kirtley demonstrating double-under/"Bonaduce" guard pass. Aesopian.com

Server was out so I got to class technically late but in time for the rolling. We did a round-robin and somehow I ended up as the guy for the station that was in the cage.

Rolled with a female fighter prepping for an upcoming fight and focused on technique as we started from my guard. She did her best to drive me into the cage, and I baited with a leg on the fence to spin away; she didn’t bite and we scrambled. Kept my hips moving and grabbed an outside half guard while working for a banana-splits sweep. I didn’t have the lockdown but managed to get it anyway. Though I probably could have muscled straight into the sub by pulling her leg past my head, I chose not to. Got to her guard, Bonaduce passed and backed her into the cage without being too much of a dick about it and using my weight advantage. Ended up in a bastardized twister side control threatening a kimura but decided to abandon it and restart from my guard in the center. The round ran out shortly thereafter. Pretty strong for her weight class and she’ll definitely give her opponent hell.

The next two rounds were with 3 newer guys, two of which I had at least 20lbs on, one was about my weight but very green behind the ears. Starting from my guard I had a heck of a time working a rubber guard for some reason and it seems I’ve lost flexibility after a layoff. Still, I scored two omoplatas, a Mir armlock, and a reverse, head/neck/arm armbar, and something else that I forgot.

I took a round off and then rolled with Jimmy, which means I basically spent the duration of the round trying to avoid getting submitted. I maintained top guard after starting from the knees while he worked a variation of a z-guard with me working to clear his hand off my neck. Felt I did pretty well for the most part but it was probably because he wasn’t in “tap or squeal” mode because he wasn’t digging bony parts of his appendages into soft parts of my neck/face/ribs/legs/etc. I attempted a knee wedge since he had a butterfly hook but couldn’t get it and we spent a bit of time doing micro-movement fighting for micro-superior position; a battle of inches, which of course I lost. I did manage to weasel my own hand onto my bicep to improve my grip on the wedge, but I knew there was no way I could then clear the hand controlling my neck to sit back and finish the sub. Abandoned it, worked for another Bonaduce pass and nearly got triangled but managed to defend by sitting on my heels and digging my chin into my chest to keep the arm away from the artery. I figured he’d switch to an armbar and was waiting for it. Got both arms past the guard for the pass, finally, but I guess he got tired of screwing around and before I could posture up to stack, he gable-gripped my head squeezed his thighs, and started to crank the crap out of my head/neck. I tapped before the full pressure came in, which surprised me a bit, but it was undoubtedly instinct mixed with experience; I knew that was going to hurt for at least 48 hours if I tried to tough it out.

I spent the remainder of the class working positions with one of the newer guys, one I outweighed by a good bit. Started him in side control, and had him try to maintain or improve to mount. Without using too much strength I was easily getting back to guard so I impressed upon him the need to keep me from getting space and to control or react to my hip movement. Started him in mount and he did a lot better, had decent balance and defended a few upas. Back was killing me for some reason (Saturday’s squat max attempt) so I’d lost a lot of my range of movement and flexibility. He defended a double under escape well but I finally got him, as well I goddamn should have. Props to the kid though, he stayed on the mat until class was over while I spent the last 5 minutes stretching and rolling my back on a medicine ball. What the christ? I guess it’s more ice and stretching for me today.

Like many people inextricably plugged-in to the Internet, I’ve been following the (hopefully) historic events in Iran over the past several days with a combination of horror and hope. Will we get to see the birth of a new, true democracy in the Middle East, or will tyranny slam its fist down upon the people?

But if you haven’t been keeping as much of an eye on the situation, here are a few key things that bear pointing out:

Mousavi, the candidate who lost the “election”, is also the former president of Iran. Under his watch in the 80’s, Iran began its nuclear weapons program. He has, smartly, positioned himself as the defacto head of the uprising, but is nowhere near as liberal as the majority of the people that comprise this movement.

There is an apparent power struggle going on between the Mullahs who appoint candidates for election, and it’s possible that Mousavi only seeks to shift the balance of power within the current system as opposed to what many of the protesters want, which is truly free elections and representative democracy as seen in the west.

The Basij are an extra-government branch of thugs chartered to keep order in support of the hard-line elements in the regime. Ahmadinejad, or “Dinner Jacket” as he’s been not-so-lovingly referred to in many tweets/facebook posts, was once a member of this group.

“Dinner Jacket” apparently was coined by our own former president, in reference to the man’s choice of wardrobe.

60% of Iran’s population is under the age of 30, and highly tech/internet savvy.

Anonymous has offered its support in the cause of free speech and open communication, for what that’s worth.

Fox News, for the most part, has been doing a surprisingly good job of coverage while CNN appears to be toeing the line with the Iranian regime to keep their access to the country. MSNBC has taken off for the weekend and is showing prisonsploitation documentaries. The BBC has apparently been kicked out of Iran (according to the latest news).

Twitter seems to be the primary outlet for most information despite the Basij smashing computers in universities and internet cafes, and the general internet crackdown across the country.

This post is to test the integration between my lonely and underused blog (www.phrost.com), Twitter, and Facebook; or as I like to call them “twbk”.  Please ignore.

Especially when your jujitsu coach is on Facebook: