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Communique From Cabo

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Yesterday afternoon—Sunday, while all the good football games were on—we had ourselves driven down to the border between California and Mexico by Bea’s favorite nephew. Actually, Beatrice has 10 favorite nephews, as well as 10 nephews. ….She treats each one of them as though they are the most important person to her in the world (the nieces, too). See, I do have a good side. I get to observe it every day: concretely rather than introspectively. I don’t have to take on the burden of living it directly.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean tons to me. I get to see love and tenderness and caring up close every day, just enough to remind me, without having to bother myself too much over my root desire to raise black flags and slit throats. Beatrice tames me, which waxes & wanes over time. I’ve been in a tame mood recently, bored with myself in my worst moments. I’ll get my fill of tame someday, then lash out, and the cycle will renew.

…So there’s this kinda clever way to get through the border, to get to the airport. Not exactly wetback in reverse—we didn’t have to swim the Rio Grande—it’s on foot. Problem is, I had the rather circuitous directions in hand for the drop off, whilst confirming the route on my iPhone en route. So I was looking down, and FavNeph missed the 905 east and then last turnoff on the 805 south until you’re irrevocably in Mexico. Now, had it been my nephew, I’d have just said, “OK, take us to the Aeropuerto Internacional de Tijuana…tout de suite! You’ll find your way back.”

But this is Bea’s favorite nephew, you see. Five days of vacation in jeopardy mattered not a bit. “We’re not leaving him stranded in Mexico!” He did do a good job explaining the situation to all the gun wielding border guards; that we were here unintended, and didn’t really want to be in Mexico (he’s full Hispanic too, but doesn’t habla Espanol). Uncharacteristically, seeing we still had slack in time, I just let events play out around me, in silence. After 15 minutes or so, as Bea and FavNeph had been talking with various gun wielding border guards about how we undo the undoable, I made a modest suggestion. How about, since we’re already in Mexico, we go back to the US via the mechanism long set up for such endeavors? Borders are one-way affairs, and you can’t back up on a one-way street.

Call it Border Logic.

Thankfully, the intervening time had let that reality sink in for everyone, and we were off. 15 minutes later, we were back in the Land of the Free, where more people are in prison per capita than in China…or…Mexico! God Bless America! Wave that Flag and Be Proud! …But I digress.

…So we did the circuitous route to the other border to the east, off the 905, walked across, caught a cab and were soon at the airport with zero traffic and Tijuana issues. We boarded an almost new Airbus 220 on Volaris and were soon in San Jose del Cabo. And that’s where we were set up to stay. Quiet and tranquil.


 

Then, this morning, I had some business down the road in Cabo San Lucas.

photo2
 

That ended up being an all day-affair; but prediction and enthusiasm wise, very fruitful. It will be about three months before I can talk about it.

…We’re off tomorrow morning, up the west side of the Baja peninsula for La Paz. Three days of tranquility in the B & B of Richard, an expat with his local wife, who comes highly recommended by Bea’s sis & bro-I-L—and who spent every second of time on the phone Beatrice demands before booking the place. 

Word is, swimming with whale sharks is the hot item right now.

We have some inside knowledge about an impossible to find beach along the way—that’s commonly referred to as Paradise-No-Bullshit (I just made that up)—and after that, we’re going to “check out” The Hotel California in Todos los Santos, fully intending to “never leave” when it’s time.

A Very Tasty and Healthy Liquid Supplement

REvitalizechooseREpagetif

A longtime friend and business associate formulated this product, called REvitalize. It originally came in a glass wine bottle and was called Rushmore. The label included the images of four sports stars, arranged in Mt. Rushmore fashion, but in the process of getting it onto retail shelves, the packaging had to be changed.

It comes in the 32-oz size (2-oz serving size) you see, as well as 2.5-oz single serving shots. It’s available at Whole Foods, as well as online, including Amazon. I’m not sure of where, but they’re gearing up production to place it in something like 4,000 retail outlets, if I understood correctly.

We were over for dinner the other night and he loaded me up with samples. And I must say, I really love the taste—either straight up, or mixed with 4-oz or club soda as a refreshing mixed drink. …So, great taste, only 7 gams of sugar (no added sugar), a pretty impressive micronutrient profile, and I’m sold for a 2-oz serving every morning.

And it has a pretty impressive list of ingredients too.

Kick the fake habits and enjoy natural nutrition & antioxidants from 21 super fruits. With no preservatives, no added sugar and 100% juice & puree, just one 32 oz bottle contains 16 servings, so all you need is 2 oz. a day to help strengthen your mind and body, and protect it from free radicals. Don’t believe us? Take a look at the Supplement Facts. They are identical to what’s in our beverage and printed on every bottle. REvitalize™ yourself daily with this pure and powerful antioxidant beverage.

REvitalize SF
 

Here’s the fruits & berries it contains.

apple: filled with antioxidants to help fight free radical cells in the body.
apricot: yellow/orange colored tree fruit with tons of Vitamin A.
black raspberry: great source for Vitamin C.
blueberry: plant-grown, rich in antioxidants.
blackberry: great for the digestive system, high content of fiber.
cranberry: found in shrubs, filled with polyphenol antioxidants.
dark sweet cherry: good source of Vitamin C and fiber.
elderberry: native to South America, rich in powerful antioxidants.
goji berry: bright orange-red color, native to southeastern Europe and Asia.
mangosteen: small purple fruit reigning from Indonesia, rich in potassium.
maqui: from Chile, filled with antioxidants.
pear: filled with fiber that can support a healthy digestive system.
pomegranate: exotic red fruit native to modern day Iran, rich in antioxidants.
prickly pear: found in the Americas, tough skinned, rich in magnesium.
red sour cherry: helps support anti inflammatory benefits.
red grape: vine grown, filled with flavonoids.
red raspberry: from Europe/northern Asia, rich in Vitamin C and gallic acid.
seabuckthorn: reddish orange color, grown on shrubs, rich in Vitamin C.
strawberry: rich in folate, Vitamin C and flavonoids.
white grape: vine-grown, extremely rich in antioxidants
yumberry: native to eastern Asia.

At a retail price of $22.50 for the 32-oz, 16 serving bottle, it comes to $1.41 per serving which seems pretty reasonable to me, and way under the Starbuck threshold.

Round Two of the Jimmy Moore & David Duke Controversy

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[For an update, please see: Lemons to Lemonade Documentary – Ed]

I’ll open with a comment to my last post from Sean Abbott who blogs at Prague Stepchild.

I find it pretty hard to believe that Jimmy has never heard of David Duke. I’ve definitely heard of him and I’m not from the South, but I think I’m around the same age. I’m pretty sure it was when Duke was running for governor, and doing pretty well, that he hit national notoriety.

On the other hand, I’ve listened to a lot of Jimmy Moore podcasts, and corresponded with him in email, and he strikes me as a very straightforward guy. I simply don’t buy that he’s a devious crypto-nazi or that he does much in the way of lying in general. Unless my bullshit meter is seriously broken, and I have no reason to think it is, my gut feeling is to believe him.

To figure out who you were talking about I had to Google it and Melissa’s bile aggregator site came up first, where Jimmy’s already been convicted without a shadow of a doubt in the court of PC doublethink. I just looked briefly, but there were some Duke quotes that would be perfectly acceptable had they been said by someone like Sharpton, with the appropriate nouns changed.

I don’t know if Duke is a neo-Nazi or just a white supremacist, but talking to a Nazi doesn’t make you one, of course. Here in Europe it’s still fashionable to be a Maoist, never mind that he killed way more people than Hitler. I remember hearing an interview with the band Alabama 3, on the BBC, who style themselves as Maoist and have a song riffing Mao, “Mao Tse Tung Said”, on the same album as their hit song that got used for the Sopranos. The band was joking about how their tour of the American South was a failure because these rednecks weren’t interested in their Maoist rap/country/blues music. Neither the BBC, nor the producers of the Sopranos, were worried about any sort of stigma of chatting with and plugging these followers of a mass murderer, for as long as he’s a left wing mass murderer, there’s not going to be any stigma (not that Hitler was especially right-wing of course).

Not that I care, I have Cold Harbour Lane and it’s a great fucking album. Having lived in Hollywood, and spent a lot of time around musicians, they are the last people on Earth whose political opinions I give a shit about, by and large.

A3 is just one example of hundreds here in Europe. The amount of Maoists or semi-reformed Maoists in Sweden’s pseudo-intelligentsia is simply stunning. And here in the Czech Republic, a country that suffered under imperialist communism Nazism is way more taboo than Stalinism.

It is simply amazing the hypocrisy of the PC mainstream left-leaning culture which tells us which mass murderers it’s okay to adore, and which ones ought to be cast into the furthest pits of hell. As far as I’m concerned, they were all statist war-mongering assholes.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a Che Guevara shirt.

Ha, I still get lots of Google hits over my post in 2005: Che Guevara, Murderer.

While Sean and I get into our kerfuffles now and then in comments, he’s really pretty good at never being susceptible to what I was perhaps somewhat susceptible to in my last post: Thanks Jimmy and LLVLC Readers for Making My Book #3 In 2012, Even if You Are a Neo-NAZI.

Since that post and a good part of the roughly 100 comments so far, the plot has thickened. Besides Melissa McEwen’s VictimSaga blog that’s already been mentioned, CarbInsane put out a post right on the heels of mine that links here: JimKKKins: The Saga of Jimmy Moore and David Duke. In comments on a previous post she said she’d be doing this on Sunday (tomorrow). I guess she hurried up, wanting to catch my wave of unbridled controversy. Of course, it’s only me who’s into a bit of healthy controversy and the attention it attracts—certainly not someone devoted to the truth and only the truth like Evelyn. I’m all about traffic. She, all about public service. Her commenters are all dialed in on that.

I’ve linked up those other posts for only one reason, which is the basic object of this post and what goes to the lead-off comment by Sean. Go read those comments if you like, and especially CarbInsane. What you are going to find is the nicest example of bandwagon non-thinking, zero-distinction, collective mentality, binary thinking (good OR evil), political correctness (the biggie) groupthink imaginable.

It’s an interesting study because I believe that not many people are going to care much that Jimmy, or Dr. William Davis, or Dr. Doug McGuff did an interview on David Duke‘s website in the context of health and nutrition.

Who cares? The Inquisition cares. And let’s face it. That’s what we’re really dealing with.

They demand that you think in an approved way. That you come to the same conclusions they do, condemn what they condemn. That like them, you have a clear understanding of what’s approved evil and what’s approved virtue. But more than that, everyone is basically scared shitless to do anything other than a variation on a “me too” comment. Pathetic. I adore that they hate me, hate this blog. I want none of them. They can’t handle the sort of wild discourse here, where it doesn’t matter really that some commenter finds some value in a thing or other about what David Duke preaches. They want an echo chamber and nothing less will do. They’re afraid!

But I got caught up a bit myself, into this sewer of knee-jerk, automatic, non-discerning condemnation and I’m indebted to Sean for making me consider that I perhaps wasted an opportunity to make a much better first post on the issue—because I only really care about open ended paradigms, and not narrow-context, damn the heretic catechism as preached by Melissa, CarbInsane and Wooo.

What do I think of Duke? Minimally from what I can tell, a racist / separatist, someone with an irrational, conspiratorial fear of a Jewish conspiracy to control everything. What does that mean? It means I have no sincere interest. There’s no value there for me that I can detect. I don’t give a shit in the world about the color of anyone’s skin, I don’t care about pristine whites being diluted with black, brown, red or yellow skin (we’ll all be light brown in the end), and I don’t care that an ethnic culture that has seemed to gain a prowess in business, entrepreneurism, and the arts reaps the benefits of that prowess and uses their influence as best they can. To put a perfectly practical and not moral spin on it: I’m never interested in those who preach putting cats back in bags. I’m just as uninterested in those who make a huge deal over those advocating same—because you can’t put cats back in bags.

What if Jimmy even did know what Duke was about? I don’t believe he did but what if? From reports of even those who are no Jimmy fans, he stuck with the topic. According to his latest post—If I’m A Neo-Nazi, Then I Guess Dr. William Davis And Dr. Doug McGuff Are Too?—so did Davis and McGuff. And according to that post, Jimmy declined an invitation to come back on and discuss things beyond diet.

Missionary? Or, is the fear over being tagged with anything Politically Incorrect so strong that everyone is paralyzed in fear over even thinking it? People used to fear the Gulag over wrong thinking. Now, they have the luxury of just getting to be in the in-crowd by spewing the party line.

You: Melissa, CarbInsanity, Wooo, and mostly all of your commenters….Priests of doctrine with a choir all singing the same tune backing you up. …What a pathetic lot you and your sycophants are.

Open with Sean and close with Sean. Yea, isn’t it amazing how the intelligentsia is still steeped in commie doctrine? I never tire of linking up Professor Rummel, whose life’s work is in documenting the hundreds of millions killed by the sorts of regimes still heralded by our universities? Isn’t it amazing?

DEATH BY GOVERNMENT, By R.J. Rummel

I BACKGROUND

2. The New Concept of Democide [Definition of Democide]
3. Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide

II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS

4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime

III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS

8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan’s Savage Military
9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State
10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey’s Genocidal Purges
11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State
12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland’s Ethnic Cleansing
13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State
14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito’s Slaughterhouse

IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS

15. 1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea
16. 1,417,000 Murdered? Barbarous Mexico
17. 1,066,000 Murdered? Feudal Russia

But let’s get all up in arms over David Duke who, near as I can tell, irrationally wants to put the cat back in the bag, keep the races separate, and keep the Jews away. It’s so awful by comparison.

Thanks Jimmy and LLVLC Readers for Making My Book #3 In 2012, Even if You Are a Neo-NAZI

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[For an update, please see: Lemons to Lemonade Documentary – Ed]

I never follow the crowd

While there’s hang wringing all around me over the latest “neo-NAZI” to show up on the scene—none other than Jimmy Moore—I’m not buying it.

I first got the word via a comment here by regular commenter “Eat Less Move Moore” on my post about my German dad surviving WWII on potatoes as a kid. He pointed to a post on Jimmy’s forum about him doing a podcast interview about LC on a popular white supremacist, anti-Semitic guy’s gig who I will not name or link—because I’m not interested in that kind of Google traffic, or in helping anyone supportive of such views. The rest of the comment was an insinuation that because I coincidentally blogged about my dad’s experience as a 5-yr-old starving boy in WWII Germany, Paleos are Hitler fans.

Neo-Nazi admirers of Hitler must be the hot new trend in LC/Paleo now.

I’ve been busy having a wonderful time with my wife’s family down here in Vista, CA. Only this afternoon did I finally have time to go in and see what was going on with the whole deal.

…But let me back up. Serious accusations like “he’s a NAZI sympathizer” require pretty enormous evidence for me. Since then, I’ve been tagged in tweets and been sent emails, not one of which I’ve replied to. I guess some people think that because I recently criticized Jimmy in a post and I’m a shit stirrer in general—willing to say almost anything—that I’m the prime guy to make a big deal about this.

Here’s the big deal if you want it: errors in judgment, not doing your due diligence, being too busy to check up on who wants to give you an hour podcast interview are indeed serious mistakes. They should be acknowledged, corrected…chalked up to a lesson learned in life and I’m betting Jimmy knows more about mistakes he’s made than I or you.

That makes him kinda normal. It doesn’t make him a racist, white supremacist or a supporter of same.

Jimmy is guilty of one thing: being successful enough in what he does as nearly a one man show—without staff to vet everything, so he never gets pwned—that he’s perfectly susceptible to this sort of thing. I myself have given a bunch of written and podcast interviews. I’ve checked peripherally to see who was requesting, but not very thoroughly. This could have happened to me, had I not already known who that guy is.

Alright, so anyway, I finally looked into everything this afternoon; all the hand wringing, a few posts on blogs I could find, etc. And I’m not at all surprised that people who simply hate Jimmy for whatever reason, could so easily believe that just because such a man believes in what many of us consider creation fairy tales—that, like 80% + of people in the US believe—then does an interview with a racist anti-Semite…that he concurrently believes what maybe 1% of Americans believe. I don’t see the logic in that “equation.” That’s because it’s completely devoid of logic, also ripe and rife with the very sort of hate people now wish to tag Jimmy with. What’s more, most “strong” Christians, creationist types with various elements of fundamentalist / born again beliefs, believe Jews are “God’s chosen people.” Doesn’t add up for me, not what I know of Jimmy as a rather pedestrian southern Christian.

I think Jimmy has some things to learn still about calories, starch, why LC works and why it no longer works when it doesn’t. We have our differences. But he has highlighted my posts on those differences by giving me another interview and tweeting and mentioning my two posts of that topic on his blog, including the post where I criticized him directly. What more can anyone expect of the man? I see intellectual honesty in spades.

Incidentally, I have direct confirmation from Jimmy that he had no idea who that guy was, what he was all about. He also sent me the link he had linked up—but has since taken down—and except for one questionable title in about a dozen or so, all titles of posts are what you would see in any typical Paleo or LC blog.

You can hate Jimmy as much as you want. You can hate him so much that you project your own irrational hatred onto him, conjuring up convenient scenarios about how he’s a racist, anti-semite, white supremacist. …But he’s actually not, and quite far from it. In the end, all you’ve exposed is your own pathology.

Thanks to Jimmy and his readers for making my book second only to two books by Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Jeff Volek. Jimmy reviews tons of books and did a top 25 of sales for 2012 as tabulated from his Amazon affiliate stats: Top 25 ‘Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb’ Amazon Bestsellers In 2012.

Next up is one of my fellow health bloggers and first-time author Richard Nikoley from the “Free The Animal” blog. Richard is one of those intriguing characters in the Paleo and low-carb world because he acknowledges quite openly that 60 pounds of his weight loss success was as a direct result of carbohydrate restriction before he started feeling bad eating that way and decided to switch things up to include more starchy carbohydrates (particularly potatoes in 2012) into his diet. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about Richard is that he’s the quintessential nutritional tinkerer willing to makes shifts here and there that work for him and he shares his personal findings with the people who follow his work. Because of his mostly crass, always direct and oftentimes over-the-top profane nature of communicating what he has to say, Richard tends to find himself with an equal number of people who love him or hate him. And I’m sure that suits him just fine. But one thing’s for sure–there is NO ignoring this man who has an important voice to share that he decided to unleash on the world in one of the hottest-selling books through my Amazon affiliate links in 2012. You can listen to Richard Nikoley talk about his book in my March 2012 interview with him in Episode 555 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show.

Thanks you Jimmy, and to your readers who completed the other side of a real equation by buying the book.

Given the nature of Jimmy’s blog and all the great books down the list from mine, I really consider this an honor that’s quite humbling. Sales are still going well, actually. Every day.

I firmly believe that here and moving forward, the popularity of both LC and Paleo demands that I, Jimmy, and everyone else, kick the professionalism up a notch in terms of who we cooperate with who’s willing to promote us.

Update: Jimmy now has a post up in his own defense.

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