Archive for February 2008
MacNotes
Well I just went out and purchased a Time Capsule and it's working just fine & dandy. Time Machine is doing its thing backing up. This is quite cool. Any and all Mac computers in the house (two currently) will fully back up their drives automatically, completely, wirelessly, in the background. I have an AirPort Extreme Base Station, purchased months ago on the assumption that the USB drive one can plug into it would work with Time Machine as a shared drive. Well, long story short: that was Apple's plan; but it didn't work reliably, so they ditched it right before Leopard's release. I didn't bother to research before buying, and, oh well; the integrated hard drive is a cleaner solution anyway. I'll take the AP Extreme up to the cabin where I installed an Apple TV last weekend. We rented, downloaded, and watched three movies in HD. HD downloads take hours on a 1.2 mbps dsl connection, but it did its thing overnight, so everything was ready to watch the next morning. However, I'll probably just rent in standard def up there from now on. It's just not worth the money for the higher dsl speed when it's used...
Read MoreLand of the Free Update
Good news for conservative, law & order Republicans: New High in U.S. Prison Numbers With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Got that? We've more people in jail than China, which has over four times our population (more than a billion more people than us). In terms of percentage in jail, China isn't even on the map, while we exceed but keep such illustrious company as Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Cuba. America #1! (Balko link)
Read MoreThe IF Life
Here's another blog for you intermittent fasters out there. Just started, looks really well done. Into my RSS reader it has gone. Oh, I found out from Chris.
Read MoreRecession?
Bush says no. So what? He's no better at predicting the future than anyone else. There is a formal definition of the thing: two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. We haven't yet posted a negative quarter. Now, setting aside all the shenanigans that comprise the broad makeup of our rather fascistic economy, by which I mean lip-service is given to the concept of "private" property but the State overseas and regulates virtually everything, do you know of many relationships amongst complex inputs and feedbacks that goes in one direction forever? If you try to loose weight, do you expect every step on the scale to be less than before? If you're building a business, do you expect any setbacks? Ever found you needed to change your approach in your personal finances because of problems, unforeseen difficulties, mistakes? Recessions, whether caused by the State's meddling in economics and markets, normal feedbacks from markets needed to adjust themselves to various factors including new technology, or simply self-fulfilling prophesy, it seems to me that what would be strange and dangerous is not to experience economic recession. We're probably in for one, if I had to guess. The Democrats need it to ensure...
Read MoreWhat You’re Up Against, Again
Everybody knows that "good cholesterol" is good, right? Well, actually, none of you probably know that. You've heard it reported, your doctor has told you so, and so you believe that "good cholesterol" is actually good. Pay attention, because that's not a trivial distinction and it has broad implications in all manner of knowledge. So, on the heals of my summary of the Cholesterol Con, there's this: High Levels of "Good" Cholesterol May Be a Bad Thing A Dutch research study suggests that high levels of "good" HDL cholesterol are not so good - in fact, they may actually increase the risk of a cardiovascular event. Peter, the UK veterinarian of Hyperlipid runs down the details (thought: could veterinarians in general be smarter than doctors for humans, having to deal with the biology and metabolism of multiple species, thus having a more generalized -- indeed principled -- approach to medicine?). I think he gets to the bottom line. Are you seeing a pattern here? It all comes down to particle numbers, sizes, contents. What controls all of these? Not statin deficiencies, as in IDEAL. Forget your cholesterol. What marker predicts heart attacks and total mortality without all of the paradoxes?...
Read MoreBilly Notes
Coupla posts I'd been intending to getting to. First, this cite of H.L. Menken on Public Enemy Number One. Note: the "police officers" you see today are of the same character makeup as those Good Germans who -- as Billy himself puts it -- "didn't listen to their own conscience as they loaded Jews into cattle cars." Go read the whole cite, but here's the essential: What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace: the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary. Next, some old notes on our beloved Constitution. ...the very height of what America was all about was stated in the Declaration of Independence. And it was all downhill from there. Read it.
Read MoreWhat You’re Up Against
I think I touched on this earlier, but Michael Eades has a good one about how you simply cannot trust the media to accurately report the findings from diet studies. It's bad enough that so many of the studies are flawed with selection bias, but even when a study is honesty done and its finding sound, you can't get honest reporting on it.
Read MoreLand of the Free Update
Here's a guy determined to get himself fined $2,500 and potentially subject himself to jail time in Illinois because he audaciously claims that his business belongs to him, and that smoking is allowed. What nerve. Freedom comes with responsibilities, you know. (Balko link)
Read MoreA Path In Pictures
This was me, tipping the scale at about 230. For perspective, I was 165 when I graduated high school. Normal adult weight would probably be around 175 without doing anything to build lean muscle. You'll notice how lean, trim, and lovely is my wife Bea, with whom I celebrate seven years of marriage, tomorrow. One reason I've delayed publishing photos of my progress is differences in perception. I write a lot about this, so my credibility is at stake; and even though I feel the changes all over, I just can't tell how other people will generally react to photos. If they react negatively, that doesn't do me any good, which has nothing to do with making progress, but it does have to do with the blogging aspect. This is bolstered by the fact that I've seen a few such expositions other bloggers have posted, and have been less than impressed. So, there's a balance of sorts. Ultimately, due the subject matter, I feel it's necessary to put my skin where my mouth is. So I've waited until I was certain the results were objective enough that readers and lookers aren't going to think I'm full of shit. Another aspect...
Read MoreCholesterol Con
For those following along with me on this exercise, diet, fasting journey, it should be quite apparent that my diet has shifted considerably since I began this in May '07, to where now I am quite comfortable eating a diet very high in saturated fat mainly from animal sources (coconut oil would be an exception). But how did that happen? Did I do a lot of research on it and decide it was the best approach, or what? Nope. I just followed my nose, or, more specifically, my appetite. None of any of this was remotely apparent prior to having undertaken a number of fasts, normally of 30-hour duration, culminating in a workout for most of them. At first (prior to beginning the fasting), I gradually adopted a "Paleo" approach because it made logical sense. In evolutionary time scaled to one year, humanity has been exposed to grains for about a day, and concentrated vegetable oils for ten minutes (that's a short YouTube; check it out). But then something odd happened with the fasts. My appetite changed dramatically. Now, why would that be? Why does it persist? Long story short: it originally changed to wanting just lots of meat, but...
Read MoreThe Scrofacracy: Public Enemy Number One
First, to preclude the emails. Second, a little "Law & Order," complete with a pool of blood. The World's Most Important Blogger has the details. Next up, something I was going to blog the other day when I first saw it, but didn't get to it. Here, the Scrofacracy, numbering seven "men" and "women," rape the female victim of an assault in a jail cell. They go about it real pro, latex gloves and all. Here's Part II of that news report. I think this is actually the one I saw the other day, and it includes one of the male assailants gingerly slipping her panties off her ankles and feet. You draw your own conclusions about what was in it for them, later, in their own private space. I'm pretty sure I get it. Now do you understand why I think "conservatives" and their incessant "thin blue line" Scrofacracy cheerleading can all go straight to hell?
Read MoreThis Should Be Easy
If you want to follow along (see comments). Do you grasp the ignominy of it all? Americans; and the greatest political statement you can make for yourself is to go into a pathetically flimsy booth once every two to four years and have your one in 300,000,000th say in your own affairs. Disgraceful.
Read MoreLike I Said Back When I Said It…
...Fuck Obama and His Stupid Bitch. I meant it. And here's the latest from Michelle Obama, the stupid bitch. “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation and that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed – you have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eights years from now, you will have to be engaged.” Fuck you, bitch. Who the fucking fuck do you think you are? And Tell Barack he can take his "require[ments]" and just fuck right off along with you. Understand: I hate people who talk like that. That's via Billy, who de-euphemizes that pretentious "seat at the table" bullshit and rot. That Protein Wisdom link has a lot more. Later: Here's another one, from that Protein Wisdom piece: “in 2008 we...
Read MoreLearn This
Quick Links
Just a couple of tidbits. From Chris at Conditioning Research, eat lots of eggs. They're really good for you and it's probably because of the cholesterol. I know (heresy). And from Peter the veterinarian at Hyperlipid, higher fat, primarily of the saturated variety (animals baby!) does lots of good things. Here was a funny recent quote from Peter. "Are all these experts wrong, as well as the expert advisory panels on cardiovascular disease?" Yes! A much better question: Which hormone converts a vascular smooth muscle cell to an osteogenic cell (calcium phosphate secreting) in the vascular media? Answer: Insulin The NCEP answer: It's a statin deficiency! (what was the question? Oh never mind) In case you don't follow, the working hypothesis is that cardio-vascular disease is caused by high cholesterol, statins reduce cholesterol, so the fundamental problem is that we're born with a statin deficiency. Funny. As a side note, unless you read medical journals (probably even if you do), the best sources for keeping up on ALL the studies are some of the blogs I link to. You won't get it in the standard media. They are uninterested in the dozens and dozens of studies that pound away at...
Read MoreThe Clintons
If you're into that sort of thing, a pretty interesting commentary by Martin McPhillips on Hillary's apparent demise. That was via Beck, who delivers on insight of his own.
Read MoreShopping
Here's a picture of my latest run to Trader Joe's. The emphasis is meats with a high percentage of animal-fat content. Trader Joe's is good because you can get a lot of that sort of thing uncured, as are the kielbasa, beef franks, and chicken sausages. Same with bacon, but I already had two packages in the frige. Pate is an excellent food for 70-80% of cals from fat. To the right is prosciutto, with a nice huge band of lovely tasting fat on each delectable thin slice. The veggies are frozen and available on demand. I particularly like the medley, which includes lots of butter & herbs, so it's just like I would prepare anyway. No bread, pasta, rice, beans or any other of that stuff.
Read MoreLiquid Fat Bomb
I don't do this very often, but here's my recipe for a liquid high-fat breakfast, which I just consumed. - 4 oz heavy cream / 480 fat cals, 0 protein, 0 carb - 4-5 oz canned coconut milk / 300 fat cals, 0 protein, trace carb - 1 whole large Omega-3 egg / 45 fat cals, 25 protein, trace carb - 1 packet of Splenda sweetener / zero - Tbsp vanilla extract / probably a few carb cals - Ice Toss it all in the blender with sufficient ice to make a nice shake, and then enjoy yourself. We've got about 850 calories, 825 or 97% of which are fat calories. Not for everyday, but it's one way to keep the calories up on a low-carb diet without overdoing the protein. Usually I'll do two, or even three eggs, but I eat so much meat that I sometimes am looking to just get a big fat dose. I know. It's complete heresy. Consider this: If you were going to design a biological being and had three macro nutrients at your disposal, two of which possess 4 cals per gram (carbs and protein), and another that possesses 9 cals per gram...
Read MoreSmashing Hierarchies
Perhaps the end of the world as we know it.
Read MoreBetter Safe Than Sorry
...all the travel documents were in order. That's right, and it was "the job" of the Borderbots to make sure. No life is as important as "the system," not even a baby's with a heart condition. All hail the system. Stay calm, relax. (Balko)
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