President Bush met with Republican leaders this Thursday and apparently the President didn’t ask about Iraq at all.
But, I think these comments by Trent Lott are probably a good indication as to how ignorant the Republican leadership is in this country.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush barely mentioned the war in Iraq when he met with Republican senators behind closed doors in the Capitol Thursday morning and was not asked about the course of the war, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said.”No, none of that,” Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. “You’re the only ones who obsess on that. We don’t and the real people out in the real world don’t for the most part.”
Lott went on to say he has difficulty understanding the motivations behind the violence in Iraq.
“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”
September 29, 2006
My mom and I went grocery shopping today – oooooh exciting. We went to Safeway and I think that is now my favorite grocery store. Why would I write about a grocery store you ask?
Well, I got spoiled living in Portland. There were 2 organic grocery stores in a 1 mile radius from the house and the prices at those places was pretty reasonable. I would totally buy organic as much as I could/afford and it rocked.
Honolulu is a pretty expensive place to live – especially when it comes to groceries. Produce sucks here – most the stuff you buy is not “fresh” fresh. You can totally tell that the stuff has been in transit for a couple of weeks before you buy it. Fruit is labeled as ripe – but I don’t know what kind of definition the stores here use when it comes to ripeness. Like, say I’ll buy a ripe peach – it isn’t green or anything – but it will be as crunchy as an apple – go figure.
But, that’s a semi digression. I also got in the habit of buying just regular organic groceries whenever I could when I was in Oregon and that stuff is so expensive here, it’s depressing.
But Safeway makes me happy when it comes to grocery shopping. Why? Well, they have a store brand line of organic groceries called appropriately enough – “Organics.”
The best thing about Organics is that the products cost a little bit more than store brand stuff, but less than national brand stuff! For example – pasta was on sale today – regular sized bags – for $1/bag! The pasta sauce costs less than like Barila or any other brand like that. A box of 7 grain flake cereal was $3 compared to $6 for a box of cornflakes! How cool is that?
I am impressed that the stores here now carry more organic products, but the costs are too high for my budget right now. A organic grocer opened near Kahala this year and I have yet to check it out, but I could never find the place. Whole Foods is also supposed to be opening a store here within a year and I am excited about that.
September 28, 2006
Well, I haven’t been posting about my workouts because I kind of stopped working out for a couple of months. I just didn’t have the motivation to get up and shake it, but it is slowly coming back to me. 
I think part of the reason too is because most of the workouts I have are Firm workouts which get pretty damn repetitive after awhile. The same moves are used over and over again in their workouts and so even though I have a great variety of them, I just felt like I was doing the same workout over and over again with them. the Turbo Jams definitely spiced things up for awhile, but those all use the same moves over and over again too.
I am pretty gratefull that we have Ross stores here. Ross carries a lot of workout DVD’s for really cheap and although there are a lot of crappy ones there, they also periodically get some real gems in them too. The best part about getting DVD’s from Ross is that the prices are so damn cheap for most of them. I recently picked Get Ripped! and Get Ripped! with Jari Love: Get Ripped to the Core for $5 and $6 each!
I was pretty skeptical about these workouts because come on! What kind of workout would you expect from someone named Jari Love? But, I read a ton of positive reviews about them on the various message boards I read and picked them up since they were so cheap and I am so glad I did. These workouts are AWESOME! That’s right – AWESOME!
They are both high rep/low weight workouts that are about an hour long each, but they don’t really feel like they are that long. They are both toning workouts, but because there are so many reps done in a relatively short period of time, my heartrate really gets up there. I remember I was pretty surprised that Get Ripped! ended when it did because I was really enjoying it and actually wanted it to be longer. You get a pretty thorough full body workout, but I didn’t feel like I was killing myself like the Firm workouts make me feel.
Ripped to the Core, (RTTC), was another story though – that one is a lot tougher than Get Ripped! and some of the moves in that one are just killer. Kind of in the middle of the workout Jari has you do these things called spiders where you start in a push up position, then come down to your forearms like in plank, then back to a push up position and that just wiped me out.
I also recently picked up a Leslie Sansone video – Walk Away the Pounds Deluxe – which is 2 videos in one – again for less than the cost of a reglar DVD! Leslie Sansone has basically made a fortune with these Walk Away the Pounds videos. The one I got is pretty basic – lots of walking in place with a few kicks, sidesteps and knee ups for variety – it’s really simple, but it also kicked my ass since I am so out of shape again. I liked it though since the video was made up of all low impact moves and since the workout is only 30 minutes long, so far I haven’t experienced the dread factor when I popped it into the player. I can definitely mix and match it to either another short cardio or a short toning video for variety.
As much as I dread the Firm nowadays, I did recently pick up a couple of the new workouts that were released earlier this month – primarily because they are different from the older Firm workouts. I got 2 cardio workouts and 2 toning workouts. The cardio ones were ok. There is one which is called The Firm: Ultimate Fat Burning Workout and I am a little mixed on this one. I like and appreciate that it doesn’t use a step for cardio and that you only need a light set of dumbbells to do it. It’s also pretty much all low impact too.
This one really got my heart rate up there, but a several of the moves seemed kind of awkward and it’s based on the “Take It From the Top,” (TIFT), kind of instruction, which can get old and annoying after awhile. Tift’ng consists of learning one move and building on it and then repeating what you learned, add on another move and then repeat that and then learn another move and so on and so on. But then again, I’ve only done it once so I’ll see if I warm up to it more.
I also just received The Firm – Cardio Dance Slim Down and The Firm Sculpting Ball (4-Pound). I got them both on the same day from Amazon and decided to do them back to back since they are both kind of short and yikes! was I exhausted!
The Cardio Dance Slim down video was okay – I don’t think my heart rate got up there, but I don’t know if it is because it just wasn’t challenging enough or because I couldn’t really work it since I was just learning the moves – probably both. There are a lot of silly moves in this one – moves that look like you are brushing dandruff off your shoulders, combing your hair and a lot of boob thrusts. The boob thrusts are totally reminiscent of “I must, I must, I must increase my bust!” (Thank you Judy Blume!)
The sculpting ball workout is a real keeper though, but I wish I knew how to classify it. It’s not pure cardio and it’s not pure toning, so I guess it does fall into that nebulous category of Aerobic Weight Training. It was a lot of fun and pretty challenging – but that might have been because I did it after the dance workout. I got the 4 pound ball and at first I was a little worried that it was going to be too light for me, but I am glad that I got the 4 pounder instead. I need to build my shoulder strength up again and I really would have strained my shoulders if I had gotten the 6 pound ball instead.
I’ll do more thorough reviews of these DVD’s later on, I just wanted to give a short overview of my recent acquisitions.
September 24, 2006
