Human Devolution

I was just over at ditllo2.blogspot.com (good shit) and there were links to a pair of Bigger, Faster, Stronger articles. The author explained that she had attended a squat seminar put on by some expert. I was disgusted to read that when the expert mentioned that the squat was a "flexion-extension" exercise the author wondered if she was "out of her league".

What? If this idea is making you question yourself what the fuck do you think you're doing writing articles about squatting?? This only further reinforces my pre-existing notion that BFS is for mother loving retards. Seriously, the equipment they advertise is shitty to look at and poorly designed. I understand that this is mostly for high school level coaches and athletes but has no one read even one of Pavel's books? The stuff this guy talked about was very basic stuff, or should be, and the writer of a national level publication is ignorant of it.

The world just keeps getting dumber. The expert recommends a cardio warm up and then a series of twelve (!) exercises to warm up the joints and proprioceptors. Hmm, you cold do that or you could work up to your working weight and then do a supra maximal walk out like people who squat 900 lbs do. For some reason I'd be slightly more inclined to trust them than some pencil pusher. This is not complicated stuff.

Here's a nugget of pure gold: most squatting dysfunction has to do with the alignment of the metatarsal bone of the big toe. This dysfunction can be corrected using a home made orthotic made with about 25 cents of material. Once the correct proprioception adjusts the kinetic chain then the orthotic becomes useless.

Part of the issue is that most dummies squat in running shoes. This is death for your proprioceptors. One  of my clients started deadlifting bare foot and said he didn't even need to focus on contracting his glutes because they just did it by themselves.

BFS recently ran a an article saying that the Romanian deadlift was a useless exercise for weightlifters. A ha. Weightlifters with what skeletal ratios? Weightlifters with which lifting style? Weightlifters with which weaknesses? This is just fluff writing, there is nothing there that is substantial. These people are so stupid as to not even understand their field and then talk about it as if they do, they're so dumb as to not even know how dumb they are.

Some people say doing snatch pulls won't help your snatch, they will if your pull kinematics are the problem and if you address that issue in the form you use in the pull. You can't really say anything for sure because you are dealing with one of the most complex structures ever discovered.

Everything will work if you do it right and nothing will work if you do it wrong. Right and wrong are subjective and determined minute by minute and case by case. The issue here is that this means that you must A) pay attention; and B) have the ability and intelligence to analyze what is happening and compare it with what should be happening (goal dependant). I realize that this is way beyond what most people are interested in or capable of doing. But I know there some of you who can and that this will help them. So it is to you, living human being, that I dedicate this article to. We are the future and the chaff will fall by the wayside and fertilize our successes.

BFS you are chaff.

R-CAF Staff Blast

This is why the TRX and 98% of trainers can suck my balls.

Who the fuck doesn't have 11 minutes?

Those 1's are unsettling.

Excuse my lackadaisical scan job.

Campy as as fuck? I think so. Solid routine? Yeah, except for the leg exercise and the sit ups. When you sit up, curl up your torso like a sardine can lid, don't hinge at the waist as is shown and keep your low back in contact with the floor. Replace that leg shit with lunge switches. Oh yeah, no one knows what those are...

What a Lunge Switch is:

Drop into a lung e position. Use a long stance to work you butt and hamstrings use a shorter stance to work your quads. From this lunge position jump up into the air and switch your legs around so that you land in the opposite lunge. If you started with your left leg forward then land with your right forward. Super easy, super dope. Use them.

It's free!

The book I scanned this from is from the 1960's and I'm in no risk of copyright infringement. Notice how no equipment is required. No TRX, no yoga mats, no stupid gimmicky shit. Just your body and some floor. Fitness is free people!

Don't fuck around: it's free, it's 11 minutes, it's 5 mother loving exercises, what more could you possibly want? A hand to hold? Get to it you soft, weak pile of custard-like shit.

 

If you pansies want one of the more advanced charts you'll have to show me a video of you scoring an A+.

Nicoflex and Elbow Warmers

Part two of my "My Arms Hurt Worse than Eight Bitches on a Bitch Boat" series...

So: my arms hurt. A lot. I guess this is what I get for hammering the fuck out of and setting PRs in: Floor Press, Push Press, Band Bench and Russian Tricep Blaster all in one week. Oh and by the way, the "Russian Tricep Blaster's" name is intentionally cheesey sounding, that's how Pavel rolls. Long story short: this is the end of my three week wave cycle, I gave it what I had and I got what I wanted and I paid the price. Luckily I have Nicoflex and elbow warmers (and Traumeel!).

Ramblings:
Go buy your self some guns and build yourself some too, it's fun. Actually learn about what art is, watch that documentary about that French climber dude who keeps getting arrested. Stop watching TV, Big Bang Theory makes you dumber and less fractal, I've done tests. Research UFOs (most are fake) and how the astronauts made it safely through the Van Allen Belt (?). Do something for the world and fuck the police, ICP and the Queen of England. Remember you aren't the center of the universe! Do what you want to as long as it doesn't harm another and fuck all other "law", you decide what you are a party to!!

Behold a Pale Horse

Actually a pale fat guy and a pale skinny guy. Who dress like clowns....kind of.

Okay due to my mainstream media allergy, I'm probably the last person to find out about this but I can still register my shock, disgust and doomsday angst (jokes) over Insane Clown Posse's song "Miracles". I though Tupac was gay as fuck for writing all of those bouncy shitty pop shit tracks and being the worst musician ever but ICP had to be tied or a close second. I remember in the glory (?) days of ICP when they rapped (?) about jamming broken glass in peoples ears. Now they rap (?) about the miracles of everyday life? Get your shovel out and start digging your doomsday shelter because hell has just frozen over in the gayest way possible:

I warn you though: this is probably gayer than two guys fucking each other, so don't watch unless you've got some Pepto or something.

This is just too much, these guys are their own worst enemies. I don't even need to make fun of this.

Here this is a way better version: SNL's "Way Better" version.

Everyday was a miracle until ICP got in on it....

“Thrive” Commentary, Part One

This film was the work of primarily the host and narrator Foster Gamble who has eyes that are very close together : ) He claims to have found a code that unites the functioning of all natural systems. This is not new and he didn’t come up with this idea. The ideas, as he shows, have been around for seemingly as long as man has used ‘civilization’. He goes on to say that in fact the torus is the primary three dimensional representation of this code and that all super-complex (i.e. living) systems use this torus and associated “vector equilibrium” to compress/decompress (move) the latent energy of the universe into a self organizing pattern of natural balance.

I’m pretty much on board with this. Chaos theory/non-linear dynamics posit that any super complex system can, in essence, be summed up by a very simple attractor pattern. This means, in short, that ultra complexity or “randomness” is , in fact, quite ordered on a higher (or lower depending on how you look at it) order of magnitude. This is the foundational principle for Hermetics, Freemasonry, Alchemy, Tarot, the “magical” arts and divination.  As for the torus: Einstein posited that gravity was the product of infinite non-destructive compression and the inwardly rotating torus beautifully exemplifies this.

Here’s where the issues I have with this film attitude become very apparent. The host goes on later in the film to explain how this type of compression shape can be used to create amazing new free energy technologies to save our troubled world from the debt based financial monopoly that a few banks have on the populace. What? Technology? That’s where learning that you are a fractal of the entire universe leads? Jesus fuck people: you are the f’ing technology!! The universe has been developing your body/energy system for BILLIONS of years! ANY technology we could build is total shit compared to what we already are. Does anyone realize how incredibly complex the simple act of catching a ball is? Or getting dressed? Or anything we do?

I guess this kind of “come in halfway” thinking is what we get from the formally educated. You’ll always be as dumb as your teacher.

Anyway, I want you dear reader, to start thinking about what you would do if you woke up one day and realized that you were the most powerful human on Earth and not in some childish, comic book, “superpowers’, ego fantasy way. The reality is: if you choose to accept it you are the most powerful person on Earth and you can do anything. I’m not saying it’s easy, I mean we hardly even understand what power is anymore so learning what it is and how to use it will very difficult.

Here is a very simple aspect of the power I’m talking about. Your senses bring in literally millions of data points every second. All of them except for about forty are filtered out as being ‘irrelevant’. What determines the relevance of the data? Your subconscious program directives. If you have decidedly programmed, through mental input, that you like hot blondes then your subconscious mind will make sure that the detection of a hot blond ends up in the forty or so things that enter your conscious perception. The issue comes in that we have been turning over the programming of our subconscious minds to anyone who asks: bosses, teachers, gurus, the state, corporate media, etc. Perhaps the most hilarious aspect of this is that you still think that you are doing the thinking!

The conscious mind that most people are familiar with as their mind is only a front end. A staging area. Much like in a theater production, we only see the front of a very large, highly skilled, well executed and orchestrated effort. There is a whole world going on backstage that we have no clue even exists and the quality of the show has a direct correlation to who is running things backstage.  We as individuals have pimped out our director’s seat to a shill. Now we spend our day getting him danishes and coming up with excuses why we need him although it seems rather clear to the rest of the cast and crew that the show has suffered from his inclusion.

Fire your bosses, professors and politicians. Your power is for you. You are the most amazing system we have ever encountered and your potential is so vast we don’t have any clue of it’s limits. End communication.

Get Pavelized

My fucking arms hurt worse than eight bitches on a bitch boat. Why? The "Russian Tricep Blaster". This exercise was brought to my attention in ex-commando Pavel Tsatsouline's brilliant work "Beyond Bodybuilding", the man is a genius. You can tell because everyone in the fitness industry uses his stuff but no one will even say his name. Anyhoo, I do this "Tricep Blaster" with an EZ bar, Pavel would probably running, backflipping hatchet attack me if he knew, so let's keep that bit secret.

This is the finest tricep exercise I have ever used next to ring dips with shit ton of added weight (110lbs to be exact, you may hold your applause...). If you aren't doing them, do them: but don't bother if you aren't doing anything. These are for hardcores only, as the puny won't be able to use enough weight for them (the tricep blasters) to perform their most advantageous function: the activation of the two lazy heads of the tricep. I like four sets of four on max effort day and four sets of four with a 4010 tempo on dynamic day. Good shit and as Pavel says: enjoy the pain.

And get your elbow warm on.

Seven Squids Holding Hands

Built a benching bench today. $15 worth of wood and 12 #10 3 1/2" screws. All told it took less than thirty minutes of actual work, including cleanup. Two people jumped up and down on top of it. It's solid.

The wood, I didn't even use those 2x4s.

The design, all 2x12.

Finished - ish.

My old bench, you'd be stunned at the shit I've done with this.

Max Effort bench day tomorrow...

Make your own TRX for $18 and no effort

Scum Floats

I went to Home Depot today. I bought two tie-down straps for eight bucks each. They had FOUR ratcheting tie down straps available for fifteen bucks. The only reason I didn't buy them is that the spring buckles on the ones I bought are are super mega easy to adjust.

Eight dollars a piece, 400lb rating per strap.

I took them home, took them out of their package, and less than five minutes later: TRX.

I've used this set up for dips, so good so far, I hung all of my bodyweight on one strap and bounced. They're solid. Also fully adjustable. While I was there, I found a ceiling mount that supports three hundred pounds. It was six bucks. I didn't buy it because I was planning to use these straps on the chin up bar pictured. So for $24 you could have your very own TRX from off the shelf hardware and zero modifications. Did I mention that the TRX doesn't even come with a ceiling mount?

$35!! I found a mount at Home Hardware for $6!! 300lbs not enough? Buy two!!

I DIDN'T EVEN TRY, I JUST DID THE EASIEST THING POSSIBLE. If you sewed something or bought strapping and buckles from a supplier that sells that kind of thing, you could do this even cheaper and better than I did and what I did was SO CHEAP AND EASY that I am still in disbelief. As for the TRX workout DVDs, go on you tube: there are shit tons of how to videos on there, you could be TRXing your brains out in no time.

But wait there's more.

Rope, people. You could use rope. Or an extension cord, OR ANYTHING. But why? This is a really shitty workout idea, the best things you can do with it are dips and ab rollouts. Good exercises. But lets face it: that is incredibly far from a productive workout. You don't need this at all. How many of you can do five one arm push ups? Or five one leg squats? Hello!? McFly!? Anybody home!? Got a rock? Got a body? Got some floor? Yes, of course you do! The problem is that most of you don't have any goddamn brains. I should be a bit more generous: you are here reading this so I guess there is hope for you after all. Stay posted, I'm going to make a bench.

Re-Militarized Zone

A Brief Interlude

So the TRX is gay and everyone knows. The only way it could get any gayer is if it joined the most notoriously gay thing the world: the Army. The Navy is pretty gay too but it was designed by Navy SEALS so the Navy's seamen are all over it already (!?). 

It's 'strapping ' (pun), 'ruggedized' and it's the Navy's latest fling.

 This is the TRX Force Kit. This is actually gayer and a bigger rip off than the original TRX. I know, who thought it was possible, right? Check this out, this is from their website: "Now including two TRX FORCE Training DVD's (wow, they train you in the force?!), ruggedized Guide, running bag, door anchor and Xtender Strap". So for fifty dollars ($50) more I get two dollars worth of added strapping and my guide "ruggedized"? That thing on the left is the "running bag", you know, because I'll want my TRX when I'm on patrol in Iraq killing civilians who try to help me (this happened). If busted, I can plant it on them and claim they were going to hang me with it (too bad they didn't). The irony being that it would take the income from like five Iraqi families to purchase even one TRX. Then there's the "Xtender strap" why does this sound like this is the name for some kind of penis enlarging undergarment? I guess we know who their clientele are...

Militarization of Motivation 

Why is no one concerned with the overt militarization of the fitness industry? Look at these Rogue bumper Plates:

What the the fuck is there a grenade doing there? Seriously these would be dope plates, I would buy them, if it weren't for this shit. Why do the gutless wastes flock to bootcamps? Why is military type "motivational" mind fucking in vogue? I'm trying to understand this: you are so weak, mentally and emotionally, that you need a surrogate to "make" you workout? Your scarred (yes scarred) and cowering self entrenches itself behind the towering militarized ego fantasy of hierarchical safety to achieve yet another facet of ego dominated obsession: looks. So the public at large is so emotionally damaged as to submit their individuality to another so as to achieve the illusion of health? This is like 1984, "ignorance is knowledge", "war is peace", "insanity is health". This extends well beyond the fitness industry. Oh and by the way the reason we use the term fitness is actually a reference to "being fit to serve" in the armed forces. You think fitness has to do with your health or well being? Give me a break, the industry exists to a) make money by fucking you in the ass, and b) make sure there will be a high enough percentage of "fit" individuals should they require some canon fodder for one of their hostile corporate takeovers, oops, I mean "liberations". I mean doesn't it seem like protein bars and powders and supplements are analogs to rations? Keep you alive long enough to empty your magazine (wallet) and then, hey, who gives a fuck what happens to you after that. North America you are being mind fucked to the nth degree. War is a business and you are the employees. Quit.

 

Life’s a Bitch and It’s Back in Heat

                Your beliefs are holding you back. Back before anyone had ever heard of a 500lb bench, people thought it was impossible, now there are high school kids benching this weight. That’s right you’re getting out benched by a kid and the hilarious part is it’s because you’re afraid. You may in your conscious mind have a hollow sense of bravado thinking, “no way man, I’m hardcore, I’d love a shit heavy bench” but underneath your childish macho bravado; your subconscious mind is cowering in a corner wetting itself.

                I’m sure that most of you, at some point in your lives, have known some kind of freak, a mutant, someone who didn’t react to hardship like the “rest of us”. Someone who could handle workout stress or job stress or relationship stress with ease and seemed to prosper despite extreme fan hitting shit. A lot of the guru’s and science types will be inclined to heap tribute upon the golden calf of genetics but what no one seems to realize, although they will admit to portions of this, is that your genes are activated and deactivated by your body’s chemistry. Who controls your body’s chemistry? You fucking do and don’t give me some shit that you don’t, who feeds it? Who bathes it? Who stuffs it full of shit take out and processed fuckery? You. Your bench sucks because you do and your life sucks because you do, it’s not your genetics fault and it’s not your parent’s fault. Your suckitude is because of your choice.

                As should be obvious to even the most dimwitted of readers, your hormones have a huge effect on your body chemistry. Who controls your hormones? Wait for it… YOU! How do you do it? Get this: change your perception of the world. To illustrate what I mean let’s do a thought experiment: let’s say you’ve gotten into a fight at a bar with some guy who turned out to be a Russian and now you’re dead and they’re rushing into the ER to resuscitate you. After like twenty minutes they finally manage to bring you back to life but you’re brain dead. Your body is alive but you have no ability to perceive anything because a Russian caved your dome in, now the only time you’ll have a cortisol response is when there is a physical stressor such as dehydration or cold. While putting your doctor’s kids through college your zombie corpse will experience no testosterone elevating feelings of sexual accomplishment or social dominance. More or less, your brain dead body will have virtually no changes in hormonal state and will maintain a fairly consistent body chemistry, assuming that all other exogenous factors required for homeostasis are stable, which they will be because YOU AREN’T CONTROLLING THEM!

These are the kind of Russians I want to run into in a bar.

Unless they’re with this guy…

                Well what the hell does this mean, I hear you ask? Well, because you are able to perceive, unlike the vegetable, you can directly control your hormonal and biochemical state to a large degree just by changing how you feel/think about your situation. If you tank on a set of squats and feel defeated, your T levels drop. On the other hand if you destroy the set, and you feel dominant and powerful and your T levels will elevate. “You can’t always kick ass” you rebut, to which I respond with, “who can’t?”. You can’t because you just told me you can’t, you just told me that your belief is limiting your performance and that your belief is more important to you than changing into a stronger person. But even beyond that, who decides how you react to tanking or to dominating? Again (this is getting repetitive) the answer is you! This is getting me a little worked up because it’s so f’ing simple, did you know that during a study, I don’t remember exactly which one, subjects who were told they were on steroids made almost the same gains as a group that was taking steroids? How many ways do I need to say this? You are in control if you take control!! Enough ranting, let’s get to some training.

How to Kick Ass and Chew Bubble Gum

If you don’t get this reference go immediately to your bedroom and hang yourself.

                The training mentioned in the last section will not be of the physical type, you’re going to be training your behaviors to control your hormones>biochemistry>”genes”. First of all, you all are going to have to accept that no matter how badass you think you are: you suck, you’re mortal, you suck at guitar, your girlfriend isn’t a machine gun wielding Russian superfox and you aren’t Rowdy Roddy. This isn’t bad, it’s just true. Everyone sucks hard at some things. In fact it’s good. Now you get to accept the challenge of training, of becoming a stronger and more dynamic personality, of being a real person instead of a fake, ego cushioning illusion of one. Secondly, with the firm knowledge that we suck in one hand we must in the other hand carry confidence that we can move beyond sucking. Look at Ronnie Coleman in the gym, he’s yelling shit like “Light Weight!” and “Ain’t nothing but a peanut”. Look at this symbolically, he wouldn’t say (let alone yell) anything about the weight if he wasn’t in some capacity threatened by it so he is admitting that he is fallible, but he is at the same time saying, “I can overcome (this peanut)”. Use that, it allows you to use your fear instead of just pretending it’s not there, why do you think humans even feel fear? For no reason? Fuck no, it’s there because it’s supposed to help you but you manage to fuck it all up. Let your fear help you tighten up your muscles, let it help you pay attention to what you’re doing instead of fucking around with goddamn text messages (you f’ing narcissistic prick, what makes you think you’re important enough to need to be contacted at any time?) and if you’re not doing anything in your life that makes you afraid, why are you on this site? Why do you lift weights? What the fuck kind of subhuman CHUD motherfucker are you? Why do you even live?

                Anyway, let’s move on to a less esoteric application (?). The Russians (yes the fucking Russians again) used a wacky Shaolin technique with their elite athletes and special operators involving relaxation, to put the brain in a relaxed, receptive brain wave state; and then used careful and disciplined visualization to program new beliefs into the subconscious mind thus releasing subconscious blocks to progress. Pavel writes that “you are already strong enough to lift a car” or something like that because mothers have lifted cars off their infants without specific training to do so, basically the idea is that you have so much strength that your brain is afraid of using it so it bases your strength levels off of what you believe is possible (no I’m not ignoring feedback loops but they can be overridden if ordered to do so!), or in other words, your perception of your reality. So because your subconscious mind is massively powerful and regulates all of your body’s systems, including strength levels, you need to learn to talk to it and it’s doesn’t understand English, it only knows symbols and images. So here’s the gist of the combined Russian/Shaolin technique:

Relax:

-          Lay down or sit comfortably and close your eyes

-          Place your attention on your feet, feel all of the tension draining out of them until there is none, “turn them off” and move to the next bodypart in sequence, the calves, and repeat the same “relax and turn off” procedure

-          Continue in this fashion until you have relaxed your whole body

-          When you are totally relaxed you are ready for visualization

Visualize:

-          See yourself in the situation you are going to work on

-          Try to be accurate, if you are imagining yourself at the gym, add in all the sounds, smells and textures (and dummies pissing you off)

-          Imagine yourself overcoming the problem but don’t diminish the difficulty of the problem, if you’re benching a shit ton it has to hurt, be heavy and be hard as fuck to do

-          Visualize how you’ll overcome the specific issues you are encountering, like if you’re stalling somewhere in a lift: tightening your guts, gripping the fuck out of the bar and flexing the appropriate muscle group, feel what it’s like to do that

-          All in all you are really just practicing the situation in your mind, with positive results, so you can show your subconscious mind what you want it to do/let you do
 

Yes, that Shaolin.

To Sum This Whole Fucker Up

            You suck like a Chinese prostitute, hard (and for a good price). You have the raw power to change yourself. You just need the confidence, the balls, to accept challenge into your life; and to embrace what fear will teach you. To triumph over yourself. Admit your weakness, use your fear of life to power your dominance and ultimately overcome it. Also you can use Soviet Shaolin.

References:

-          Your fucking mom. Seriously.

-          Do some fucking experimentation for once instead of blindly accepting something as fact because it has a fucking reference, science, contrary to popular perception is BASED ON EXPERIMENTATION, DO SOME, make up your own fucking mind about something and stop being such a goddamn slave!

TRX Suspension Trainer: total scam or do the insanely stupid deserve what they get?

I was doing some research today and came across an ad for the TRX Suspension Trainer. Now this isn't a new piece of equipment to me, I have seen one at a Gold's Gym I was at with a client and also a I had seen one at one of my clients houses. I thought, "hey finally the unwashed masses can get a reasonable pair of gymnastic rings at a decent price", I, having had an issue with this in the past, had constructed my own from fiberglass and Styrofoam SM. Then I saw this ad today: "only" $199.95 (!!!). Only?

I'm going to start with the price first and then move on to the actual thing. I can buy an Olympic bar (a shitty Chinese one mind you) and plates for $200. I can, with aforementioned barbell, train using the exercises that the best football players, the fastest sprinters, the biggest bodybuilders, the highest jumpers and the farthest throwers use. The barbell is the most versatile piece of exercise equipment ever designed. For any goal. "But the TRX allows you to use your own body weight!", oh my, awesome, I get to use a weight that isn't adjustable!(?) What a good deal! "you can manipulate the intensity of the exercises by using less range of motion", sweet, I only get to use the most useful form of the exercise after I've majored in the least useful forms of it!(??). That makes total sense and ,hey, at that price how could I afford not to buy it?

What the TRX is and isn't.

 As you can see the TRX's patented Navy SEAL designed hyper-alloy chassis is.... two straps and some buckles. Wow, those Navy SEALS are smart, five dollars worth of webbing, five dollars worth of buckles, (I'll be generous) five dollars worth of other shit, comes out to a grand total of....drum roll please....fifteen bucks! I hope some Navy SEALS somewhere are getting fucking shit rich off this scam because as we all know the government won't take any responsibility for them. What is the TRX? Two straps and some buckles. What isn't it? A good buy, a smart training concept, hardcore, effective, better or even on par with a pair of rings I can BUY for $80, something I can't make myself for fifteen bucks that's better. North America you are the dumbest continent on the planet because these assholes make money off you. You know what else is an incredibly stupid scam that was made up by Navy SEALS? The Perfect Push Up handles and the Perfect Pull Up handles, which is an equally vociferous and inflammatory rant. From what I see of the Navy SEALS designs it makes sense why they are sent into war to get killed rather than designing exercise equipment.

In short the TRX is perfect for people who are so insanely stupid and weak as to shit their panties at the mere thought of actually doing anything productive. It is the perfect piece of equipment for people who want to live in a make believe world of insubstantial busywork and fraudulent idolatry, so it's good for: bankers, tax collectors, politicians, trophy wives, the spoiled, retards, anyone involved in organized religion, TV watchers, Kevin Smith fans and anyone else who is basically a total, tragic waste of our (humans) air and water. If you own one of these, it would be advisable for you to go directly to your bedroom and hang yourself (you can use your TRX!)

Chocolate Bunnies and Child Sacrifice: Easter fun for everyone!

Easter, this is an anglicized version of the word/name Ishtar who is the renamed Babylonian queen-goddess Semiramis. Semiramis (Ishtar) married her son Nimrod (who was worshiped as a god-king) who (allegedly) was a great grandson of Noah. Nimrod was killed by one of his enemies and was dismembered, his body parts were distributed all over Babylon. His mother/wife Semiramis collected all of them except his penis, she said that because the the corpus of Nimrod was incomplete he could not be revived (?) and that he had ascended to heaven and become the sun and was to be worshiped by the name Baal. Baal would be present at any worship in the form of flame. Semiramis was the name of the Queen, after the death of her son/husband Nimrod, she posited herself as an immaculately conceived goddess: Ishtar. She was born of the Moon Goddess (the moon) an came to earth in a "moon egg" an landed in the Euphrates river. Ishtar became pregnant, she claimed that she was impregnated by the rays of Baal (her son/the sun) and "immaculately conceived" the new god king of Babylon: Tammuz. Tammuz loved rabbits and incorporate his veneration for them into the religion he was a major figurehead in. One day, while hunting, Tammuz was killed by a wild boar. Ishtar told the apparently incredibly gullible Babylonians that Tammuz had ascended to heaved with his father Nimrod/Baal and both of them would be present at worship in the flame as father, son and spirit. Ishtar told the people that when Tammuz had been killed by the boar that some of his blood had been spilled onto the stump of a felled evergreen and a new tree sprung from the stump overnight. Ishtar then dedicated a time of mourning every year for the fallen Tammuz in which no meat was to be eaten (advent) and his death and rebirth into heaven would be marked with an evergreen tree (christmas). There was also a time of celebration to be observed on the first full moon after the spring equinox (Ishtar's immaculate moon egg conception day), for four days the worshipers would hand sign a t over their hearts and eat special cakes crossed with a t. On the Sun-day a pig was to be eaten to pay respect to their fallen god king. The Phonecain cult of Moloch (Tammuz, post Babylon) required the sacrifice of children. We still engage in that sacrifice today: war. We mark our sacrifice with Ishtar's star and send them out to die for our entertainment, oops, I mean to appease the gods. The lineage of this belief system stretches back to at least 4800 BC in Egypt. Archeo-anthropological studies of the history of human warfare show that war is a reletively recent phenomena beginning about 6500 years ago (!). Anyone putting together that war is in fact human sacrifice? And human sacrifice is a product of severely demented religious ideals? Ever notice how many high ranking politicians and priests go out to war? Yeah. Happy Ishtar everyone.