Review (DVD): Powerbody: Advanced Russian Kettlebell Workout with Phil Ross

Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Reviews (DVD Only)
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Phil Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars Single Best Value — Better than any book, October 20, 2013
After reading through Kettlebells For Dummies I have to conclude that this DVD by itself is vastly more useful than any book. This is a complete package offering 45 minutes of perfectly displayed instruction for a routine that can be completely in 30 minutes.

Introduction. Basics include flat shoe or barefoot. Chalk up and hydrate but you must complete the exercise in the allotted amount of time to achieve the optimal benefit. Do not settle for anything less than a cast iron single piece kettlebell. This stuff is DANGEROUS if you are not warmed up, trained up, and ready to do the relatively coordinated actions such as swinging a kettlebell up, letting go the handle, and catching it the palm of you hand. What impresses me about this advanced version is that it clearly is a full-body work out where bending of the knees, a straight back, flexible hips, and balance are essential.

Tutorial. In this section a series of exercises are demonstrated with ample words, ending with the towel halos using a single sixteen pound RK and swinging the RK around in a manner that is clearly a full body work-out. And dangerous. If you are not good at this you could let go and hurt someone — or be hurt by others not yet ready for this exercise.

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Review: The Volunteer The Incredible True Story of an Israeli Spy on the Trail of International Terrorists

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

cover volunteerMichael Ross and Jonathan Kay

4.0 out of 5 stars 50% Authentic, 25% Disinformation, 25% Unwitting, December 22, 2012

For those that do not know my background, I am a former clandestine case officer (spy) who has published widely on the craft of intelligence.

I received this book as a gift from the author, whom I have met, and whose talents in creating non-official cover and in teaching naive Americans how to create unofficial cover (something CIA cannot do), I believe in.

The book is 50% authentic and for that reason alone I recommend it be required reading for those being trained in the clandestine service. Although sometimes tedious, the level of detail that is provided is for me fully satisfactory and useful as a “drill” for appreciating the nature of a life under cover.

The emphasis on creating cover and sticking to cover even if you are certain you are going to die or be sent to a secret jail to rot for all eternity, is the key take-away from this book — with happy endings for those that stick to their cover.

Mossad is different from the clumsier Western services that live immunity rather than cover. Mossad is much more about direct action, from street-level surveillance and orientation photographs of specific human and organizational and potential sabotage targets, to placing beacons on ships smuggling arms so they can be sunk by unmarked aircraft or an Israeli submarine, or explosives on a car known to be enroute to a terrorist leader.

The observations on how the CIA and FBI cannot work together, even in counter-terrorism, are useful confirmation that little has changed since 9/11. The book first published in 2007, was updated in 2011.

From a counterintelligence perspective, the book provides a wonderfully clear picture of how long and how hard it would be to penetrate the Mossad with a false flag volunteer under control from the age of 18.

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Review: The Leaderless Revolution – How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century

4 Star, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Democracy, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Carne Ross

4.0 out of 5 stars 5 for Superficial Overview, 3 for Pretense, May 13, 2012

It is unfortunate that Amazon's superb “Look Inside the Book” has been limited by the publisher to only the introduction, as I would like the potential buyer to have a much greater feel for the book that the reviews or the few front pages can offer, before making a decision.

Here is the bottom line: nothing in this book is a new insight, and I am astonished by the claimed editorial reviews, as they seem oblivious of the decades of work by others in the areas of co-evolution, panarchy, collective intelligence, hybrid governance, open source everything, small is beautiful, human scale, Epoch B, resilience, intelligence at the edges of the network, etcetera. In other words, this book is more of a “quickie” book, not at all the “deeply researched” effort that is claimed, and it is at best a survey that barely scratches the surface of my two master lists, of lists of book reviews I have done here at Amazon, a means of reading all my reviews sorted into many categories (including the future of democracy, of capitalism, etcetera). The positive list is the one to focus on for everything that this author attempts to convey, and points to many of the sources that the book does not cite. Both lists were the foundation for my 2010 book listed below after my name. The negative list documents the obvious, but with a structure that has been lacking in critiques to date, most are incoherent for lack of an analytic model. To get to the link, just search for full name of the list as shown below.

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Review: GLOBAL PREDATOR – U.S. Wars for Empire

6 Star Top 10%, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Stewart Halsey Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars for Coherence, Simplicity, & Morality,April 1, 2012

I read a lot — over 1800 books (including some DVDs) here at Amazon, in 98 categories, all but one non-fiction. This book is by a self-taught historian and self-described contrarian revisionist, and I will observe with the utmost respect that this author writes in the same vein, with the same quality, as Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project), and even Carroll Quiqley's Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time.

What makes this book spectacular–and strongly recommended for anyone–student or adult–who desires to understand the history of the United States of America with intelligence and integrity–is the elegantly straight-forward but devastatingly disturbing blend of facts–with superb notes at the end of each chapter.

I am very disappointed that the publisher has not taken advantage of Amazon's absolutely priceless “Look Inside the Book” feature, so I will take the time here to list chapters and appendices.

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Review DVD: American Drug War: The Last White Hope

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Reviews (DVD Only), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Drug War
Amazon Page

This is a very serious movie and I volunteered to appear in it, April 22, 2008

Tommy Chong

I must disclose that I came into this movie at the very end when the brilliant producer realized I could provide a few bits that would bring it all together. I volunteered my time because I felt then–and I feel now–that this film was totally righteous. So I am listed as one of the “actors” but unlike some of them for whom file clips were used, I was taped speaking about this specific situation for this specific movie.

Our government is BROKEN. The civil servants and uniformed personnel are good people trapped in a bad system–a cesspool. Standing above them, hoarding the wealth, the power, and the personal privilege, are “elected” officials and their appointed cronies that have no business at all governing this great nation. They are inept and should be dismissed. We need a Constitutional Convention, an end to the Elctoral College, and deep Electoral, Financial, and National Security Reforms.

See also:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
The Bush Tragedy

I have tagged this DVD with the word treason, because that is what CIA, DEA, the FBI, and the White House are guilty of when they protect drug wholesalers and allow entire neighborhoods to go down the crack drain, not because of Ricky Ross, but because of high crimes and misdemeanors all the way up the chain above him.

In my world, accountability is supposed to start and be enforced from the top down, not the bottom up. I hold John Deutch and later George Tenet accountable for failing to manage all five of the CIAs (the Wall Street CIA, the White House CIA, the front CIA, the paramilitary CIA, and the sodomy Safari Club CIA). I can only imagine the counterparts in DEA and the FBI and other elements of the government with the power to commit treason and get away with it while making a personal profit from the power We the People have assigned to them.

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Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Sara Nora Ross

Alpha Q-U, Collective Intelligence
Sara Nora Ross
Sara Nora Ross

Sara Ross, Ph.D., holds an interdisciplinary doctorate in Psychology and Political Development. She specializes in investigating and applying knowledge of universal patterns to analyze and address real-world problems in all their detailed complexity. She is the founder of ARINA (www.global-arina.org), which is both the home of TIP and the publisher of Integral Review: A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal for New Thought, Research, and Praxis (http://integral-review.org).

Meta-intelligence for analysis, decisions, policy, and action:

The Integral Process for working on complex issues

The Book
The Book