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Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Today's Internets - "Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious." - Rumi

FML: "Today, I found out that my wife makes mashed potatoes by using her dirty feet to crush the potatoes because apparently this is a "healthy, natural" way to make them, and it also cleans her feet. I've been eating her mashed potatoes at least once every week. FML"

You don't say.
As church attendance drops, Europe's most Catholic country seeks modern pope - World News: "“Well-educated young people from the cities are leaving the church,” said Marej Zajac, a writer for the Polish Roman Catholic weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny."

Scott Adams Blog: Market Manipulators - Clarification 03/04/2013: ""I'm glad you had the wisdom to get a cartoonist's opinion on global financial markets.    The 20% estimate is based on the fact that 20 is a big round number and more likely to happen than 30%. I don't like to over-think these things.    My reasoning is that the people at the highest levels of finance are brilliant people who chose a profession with the credibility of astrology. And they know it. Then they sell their advice to people who don't know it. So that's your cast of characters.    Now consider that the characters - who are literally geniuses in many cases - have an immense financial motive, opportunity, and a near-zero risk of getting caught. How do you think that plays out?"


Fat Head » Two Studies of hearthealthywholegrains: "The reported increase in celiac isn’t due to better diagnosis, however.  As Dr. William Davis explained in Wheat Belly, the rate of celiac disease really and truly has gone up – it’s quadrupled, in fact.  We know that because researchers found blood samples taken from soldiers 50 years ago and compared them to blood samples taken from soldiers today.  Sure enough, today’s soldiers were four times more likely to have celiac antibodies in their blood. As for the argument that gluten intolerance is all in our heads, perhaps a double-blind study would answer that.  You know, feed some subjects foods containing gluten, feed other subjects similar foods without gluten, with neither group knowing which foods they’re eating.  If only someone had conducted such a study…

… oh, wait.  It’s been done, as reported in a New York Times article about gluten sensitivity: Crucial in the evolving understanding of gluten were the findings, published in 2011, in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, of an experiment in Australia. In the double-blind study, people who suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, did not have celiac and were on a gluten-free diet were given bread and muffins to eat for up to six weeks. Some of them were given gluten-free baked goods; the others got muffins and bread with gluten. Thirty-four patients completed the study. Those who ate gluten reported they felt significantly worse."

...Every time I tracked down a study purporting to prove the benefits of whole grains, the comparison was between people consuming whole grains and people consuming white flour.  All we can determine from those studies is that whole grains aren’t as bad for us as white flour.  To prove whole grains have real benefits, we’d have to compare people who eat whole grains to people who eat no grains."


Mitt Romney's still an idiot and a hypocrite.
Mitt Romney Thinks He Lost the Election Because of ObamaCare - Hit & Run : Reason.com: " former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that his campaign “underestimated” the attractiveness of ObamaCare, particularly among people with lower incomes. Given the health law’s sagging poll numbers, it’s hard to make a strong case that ObamaCare helped seal the deal for the president...

...More importantly, Romney has long viewed ObamaCare as basically a good idea. He passed its state based predecessor in Massachusetts, and he repeatedly touted it as a model for the nation. He also chose his top campaign adviser, Stuart Stevens, in large part because Stevens broke from other GOP consultants in telling Romney that he didn’t need to disavow the Massachusetts health care plan.

...You can imagine this frustrating Romney. When RomneyCare passed back in 2006, a lot of folks in Massachusetts viewed it as a bid for the presidency: Romney was going to run as the Republican who made health care reform happen. It was going to be his signature achievement. Instead, it turned out to be Obama's, and Romney was stuck in the deeply awkward position of defending the Massachusetts overhaul while taking a hard line against the president's."

Pizza Level: Asian.

LOL.
» The War On Pubes - Unleash The Beef: "The article, aside from expressing the pseudo-shock of its author, recounts the shock one mother experienced upon catching sight of her fifteen-year-old daughter’s fully-shaved baby-station, despite the fact that Mommy had, for years, taken the same newly-pubeless daughter along with her to have professionals wax out her own giney town. “[T]he fact that a significant number of girls barely past puberty think going ‘bare floor’ or even Brazilian is desirable just kills me,” cries the bush-cherishing Ferrier. Well, if it kills you, good riddance...

The inability of others to differentiate between your genitals and a muskrat is not desirable in 2011. Hell, most males are rocking a high and tight cock-fade these days, never mind the absence of pubes on the fairer sex. 

...We’ve long since established, as a society, that a hairy female body is not desirable. You shave your legs. You shave your armpits. Why? Because you want to be desired. And men don’t desire hairy legs and armpits. If you’re really unfortunate, you also shave your moustache. These behaviors, designed to attract mates, are perfectly acceptable, but shaving one’s vajeezy – the most desirable spot – is horrific? That is insane!"

Not to mention bathing, perfume, clothing, cutting hair, hairstyle and and all the other "unnatural" things we all do to make ourselves more attractive, in one way or another...

"Another point that bothers me, besides everything, is the mentioning that this pube-shaven teen’s mom, regardless of whether or not her daughter is actually sexually active, is “appalled” that her daughter is “thinking of that area in that way.” Holy parental mindfuck. Are we serious? A mother of a teenage daughter – a woman this world (mistakenly) considers an adult – is appalled that her ovulating daughter thinks of her own sex organs sexually? Why do people kid themselves this way?"


A Lion in Iron: Women—Be More, Not Less: "I’m tired of it. I’m tired of women thinking they are supposed to be weak. I don’t know who taught them this. I don’t know if it was their mothers, the media, and/or their friends. I don’t know how this started or who started it, but I do know that it needs to end. Whatever it was, whoever it was, it needs to be killed. You are not supposed to be weak. You have the right to be strong. The body you want is more than what you are, not less. You have the right to make progress. You have the to right to have muscles. Your training is not confined to counting how many calories two hours of cardio can burn. You have the right to add plates to the bar. You have the right to use something heavier than 10s. You have the right to be strong."

Crony capitalism, lobbying and scare mongering at its worst.
WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR: "The Results of Drug Tests on Welfare Recipients in Florida: Drug testing only benefits the testing company. Typical on conservatives to waste time and money trying to stop a fake issue. You have to love how they pander to the “everyone on welfare is a mooch and a druggie” types in order to get public support for such a wasteful program - that did nothing but line the pockets of the owners of drug testing facilities."

The Running Of The Moms - Unleash The Beef: "From my initial vantage point, it looked to be mostly females. I thought to myself, “Hmm, probably some nonsensical cancer marathon where everyone fails to see the irony of the fact that distance running destroys fast twitch muscle, weakens the immune system, and increases susceptibility to cancer. Oh well.

...The fact of the matter is that jogging/distance running, much like whole grains and ritual human sacrifice, is bad. Slow, plodding, aerobic exercise is not a sweet idea. Given the choice between jogging and complete motionlessness, just sit still. You’ll be much healthier for your choice. I’m not spelling out the scientific points as to why these things are true, but follow the pretty blue links if your interest is piqued. There’s also the likelihood that your running form is horrendous, which only serves to further cripple you. If you’re confused, I’ll make it easy. Walk, sprint, or sit on the couch. Forget the carb-loading. Forget whole grains. Forget the whole of what you’ve “learned” about exercise and nutrition. It’s all wrong. Every. Last. Bit."

Long, slow running sucks.  Do sprints.

I voted last fall.  This still makes more sense to me.
» Voting: Act Of The Proud Slave - Unleash The Beef: "“Exactly. I don’t vote because voting is the ultimate exercise in futility. It’s begging a master to whip you more or less aggressively. It’s propping up an institution I don’t feel should exist – government – and consenting to your status as property of the ruling class. It’s a mechanism for legitimizing illegitimacy. Why would I participate in a system I wish to eliminate when all it takes to eliminate that system is non-participation?”"


» That Shortsightedness Looks Good On You - Unleash The Beef: "“Hey, make sure you get lunch today! They provided a whole spread in there! It’s really good! Have you gotten any yet?” “Nah.” “Well, whatcha waiting for? Go get something to eat! They’ve got this chocolate éclair cake for dessert; it’s incredible. You better hurry up ‘fore it’s all gone!” “I’m good. I’ll check it out later.” “When do you eat? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat here. Do you ever eat anything?” “I eat every day.” “What are you, watching your figure or something? You watching what you eat? You don’t have to worry about what you eat – you’re young!” Wow. Thank you for enlightening my life with your well-reasoned nutritional acumen, hefty 54-year-old lady that I work with. Why must the humans around me constantly say such dumb, dumb shit? I suppose it’s because I respond with whatever half-hearted statement gets me away from them the fastest...

Now, you say I don’t have to worry about what I eat because I’m young, right? Interesting. Amazing that, with everything else you do around here, you’re weaving the role of volunteer nutritionist into your agenda. Do you think, though – just maybe – that if you had started worrying about what you ate when you were young, you might not now look like 250 pounds of walking éclair cake stuffed in a blouse and set atop a pair of asinine “rock and tone” platform sneakers? Do something with those horrible shoes. Please. Eat them if you’d like. Just don’t wear them. The last thing you need is more distance between yourself and the surface of Earth. Or more fucking éclair cake. Or to continue standing here interrogating me, rocking and loafing, critiquing my mysterious dietary habits."

Dear Mark: Obesogens, Tots Who Hate Veggies, and Pregnancy Recovery | Mark's Daily Apple: "...youngsters (babies and toddlers) are the most intuitive eaters around. They’re unaffected by fast food advertising. They’re not subject to pressure from peers toting bags of Gogurt, chips, and Lunchables. For that reason, I’m not too worried about a little kid who hates veggies.

Look, vegetables are bitter. They contain various toxins, and as adults, we’ve learned to appropriate and appreciate those toxins and turn them into full-fledged hormetic stressor nutrients. All those phytochemicals that abound in colorful vegetation that Primal and vegan eaters alike champion? They’re actually toxins that induce a hormetic response from our bodies and upregulate our antioxidant systems, thereby improving our health. But we’re adults. We’ve been eating these foods for a long, long time. Even if we don’t exactly love the taste – but most of us do learn to love the taste – even if they’re still kinda bitter, we know that it’s for the best. We can rationalize eating something that might not taste great because we know that it will improve our health. Eventually, we might even learn to honestly enjoy the taste.



But a toddler? A toddler just has access to the basic senses, which he’s still figuring out. It’s only been a year or two that he even got a handle on all that sensory data streaming through his eyes or ears, or interacting with his tongue. He’s not going to enjoy a sip of $200 wine, and he’ll probably turn up his nose at the sauteed dino kale you’re urging him to eat, regardless of its freshness. He’s not going to rationalize the consumption of a bitter vegetable for his own good, because it’s icky. Icky trumps all in toddlerland. That’s could be a good thing, too. It may be that small kids are less equipped to deal with hormetic stressors (whether they’re plant polyphenols or light bursts of radiation) than we are, and their tastes are constructed thusly. The hormetic threshold could be a whole lot lower in tots.""

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