The Food Police

I always say it's a slippery slope when you start having the government or any other organization tell us what we should be doing, believing, wearing, etc. Well, how do you like being told what you should eat? The city of San Francisco is moving toward banning toys in childrens' meals at restaurants, if they don't conform to a certain "standard", because truly, as a parent, you aren't fit to make decisions for your children. I think it's an appalling situation when a small group of people can take all the fun out of life. I suppose that's what happens when you found a country with Puritans. If it tastes or feels good or is fun, then by god it must be bad for you and you must be saved from yourself!

I suppose on the face of it, urging children to eat "healthier" sounds like a good thing. Except you have one problem. And that is that the government's current suggestions for how to eat healthy are anything but. Read Gary Taubes book "Good Calories, Bad Calories", if you dare, and you will see why. It is a book that will make you so angry you won't be able to see straight. These "scientists", (and I use that term very loosely), researchers, dietitians, and doctors have had evidence for the entire last century that sugar is what makes you fat and causes diabetes, and that fat is what we should mostly be eating, but since Ancel Keys decided to publish his absolutely skewed results that fat is bad for you and causes heart attacks people have cut back on the fat and increased consumption of carbohydrates, and have gotten heavier because of it.

In fact, hunter-gatherer type people who do not consume sugar and carbohydrates, and get most of their food from animal sources, have no evidence of heart disease, diabetes, or get this, cavities. I knew that ages ago and wondered why. I remember reading that paleolithic people didn't have cavities, or dental caries, but that agricultural people who ate grains did. And people knew this a hundred years ago! And if you think about it, it makes sense. Ten thousand years ago, what do you think people ate? They ate meat most of the time. They didn't have refrigerators or grocery stores. They didn't wander down to the market and buy leafy greens and fruit. They only ate vegetables and fruit when it was in season, well, actually, IF it was ever in season.

In 1908, a man named Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent ten years living with the Inuit* who did not eat anything but meat (because they had nothing else) and they were all very healthy people. When he returned to New York the doctors didn't believe him. He spent an entire year eating nothing but meat under observation to prove that it was healthy. There are also various accounts of doctors who lived among native populations in Africa and South America, who saw that the native populations did not have any evidence of any of the "Diseases of Civilization" (meaning heart disease, diabetes, etc) until they adopted a western diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.

After the McGovern committee on the Nutrition Guidelines in 1977, it pretty much became gospel that fat was the cause of heart attacks and any researcher who dare say otherwise was pretty much tossed out on the street. Kilmer S. McCully was one such researcher. He insisted it was an amino acid deficiency that caused heart disease. For his trouble, he was denied tenure and had trouble finding another job because Harvard had blacklisted him.

And another reason the government shouldn't tell us what to eat (as if you need another reason), is because their definition of "obesity" is absurd. Most of us think that people are obese when they're very round, like a woman who weighs say, 300 lbs. Well, the government has a different idea. You're probably considered "obese" if you're a pant size too big. That's because they grade obesity and overweight by the BMI index, which doesn't take into account muscle mass or bone structure. So if you lift weights, you're probably obese too.

What all this boils down to, is that your health is your business. If you want to eat McDonald's every day (and lose weight LOL), that's your prerogative. If your children beg you to go to McDonald's on a regular basis and you cave, it's not the government's responsibility to babysit you as you let your children eat junk. But I suppose that's California for you.** As a commenter on a forum said, and I found it quite amusing, "they don't call it the land of fruits and nuts for nothing." Sorry if you're from there. Really, I am.

*A wacky site I know, but they have posted the original article from Harper's by Stefansson LOL

**My mother-in-law bought a handgun, and it had a warning on it put there by the State of California that "children are naturally drawn to guns". Naturally? Really? Maybe they're drawn to a hot burner on the stove too. Are you going to put warnings on everything? Or should parents teach their children not to touch things they shouldn't. What this is, is an abdication of parenting and the teaching of your children about what is allowed, or not allowed, and what is safe or is not safe. It's also an abdication of common frickin' sense.

Tea Party Schizophrenia: A true mental disease

In a recent poll, it was found that supporters of the Tea Party movement were likely to support the Christian Conservative agenda.

"While the loosely organized Tea Party movement has focused largely on shrinking the size of government and other fiscal issues, its backers are more likely to support government restrictions on gay marriage and other social issues, the Public Religion Research Institute found in its American Values Survey."

This is, in a nutshell, just more proof of how bat-shit crazy these people are. It's not that they want less government, it's not that they want their concept of "moral values" forced upon the citizens of these United States, it's that they want both. They want to have their proverbial cake and eat it too. Except, the cake is a lie. It's always a lie.

They want less government interference in regulating things that keep us safe. They want more government meddling into the private lives of homosexuals, wanting the government to pass laws to keep them from being able to marry or share their partner's insurance benefits, some going so far as to say that laws should be passed making homosexual acts/partnerships illegal. They want less government funding of education (wanting to dismantle the Department of Education and quit funding college loans and grants, because ask any slave master from the 19th century about the best way to keep people as chattel). They want more government interference with the bodies of women, to tell them that they must have children, whether they want them or not, whether they are mentally and emotionally fit to have them or not, whether they've been raped and abused or not.

It's really a complete schizophrenia, to sit there and say that the government should have no influence in the corporate lives of businesses but at the same time that same government should be in our bedrooms telling us what to do, who to be with and forcing women to carry a pregnancy they don't want, or is dangerous to their health, to term. I'll call it for what it is. It's goddamned fascism, pure and bleeding simple. It's so Orwellian, it's almost un-fucking-believable, for these ass-hats to sit there and scream that they are the denizens of freedom and democracy, and at the same time wanting to put their jackboots at the throats of their fellow Americans to make them follow their own twisted version of "morality".

Christian Flag Taken Down in North Carolina

In North Carolina, a flap is going on over the Christian flag flying at a veterans' memorial. The local citizens are upset that the city removed the flag that was flying on public property after a veteran of the war in Afghanistan complained about it.

In response the local citizenry has decided to fly the flag themselves in protest, which of course is their right on private property. They are calling for the flag to be put back up, it being lost on them that, not only is it against the separation of church and state for a single religion to be promoted by the State, but that it's just plain rude and a slap in the face of all those who died so that we would all have the right to believe (or not) whatever we want.

But you know what, I have a great idea. Let them put it back up, and then let them put up all other religious flags too, one of every kind the city can find. Because I guarantee that the second a flag with a pentagram or star and crescent goes up there, they'll decide that it's best to not have any religious flags flying there at all.

You have an Idiocracy, if you can keep it...

You may have heard recently that a Pew Forum poll showed that atheist/agnostics scored higher on questions about religion than others. The press has been talking about what it means, etc. yaddy yadda yadda. Well, you know what I think this poll shows? That Americans are stupid. The highest average score (which was among the atheists/agnostics) was a 62%, which when I was in school was a big fat F. That means a bunch of people didn't know crap about religion and few knew a whole lot.

And Diane Winston over at the Huffington Post declares that it's really not important to know these things.

"But really, how important is it to know that Jonathan Edwards was an 18th-century revivalist or that nirvana is the Buddhist experience of freedom from suffering? The focus on factoids obscures a central challenge of the 21st century: negotiating the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes."

Well, it's kind of difficult to "negotiate the absolute conflict[s] of multiple religious absolutes" if you don't know shit about any of it. I find that a lot of people in this country are willfully ignorant and make it a point to say that they "don't need to know" anything. Yes, perhaps it is true that you don't need to know any of this stuff to go down to Wal-Mart and go shopping, and stop in at the McDonald's on the way home and stuff your face with a Big Mac and fries (mmmm, fries...). Anyway, it's kinda important when dealing with other people that you have some inkling of what they believe and why and what has happened before now.

In fact, only 2% of people got what would average to an A on it. The questions aren't hard either, they're things that one ought to know from just reading crap on the internet. Or should have learned in a general history/sociology class in college or high school.

You know, you gotta wonder about these things, either that or the intelligence of the people who take them. Only 28% of white evangelicals knew that Protestants teach salvation through faith alone. Only 57% of Jewish people knew that Maimonides was Jewish. I mean, come on, I knew that, he's one of the most important Jewish scholars ever. They did say that the higher the education, the more questions people got right, with college grads getting an average of 20.6 correct while people with a high school diploma or less only got an average of 12.8. Again though, those are averages, and a 20.6 is still an F.

What's funny is only 94% of atheists knew what an atheist is. I mean, that's really, really simple and 6% of self-professed atheists got it wrong. Maybe they just didn't bother reading the questions? I suppose that's a possibility.

The survey also apparently included general knowledge questions. Only 59% of people could name the Vice President. What's scarier than that, is that most of them probably vote...

Let Them Eat Cake

So, on BookTV they're going to be talking about a book, "Generosity Unbound: How American Philanthropy Can Strengthen the Economy and Middle Class". Whenever I hear something that sounds like it's advocating making the filthy rich, richer, alarm bells go off in my head. Now, I obviously have not read the book, and to be honest, probably wouldn't waste my time now that I have looked up who the author is. Or rather, who she's affiliated with. Her name is Claire Gaudiani, and she's a senior fellow at a non-profit, the 'Institute for American Values' (guess who's probably paying her money to say that there should be no regulation of non-profits, you get three guesses). They don't want divorce, they want "traditional values" (again, I say alarm bells go off in my head every time I hear these words), and they have a 'Center for Marriage and Families' that promotes such homophobic people like Maggie Gallagher. They say that gay marriage isn't good for children, and I think, imply that it would be better for a woman to stay with a husband who's beating her "for the sake of the children." Bull shit. Absolute utter tripe.

I don't need to say that the last thing we need to do is make the uber-rich, richer is it? What is this? Serfdom? In America? So that the poor can go and ask for alms at a church service like our ancestors did in Europe seven hundred years ago? What's next, are we going to have to swear fealty to some overlord? Really?

This shit is the antithesis of everything democratic. Making the rich, richer, does NOT strengthen the middle class. A lack of regulation means that those with the money get away with things they shouldn't, and they trod all over the poor. No middle class means no more democracy. No middle class and you have France prior to the French Revolution (gee, how did that turn out for the uber-wealthy?) or Mexico today. And they're trying to pander to the Center and Left by saying that it's "for everyone". Bull shit. I call it a bunch of lies. They can take their right-wing, facist tendencies and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

When Books Burn...

I'm sure ya'll have heard about the certifiable (as in, insane) pastor in Florida that is planning on burning Korans on 9/11.

A fine example of asshattery

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The government turned up the pressure Tuesday on the head of a small Florida church who plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, warning him that doing so could endanger U.S. troops and Americans everywhere.

But the Rev. Terry Jones insisted he would go ahead with his plans, despite criticism from the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, the White House and the State Department, as well as a host of religious leaders.

Jones, who is known for posting signs proclaiming that Islam is the devil's religion, says the Constitution gives him the right to publicly set fire to the book that Muslims consider the word of God...

First of all, hiding behind the mantra that "the Constitution lets me do it" is a cowardly act. It's in some ways like blaming the devil because you cheated on your spouse. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. One could go and call random black people on the street terrible names, it's a constitutionally protected right after all, but there are consequences. They'd probably get the shit beat out of them, and would anyone be surprised? I think not. So Mr. Asshat here can burn the Koran and piss off a bunch of fundamentalist Muslims. The only problem is, it won't be him getting the beating. It will be some poor bloke, probably some 19 year old kid who enlisted in the military half a world away from home who gets the shit beat out of him because Mr. Asshat is well, an asshat.

We should be outraged that he burns any book at all. Or that anyone burns any book, be it a Bible or Harry Potter. Why you ask? Because this type of sentiment leads to hatred of other human beings. First they burn books, next they burn people. It's happened before, plenty of times. If we're not careful, it can and will happen again. Most of the people of Nazi Germany probably didn't realize the path their country was headed down in 1933 when they vilified Jews and burned Torahs and Synagogues. What path are we on? Vilifying Muslims and burning Korans? The next step will be genocide if no one puts a stop to this crap.

One Nation Under [Her] God

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." --Sinclair Lewis

Reagan bankrupt this country and yet he's still their darling. I curse his memory by the way. Then G.Dubya took his ideology to the extreme and it has plummeted us into another Great Depression. And the fact that she blames the Department of Education for No Child Left Behind crap is moronic at best. It was a bill introduced in congress and signed by their beloved G.Dubya. That's fucking rich that is. Let's just lie, lie, lie, and pretty soon no one will even know the truth. Our education system here sucks, and you know why? Because it's funded by property taxes. The rich get a great education and the poor, as usual, get fucked over. And NCLB has nothing to do with it.

That she would cite Bachmann, means she's crazier than batshit. I guess it takes one to know one.

Americans For Prosperity? One might mistake that they're for the prosperity of Americans, but that would be a mistake. They're for Americans supporting the Corporatocracy. Yes, let's cut taxes for the rich and fuck the People over by refusing to extend the unemployment insurance and by shipping jobs overseas so that CEOs can make more profits. Why don't they just dispense with the pretense and just call it what it is. Americans for the Fascist Corporatocracy. Or maybe The Fascist Corporatocracy for the Support of American Serfs.

I often wonder why politicians who want to be in control of government, pander to the "small government" group, and then when they get in there, they do the same damned thing every other politician has ever done, LIE LIE LIE and back corporate interests in spite of the people they're supposed to be representing. They don't do anything to make the government smaller. They do everything they can to put more and more of our government into the pockets of private business interests.

Border patrol is the job of Immigration and Customs. By advocating that the States should have the right to practice border patrol, means that they are advocating succeeding from the Union, de facto, because that means next they'll be saying they ought then have the ability to issue visas and passports so they can control who comes into their state. Maybe Nevada ought to succeed, and we can ship all the nutty neo-Cons there and they can live in a great utopia of oppression of the lower classes. I suppose the gambling capital of the country will have to go somewhere else (or we'll have to be really rich and go to Monaco to gamble) and I also suppose that we'll have to grant refugee status to anyone from Nevada with a brain and half a thought in their head.

"What caused the problems [with the economy] in the first place"?!?!?!? I can answer that for you Mme. Angle. YOUR PARTY is the cause of the economy collapsing! That's what happens when you deregulate every fucking thing. MORONS. All of them.

*sorry if I've rambled tonight, I blame the beer, it makes my thoughts meander =P

**edit**

SeeingEyeChick pointed out that she looks a lot like "The Chicken Lady" (Sue Lowden, left) who I must have missed (terrible I know)... why does the party of red wear blue, the color of the opposition?

Mazes and Monsters

Too funny! Reminds me of all the people who blame television and games for the "degenerate youth of today." A complaint Pliny the Younger made two thousand years ago.

Target the Gays

Target is in hot water. They donated money (albeit a bit indirectly) to a Christian hate rock band that calls for the deaths of gays and lesbians. They donated to a Minnesota PAC, who donated to Tom Emmer, who donated money to a band/ministry known as You Can Run, who's founder, Bradlee Dean said on a radio show back in May,

““Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America... This just shows you they themselves [Muslims] are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

“If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that,” Dean continued. “That is what you are seeing in America.”

“The bottom line is this… they [homosexuals] play the victim when they are, in fact, the predator,” Dean said, before going on to make a claim that has no basis in fact: “On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?”

So this asshat has basically said that Muslim countries who kill gays are moral and righteous and we should follow their example. It's so nice to see that they took a moment to stop hating on Muslims to resume hating on gays. Because what better place to be than dragged back into the dark ages. {/sarcasm}

A group has been started on Facebook to boycott Target, and this is the form letter everyone is receiving in response to their letters to Target:

"In fact, if you look at our Federal PAC contributions year to date, you will see that they are very balanced between Republicans and Democrats. For more information please visit www.target.com/company, and view the Civic Activity page."

The thing is, so many are so self-righteous about avoiding Wal-Mart, but shop happily at Target. Guess what? It's all made by political prisoners in China, it's all cheap plastic crap, and shopping locally is no better (because you can't afford locally made things) unless your filthy fucking rich. And why can't you afford them? Because the corporations you work for don't pay you enough!

But I digress, so back to the quote. As you can see, Target like so many other businesses fund both parties. They want all of the politicians to do their bidding, because as I've said before, and I'll say it again, this is a Corporatocracy. Our government is in the pockets of corporations, and Wal-Mart is used merely as a distraction. The problem is, Corporate entities should not be allowed to donate money to any political anything, nor should they be able to send lobbyists to Washington to buy politicians. They should stay out of government entirely. But really, it's too late for that, the politicians, they're all already bought and sold, and there's nothing we can do about it, except continue working for peanuts and writing letters to people who send back auto-responses.

May God Have Mercy On Your Souls

I've got news for my Republican friends. Every single person who is going to recieve unemployment insurance under this bill is unemployed. Every single one of them doesn't have a job, and that's why they need this money. Now I know what the Republicans are thinking, they're thinking, why don't they just sell some stock? If they're in really dire straights maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer. And if they're in deep, deep trouble, maybe the unemployed can sell one of their yachts. That's what the Republicans are thinking right now. But that's not the life of ordinary people. The 99% of America who actually have to work for a living, that doesn't just clip coupons and live off of interest and dividends like my Republican friends do. That's why we need this bill to pass, because of the 99% of America that deals with reality every day. The people who will lose their homes if this bill doesn't pass. The people who will be living in their cars if this doesn't pass. That's why we need this to pass. And I will say this to Republicans who have blocked this bill now for months and kept food out of the mouths of children, I will say to them now, may God have mercy on your souls.

And here is the root of the problem. These rich bastards that run everything haven't got a clue what it's like to wonder where your next meal is coming from, or whether you might get laid off when you live paycheck to paycheck. They haven't got one iota of an idea of what it's like for the rest of us.

First they came for the Jews...

It's truly amazing the number of dumb ass people we have in this country. I know, I know. Calling people dumb asses is probably counter-productive, but really, what else can you call people who are so ignorant, so undeniably moronic, that they protest against the First Amendment to the Constitution?

Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates

By Liz Goodwin liz Goodwin – Wed Jul 21, 5:16 pm ET

Opposition to the construction of mosques has skyrocketed in cities and towns across the country, scholars and advocates of Muslim culture tell The Upshot.

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposing the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee (pictured above). And some residents of Temecula, California, are opposing the local Muslim community's plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

...

"There is very little counter-thrust in the public debate, and the result is, I think, Muslims are becoming increasingly concerned about their security in the country," Zogby says. "This is a worrisome environment. Something's got to give."

Opponents of mosques feel freer now to openly object to the presence of a mosque in their community, says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.

...

Of course, opponents of mosques do not consider themselves bigots, and many are genuinely concerned that mosques may help produce homegrown terrorists. According to the Washington Post, 34 Americans have been charged by U.S. authorities since January 2009 with direct involvement in international terrorism. But in many of these case, it appears the suspects were radicalized via Internet contacts.

...

A pastor opposed to the proposed Temecula mosque reflected these fears of homegrown terrorism.

"There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it's a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing," Pastor Bill Rench told the Los Angeles Times.

...

Some opponents of the mosque in Tennessee have told local news outlets they think people will learn jihad inside the mosque's walls, though the local Muslim community has had a smaller mosque in the town for years without incident.

Several hundred people in Tennessee took to the streets of Murfreesboro last week to protest the local Islamic Center's 15-acre land purchase. They were met by a counterprotest of equal size.

"In Islam, a mosque means 'We have conquered this country,' " one man told a local CNN affiliate. "And where are they? They're in the center of Tennessee. They're going to say, 'We have conquered Tennessee.' "

A plan for a separate mosque was tabled in another town in Tennessee this year after public opposition, reports the Tennessean.

Ahmed visited the site of a mosque in Columbia, Tennessee, that had been burned down and vandalized with painted swastikas in 2008, while researching last year.

"The local tiny Muslim community was in a state of shock because most of them were born in America and had lived very happily in the small community," he says. "People say, 'Go back home,' and they say, 'Where do we go? This is our home.' "

I believe that Lewis Sinclair was right, when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. They may come for the Muslims first, but they'll come for you eventually...

Not-So Breitbart Just Keeps Turning Up...

...like a bad penny! Because when you don't have truth on your side, you fight by using lies.

Racial firestorm surrounds USDA employee's ouster

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he would reconsider the department's decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Sherrod, the director of rural development in Georgia, was asked by department officials to leave her job on Monday after conservative bloggers posted an edited video of her saying that she initially didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago, when she was working for a nonprofit farm aid group.

Sherrod says the video distorted her full speech, which described how she came to realize the white farmer needed her help and which she says was intended to promote racial reconciliation.

...

The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party movement. The website's owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase. Biggovernment.com is the same outfit that gained fame last year after airing video of workers at the community group ACORN counseling actors posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

What I want to know, are the people who made this decision so stupid that they believe anything that comes out of Breitbart or any of his associates' mouths? Really? Because, if you have any sense you should never believe a liar. Once someone has lied to you, you can never believe anything they say ever again.

Oil for Dinner Anyone?

Anger grows as disaster reaches Panhandle beaches

Meanwhile, BP's Hayward assured investors that the company "considerable firepower" to cope with the severe costs. Hayward and other senior BP executives struck a penitent note in their first comprehensive update to shareholders since the oil rig explosion.

"We will meet our obligations both as a responsible company and also as a necessary step to rebuilding trust in BP as a long-term member of the business communities in the U.S. and around the world," said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. "This is in the interest of all our stakeholders."

When the last fish is choked to death by all the crap we pour into our water and the last bird is drowned by all the mess we pump into our air, maybe then we'll realize that we can't eat money... or not. These corporate thugs would squish the last butterfly in the world if they thought for a moment they'd get a profit out of it.

Rainbows and Unicorns

So I got some crap in my email from the NRSC entitled "Rainbows and Unicorns". Supposedly it was an April Fool's Joke. For some reason, I'm not laughing. I deleted it, or I'd post the text of it. You can google it and see the retarded video that some vapid, poor excuse for a human being took the time to make.

It takes a lot of cajones to blame the other party when your party is the whole raison d'etre for the economy being in the shite state that it is in.

But you know what, I could give a rats ass. It must be nice to get paid a lot of money to trash your opponents with lies and pandering and meandering waffle while your countrymen have no jobs, can't make ends meet and live out of their cars after being laid off. I mean, it must really burn their biscuits to see so many dirty poor people while they drive to work in their Mercedes and BMWs.

Every single word these political "mavericks" utter makes me hate them even more. In another age, it would have been peasants with pitch forks. Now? It's just a bunch of whiney emo kids complaining that their iPod won't hold a charge and so they can't poke their friends on Facebook or harvest their tomatoes in Farmville.

You know, they waste so much money on nothing. And there are people starving to death, and all they can do is poke sticks at each other. I wish that these stupid fucks would find some deserted island to go to so they could leave the rest of us the hell alone. They could leave all the money they had nothing better to do with anyway to charity, and go drown in their sea of stupidity, hatred, and ignorance.