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Free The Animal

Ex Navy Officer. Owner of Businesses. Digital Entrepreneur. Expat Living in Thailand. 5,000 Biting Blog Post on Everything since 2003.

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Archives for December 2012

Communique From Cabo

December 31, 2012 18 Comments

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.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Border Logic, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Rio Grande, san jose

A Very Tasty and Healthy Liquid Supplement

December 30, 2012

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.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: apple, Asia, Europe, South America, Supplement Facts, vitamin d, Whole Foods

Round Two of the Jimmy Moore & David Duke Controversy

December 29, 2012 137 Comments

[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.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: BBC, David Duke, Europe, Jimmy Moore, pc, Politically Incorrect

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

December 28, 2012 158 Comments

[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.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: CA, LC, NAZI, Neo Nazi, Richard Nikoley, WWII

My German WWII Survivor Dad, Lothar “Lute” Nikoley on Food in a War Zone

December 26, 2012 34 Comments

A story of food shortages and malnourishment in WWII and post-war Germany

Filed Under: General Tagged With: diet, Ellis Island, Germany, North Sea, war, WWII

Christmas Carols

December 25, 2012 19 Comments

…Courtesy of who my good friend and I always refer to as, looking up at each other  in unison when he comes up in the shuffle: “The Terrorist.” The great and awesome Cat Stevens, a singer songwriter who’s singing and songwriting still send chills up my spine decades later. Timeless.

Peace, like anarchy, begins at home. Get your own shit in order; number one. Mind your own business; number too. Live in peace; number three. 1, 2, 3. It’s fucking easy.

One more.

God and virgin birth myths aren’t enough. Obviously. The eternal tragedy of monotheistic religious myth is that they accomplish the exact opposite of their purported purpose. Even more tragically, they are so fucking good at accomplishing the exact opposite. It’s baked into the cake of monotheistic myth.

But anyway…Merry Christmas Myth.

…And no, I don’t care which myth you pick—I argue that people ought to put them in context, like the Santa myth: hella fun. Whether or not Cat Stevens becoming Yousuf Islam was a a religious epiphany, conversion, or a transformation…seems to me that whatever the case, his heart is in the right place.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: anarchy, Cat Stevens, Merry Christmas Myth, Yousuf Islam

Peace on Earth; Goodwill to Men, Etc, Etc.

December 24, 2012 1 Comment

Day of travel; haven’t really read any of the comments, yet. Tomorrow morning. Or not.

Following the Eve festivities at the parents-in-law over in Vista, I’ve retired to our timeshare in Oceanside—newly remodeled, which is quite nice.

A few spots of whiskey…and I think I’ll watch late-night infomercials for lafs.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: law

Random Potatoes

December 23, 2012 56 Comments

Just a quick dump of recent things.

IMG 1399
First, bake your potatoes, 400 for 75 minutes, let them sit out, ready

They’ll keep for days, perhaps weeks.

IMG 1401
Slice ’em, brush on a little butter, broil ’em a few minutes per side
IMG 1397
Peel & cube, make potato salad, 1 tbsp of fat per potato

Broil ’em with bits of meat & onions

That’s all for now.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: fat

Give Us This Day, Our Daily Bead: Make Someone’s Day

December 22, 2012 23 Comments

My Holiday greeting

We’ll be heading out tomorrow, perhaps early Monday depending on how preps go—down to SoCal for the gifting & celebration, a few days…then Beatrice and I are gonna fly out of Tijuana via Volaris to Cabo for a couple of days, rent a car and drive up to La Paz for three days. SCUBA and snorkeling for me.

For one reason or other, neither of us are that enamored of the “holiday spirit” this year—probably why we’re going to Mexico. I’ve explained to Beatrice that it matters not much to me. I spent 8 holiday seasons living abroad, largely alone and in my own thoughts—not ever bothering to put up a single decoration. It’s somewhat of a relief to recapture that. I’ve often felt over the last years that the holiday season was mostly just a pain in the ass. Sorry.

…Unless it’s truly genuine, now & then.

Thursday I decided to undertake some long neglected maintenance on my BMW X5. It began with an oil change, filters, other fluids—at a place nearby where Bea takes her Infiniti. I already knew that the front driver side-axle CV boot was torn, but this guy’s inspection revealed that the passenger side boot is now torn as well. Whoa! It’s like 3 thousand clams for that job at the dealer, a little less at the Euro specialists. I began asking around & found Arturo. He wants my business and by Friday afternoon, I had two new—not reconditioned—left & right front axles replaced for $750, parts & labor—the price the dealer would charge for just one axle, the part itself.

It works fine.

…Back up. Thursday afternoon, while I was leaving the shop for the oil change, the guy who did the work stopped me as I was driving out.

“Can you check to see if I left my flashlight in your car?”

…I’d been watching him work. All the guys have these white, brilliant LED flashlights so they can inspect inside the dark engine compartments of the cars they’re working on. I checked around.

“Nope, nothing here.”

He kept his game face on, which I wasn’t to realize until just a couple of hours ago.

…Last evening Bea’s school had a collective dinner at a local place, teppanyaki style. 20-something elementary school teachers. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of teachers, even the principal, about having trained, armed teachers and encountered zero resistance. They naturally had already thought about cops or retired cops on site, but for sure: they understand they’re targets.

When we left, we went over to Khartoum in Campbell—a nightclub—with the lot of them. When ready to leave, Bea couldn’t find her purse so I went to the car to check. I didn’t find her purse, which turned up in the nightclub.

Instead, I found a flashlight rolling around in the back.

…I do all of my billing via PayTrust, for years now. The problem for things like vehicle registration is then, your sticker goes to South Dakota, a pain in ass. So I have the stupid government send my stuff to my home, because they’re stupid and you can’t fix stupid. I only bother to open physical mail about every 2-3 months. When you do that, you’ll find that 99% is trash worthy, so you never wasted any time. But so, I found the registration renewal and for the first time ever, smog cert is required for my X5.

I headed over to the same shop. By this point, I’d not even thought about the flashlight. Once one of the guys got working on my car, I did think about it. Went to the back, opened the door, retrieved it, brandished it and the entire shop of about 6 guys began making uproarious noise.

…Turns out, this is not just any flashlight. This is a $200 flashlight. The guy who lost it was there, and you’d have thought I’d just saved his firstborn from doom. The coast was clear, all are happy, and all the other guys had their fun, per the proper ethic of a place where everyone works hard:

“He CRIED! Hahahaha.” He’s been looking all over the shop, calling customers….”

He offered to take me out for tequila shots.

He made sure the owners gave me his employee discount. Saved me 10 bucks.

When I left, I wished him a Merry Christmas and added: “now you’ll never forget me.” He replied instantly: “Never!”

How simple it is, really. Fortunate how one human being can make the day for another at random like that, with the fortune of it making your day, by consequence.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: La Paz, LED, Merry Christmas, SCUBA, South Dakota, Whoa It

Drunks trash McDonalds over lack of healthy options

December 22, 2012 13 Comments

Too hilarious to not just quote the whole thing outright. Just for some lafs. Thanks for sharing, Jesrad. Memo to the Onion: you’d better watch out. This is pretty damn good.

ANGRY Friday night vegetarians ran amok in a branch of McDonalds when it failed to offer adequate meat-free and vegan menu choices.

mcsalad
‘Spanish tomatoes can fuck off’

Police were called to the Wigan restaurant after an intoxicated health-conscious mob began smashing furniture and exposing their genitals.

Onlooker Nikki Hollis said: “The atmosphere was raucous but good, until they ran out of those little bags of carrot sticks.

“Things turned ugly then. There was only one bag of apple pieces left, and two thickset men, one with sick on his shirt, started fighting over it.

“The bag split and the slices of fresh apple went on the floor. Everyone went mental, throwing punches and kicking, trying to get to the fruit.”

She added: “They were chanting something like, ‘veggie boys, we are here, shag your women, eat your vegetables’.”

As he was being loaded into a police van, rioter Tom Logan said: “It’s fucking bollocks mate, we just wanted some fucking nutritious fresh produce, preferably fucking organic.

“This prick behind the counter, he’s like ‘we’ve got salads left’. I was like fuck off mate, they’re deceptively high in salt and fat, plus most of them come with grilled chicken and I don’t eat meat unless it’s locally sourced.

“Booooolllllllllloooooooocks.”

Logan’s vegan friend Nathan Muir said: “When you’re a vegan and you’ve skulled 18 pints of Stella, you want something fucking wholesome, like a five-bean salad from a fucking Soil Association-approved grower.

“And if you don’t get that, it’s going to fucking kick off.”

He added: “Get your tits out, get your tits out. Get your tits out for the vegans.”

Filed Under: General Tagged With: apple, fat, Nathan Muir, Onlooker Nikki Hollis, Soil Association, vegan

Would My Time be Better Spent Trying to Force People?

December 21, 2012 26 Comments

Until you’ve written about 3,300 posts over nearly 10 years now, read every one of over 62,000 comments and replied to thousands of them, you’ll never have my perspective on just how very difficult it is to persuade people. I had a college roommate back in the day who used to tell people that I was very persuasive. Sometimes I wish I’d never heard that.

paleo has been and is a great shot in the arm, because it’s relatively easy to persuade people to give it a shot. There’s real results. As a blogger, I want to have smart people on my side and as such, I take reasonable care to ensure that what I write has some logic & reason behind it, even though I don’t often go out of my way to look up studies. And I’m always willing to change my mind. But even when I do, it’s always more like a correction, not a complete reversal. Some exceptions, but even the potato deal is only a short term hack for me, not a way of life (I have another blog about the relegation of LC to its proper place, in draft).

I had no idea that when I began blogging about this gun debate thing—in response to the Newtown, Connecticut massacre of federally mandated Children as sitting ducks—that my intended single post would turn into two, then three, then four and I dunno, is this my fifth?

paleo is an easy task to interest people. There’s a number of elements stacked in your favor. Going against the tide in terms of self-defense involving armed citizens, even teachers in school? Anarchy? Atheism? These are tough nuts to crack, to even get people to think about.

And yet, here’s a few comments beyond the emails I’ve received.

Jordan:

Richard, I have never commented on your site before, but I wanted to let you know that you convinced me to go buy my first gun. This is the finest arguments I’ve ever seen on either side of the debate.

Leo Desforges:

I’m thinking the same thing. Really.

You can hit those links to see how I and other experienced gun owners jumped in to offer advice in how to do this right. This is a potentially deadly tool. Be good. Be cool. Never be a bad statistic. Ever. That is your ethic. Presence of mind. No excuses. Ever.

Then earlier today…

Alex:

I’m actually glad you’ve devoted the amount of blog space to this issue that you have. It’s something that needs to be discussed, and positions need to be stated clearly. It’s not enough to feel something here; there has to be a sound argument behind those emotions. Guns are scary/cool doesn’t do shit. And while I can only speak for myself, I can say that you’ve moved me very close to your side on this issue. I’ve never handled a gun myself, and come from a pretty lefty family. So it probably isn’t surprising that I’ve always sympathized with the “ban everything” side of things. I can’t say that I’m going to go out, get the training, and get a gun. But I can say I’m considering it, and that’s something I would not have done previously. I’ve examined my previous position, and found my reasons for holding it wanting.

Paula:

I’m with you, Alex.

Like I always say, one mind at a time. I’m humbled, because as long as I’ve been at this, it’s my more common experience for people to simply evolve their thinking over time. Rare to have them come out and say “you changed my mind.”

So I’m chalking this up to a modest feather in my cap, knowing in particular that in all the anti-gun rhetoric over the last few days, not one assured, competent and responsible gun owner went and tuned in their guns.

More Guns, in More Places, by More Competent People of Good Will and Character. Please let’s make sure to stay on point: More Guns, not less. More responsible people trained in their use. More uncertainty on the part of predators. More on-scene defense and protection. More man-up.

Less, far less cowering to dinosaurs and whichever King or Court Time Magazine makes Person of the Year, all of whose time is so long past in the space of any truly rational and responsible mind.

Update: Leo, again, in comments below.

Many of the insights on this blog, both written by you and many of the informed commenters have helped to open useful dialogue amongst me and my friends. In the past week, gun violence has been the topic and armed (pun!) with information from this site these dialogues have effectively helped guide 6-8 formerly “ban-assault-weapons” types into some mind expansion. No yelling, no forcing the hand, just good facts and an appeal to logic. Trickle down at its best. Keep it up.

Good job.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: guns, LC, potato, Update Leo

A Modest Proposal to Protect School Children from Gun-Wielding Predators

December 21, 2012 10 Comments

If I was even more cynical than I am, more susceptible to conspiracy theories, what would be better than this?

In 1990, the Oligarchy that runs everything worldwide behind closed doors, and with their super-human ability to keep secrets too big to keep for centuries, got together for a brilliant plan. See, they’re smart—they run everything without us even knowing so they must be—which means they know there will always be a predator / evil element.

Let’s eavesdrop…

How to benefit from that predatory element, beyond the obvious protection racket we’ve already been running for centuries, exchanging public perception of being safe for less actual safety and with our middle-man cut of more power and influence in the bargain? How about we make the most defenseless members of society—and most sympathetic—the principle targets and victims? Our power will skyrocket!

Gun Free Zones! Schools! Brilliant idea! We’ll implicitly advertise to the predatory element just where they can go to meet the least amount of resistance. They’re smart. They’ll get it. …Not to mention, some of this element were misfits in the very public indoctrination we call schools; it will be a doubly obvious choice for them and a literal perfect storm of public outcry for us. Our influence will skyrocket!

…Just one thing. There’s a grave danger that the public will eventually catch on and realize that we’ve made the kids sitting ducks, so that we can grab more power, more influence…and eventually, be seen as so virtuous that our old rival The Church will just hang up its robes & beads for good. …What happens if, for instance, either someone who knows we’re just doing this so predators will go after the children instead of us or our stooges in government, or is the typical moron who thinks everything we do is good for them… What if they propose that we make The White House, Capitol Hill, and all the State Houses Gun Free Zones?

tumblr mfb5u73SRj1qk91wgo1 500
A Far Better Sitting Duck Target Than Schools

Seems like a good diversionary tactic to me. I await President Obama or any Congressman to introduce Federal Legislation to make all federal and state houses of government across the land Gun Free Zones. What’s good enough for the kids is good enough for us, and it goes without saying that we ought to lead by example when it comes to kids.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Capitol Hill, Federal Legislation, Gun Free Zones, Gun Free Zones Schools Brilliant, safety, State Houses Gun Free Zones

Arming Teachers and Administrators in “Gun Free Zones” (already a reality)

December 21, 2012 32 Comments

…Because predators didn’t get the memo

Yea, I know. When are you going to move on, Richard? Maybe now. Yea, I know. This is so polarized, what’s the point? Biting social commentary is the point, always. Thinking is the point, always. Nothing out of bounds for consideration is the point, always. The Internet and self information gathering and education is the point, always. Living your own life for your own sake and by your own calculated means is the point, always. Resisting all who would compel, restrict, and outlaw your rational endeavors in seeing to your own life is the point, always.

This is not about guns per se. It’s about effective self defense and defense of the defenseless like children, who by nature depend upon our competent stewardship—life & death to them—and not so much on our pathetic, ideological, ineffective-to-task-at-hand whip cracking at their expense. Wankers.

Commenter DJ dropped a bomb that I woke up to this morning. The understated, humble title of the post truly belies its importance: An opinion on gun control. What it is, is a roughly 10,000 word exposé on the whole enchilada of gun control; reasoned analysis of the various proposals to limit gun violence from a current novelist with a gun-rich past. His article is apparently making quite the rounds

Larry Correia is the New York Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series, the Grimnoir Chronicles, and the thriller Dead Six.

…However, before that I owned a gun store. We were a Title 7 SOT, which means we worked with legal machineguns, suppresors, and pretty much everything except for explosives. We did law enforcement sales and worked with equipment that is unavailable from most dealers, but that means lots and lots of government inspections and compliance paperwork. This means that I had to be exceedingly familiar with federal gun laws, and there are a lot of them. I worked with many companies in the gun industry and still have many friends and contacts at various manufacturers. When I hear people tell me the gun industry is unregulated, I have to resist the urge to laugh in their face.

I was also a Utah Concealed Weapons instructor, and was one of the busiest instructors in the state. That required me to learn a lot about self-defense laws, and because I took my job very seriously, I sought out every bit of information that I could. My classes were longer than the standard Utah class, and all of that extra time was spent on Use of Force, shoot/no shoot scenarios, and role playing through violent encounters. I have certified thousands of people to carry guns.

I have been a firearms instructor, and have taught a lot of people how to shoot defensively with handguns, shotguns, and rifles. For a few years of my life, darn near every weekend was spent at the range. I started out as an assistant for some extremely experienced teachers and I also had the opportunity to be trained by some of the most accomplished firearms experts in the world. The man I stole most of my curriculum from was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Special Forces, turned federal agent SWAT team commander. I took classes in everything from wound ballistics (10 hours of looking at autopsy slides) to high-speed cool-guy door-kicking stuff. I’ve worked extensively with military and law enforcement personnel, including force on force training where I played the OpFor (i.e. I got to be the bad guy, because I make an awesome bad guy. You tell me how evil/capable you want me to be, and how hard you want your men to work, and I’d make it happen, plus I can take a beating). Part of this required learning how mass shooters operate and studying the heck out of the actual events.

I have been a competition shooter. I competed in IPSC, IDPA, and 3gun. It was not odd for me to reload and shoot 1,000 rounds in any given week. I fired 20,000 rounds of .45 in one August alone. I’ve got a Remington 870 with approximately 160,000 rounds through it. I’ve won matches, and I’ve been able to compete with some of the top shooters in the country. I am a very capable shooter. I only put this here to convey that I know how shooting works better than the vast majority of the populace.

I have written for national publications on topics relating to gun law and use of force. I wrote for everything from the United States Concealed Carry Association to SWAT magazine. I was considered a subject matter expert at the state level, and on a few occasions was brought in to testify before the Utah State Legislature on the ramifications of proposed gun laws. I’ve argued with lawyers, professors, professional lobbyists, and once made a state rep cry.

Basically for most of my adult life, I have been up to my eyeballs in guns, self-defense instruction, and the laws relating to those things. So believe me when I say that I’ve heard every argument relating to gun control possible. It is pretty rare for me to hear something new, and none of this stuff is new.

Feel free to dismiss him out of hand as biased, which he admits to. What you can’t claim, however, is that he doesn’t know his subject material. The article is actually written in English, makes arguments, and so I can’t see how anyone would be subject to magical mind control. The only ones for whom such a reasoned article would be a waste, are those who don’t hold anti-gun positions based upon reason…because it’s impossible to reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

Much to my surprise, however, I learned that my initial idea in my first post (Don’t Worry: When Seconds Count, the Cops Are Only Minutes Away—a phrase he uses in his essay), that willing and able teachers and administrators ought to be armed, is already a reality in Utah, thanks to his countless hours of donated time & effort.

Armed Teachers

So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture.

Now when I say teachers carrying concealed weapons on Facebook I immediately get a bunch of emotional freak out responses. You can’t mandate teachers be armed! Guns in every classroom! Emotional response! Blood in the streets!

No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away. After Colombine law enforcement changed their methods in dealing with active shooters. It used to be that you took up a perimeter and waited for overwhelming force before going in. Now usually as soon as you have two officers on scene you go in to confront the shooter (often one in rural areas or if help is going to take another minute, because there are a lot of very sound tactical reasons for using two, mostly because your success/survival rates jump dramatically when you put two guys through a door at once. The shooter’s brain takes a moment to decide between targets). The reason they go fast is because they know that every second counts. The longer the shooter has to operate, the more innocents die.

However, cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse. They simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back.

So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do?

The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started. [emphasis added]

The teachers are there already. The school staff is there already. Their reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. They can serve as your immediate violent response. Best case scenario, they engage and stop the attacker, or it bursts his fantasy bubble and he commits suicide. Worst case scenario, the armed staff provides a distraction, and while he’s concentrating on killing them, he’s not killing more children.

But teachers aren’t as trained as police officers! True, yet totally irrelevant. The teacher doesn’t need to be a SWAT cop or Navy SEAL. They need to be speed bumps.

But this leads to the inevitable shrieking and straw man arguments about guns in the classroom, and then the pacifistic minded who simply can’t comprehend themselves being mandated to carry a gun, or those that believe teachers are all too incompetent and can’t be trusted. Let me address both at one time.

Don’t make it mandatory. In my experience, the only people who are worth a darn with a gun are the ones who wish to take responsibility and carry a gun. Make it voluntary. It is rather simple. Just make it so that your state’s concealed weapons laws trump the Federal Gun Free School Zones act. All that means is that teachers who voluntarily decide to get a concealed weapons permit are capable of carrying their guns at work. Easy. Simple. Cheap. Available now.

Then they’ll say that this is impossible, and give me all sorts of terrible worst case scenarios about all of the horrors that will happen with a gun in the classroom… No problem, because this has happened before. In fact, my state laws allow for somebody with a concealed weapons permit to carry a gun in a school right now. Yes. Utah has armed teachers. We have for several years now. [emphasis added]

When I was a CCW instructor, I decided that I wanted more teachers with skin in the game, so I started a program where I would teach anybody who worked at a school for free. No charge. Zip. [emphasis added] They still had to pay the state for their background check and fingerprints, but all the instruction was free. I wanted more armed teachers in my state. [emphasis added]

I personally taught several hundred teachers. I quickly discovered that pretty much every single school in my state had at least one competent, capable, smart, willing individual. [emphasis added] Some schools had more. I had one high school where the principal, three teachers, and a janitor showed up for class. They had just had an event where there had been a threat against the school and their resource officer had turned up AWOL. This had been a wake up call for this principal that they were on their own, and he had taken it upon himself to talk to his teachers to find the willing and capable. Good for them.

After Virginia Tech, I started teaching college students for free as well. They were 21 year old adults who could pass a background check. Why should they have to be defenseless?  None of these students ever needed to stop a mass shooting, but I’m happy to say that a couple of rapists and muggers weren’t so lucky, so I consider my time well spent.

Over the course of a couple years I taught well over $20,000 worth of free CCW classes. I met hundreds and hundreds of teachers, students, and staff. All of them were responsible adults who understood that they were stuck in target rich environments filled with defenseless innocents. Whether they liked it or not, they were the first line of defense. It was the least I could do. [emphasis fucking ADDED!]

Permit holders are not cops. The mistake many people make is that they think permit holders are supposed to be cops or junior danger rangers. Not at all. Their only responsibility is simple. If someone is threatening to cause them or a third person serious bodily harm, and that someone has the ability, opportunity, and is acting in a manner which suggest they are a legitimate threat, then that permit holder is allowed to use lethal force against them.

As of today the state legislatures of Texas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma are looking at revamping their existing laws so that there can be legal guns in school. For those that are worried these teachers will be unprepared, I’m sure there would be no lack of instructors in those states who’d be willing to teach them for free.

For everyone, if you are sincere in your wish to protect our children, I would suggest you call your state representative today and demand that they allow concealed carry in schools.

There; that’s for the hero files, as well as the hand-wringing helpless Mogan (and Piers Moron) files.

Go read this whole thing, and then, all you gun folks, get to it like this hero did, get some teachers trained as competent defenders of their charge, and let’s get on with life in the FUCK YOU! way that we ought to.

Oh, and one more thing. Go ahead and tell Larry Correia, me, or anyone else arguing these social issues in my comments that they care more about gun rights than in effective protection of defenseless children we are solemnly charged to protect—all of us, as human beings. The reality is that King Bush I has child blood on his hands, as does Clinton, King Bush II, and now Obama: Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990.

Gun Free Zones

Gun Free Zones are hunting preserves for innocent people. Period.

Exactly. Please stop being so stupid. It annoys me. You’re on your own.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Armed Teachers, CCW, Gun Free Zones, guns, law, state

Think Different; Solutions are to be found in the nature of the Human Animal itself

December 19, 2012 54 Comments

Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
…
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody’s gonna mess me ’round

First consider watching this 10 minute video of Piers Moron making a Morgan of himself in an interview with Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, who has the temerity to…

According to Pratt, the best way to protect people from mass shootings is to make sure more guns are allowed in more places. “Gun-free zones are like magnets for the monsters in our society,” [said] Pratt.

Sounds a lot like what I’ve been saying here and here, and today was the first I’ve ever heard of Pratt or the GOA.

Note the moronic (are you a selective moron?) emphasis on “gun crime” and not, “all cause mortality,” i.e. all homicide. Get it?

Now, let’s segue to another potentially dangerous weapon that millions of people are left to get by with on their own on a daily basis: the automobile. We as a society permit this sort of dangerous and risky behavior, one that kills far more people than the anthropomorphic gun does in its wildest dreams.

So what if I proposed that to make traffic safer in the general, we eliminate virtually all traffic signs, directions, rules, stop signs, stop lights? In comments on a post today, a commenter actually jokingly attributed my more guns in more places position exactly to that.

Well, guess what? It’s been done. Not only has it been done, but it’s been a marvelous success in reducing and even sometimes eliminating fatalities, injuries and property damage on previously notorious intersections (Google it).

Enter Hans Monderman.

Hans Monderman (19 November 1945 – 7 January 2008)[1][3] was a Dutch road traffic engineer and innovator. He was recognized for radically challenging criteria used to evaluate engineering solutions for street design. His work compelled transportation planners and highway engineers to look afresh at the way people and technology relate to each other.[4]

His most famous design approach is Shared Space, also known as designing for negotiation or Shared Streets. Monderman found that the traffic efficiency and safety of urban streets improved when the street and surrounding public space was redesigned to encourage each person to negotiate their movement directly with others. Shared Space designs typically call for removing regulatory traffic control features (such as kerbs, lane markings, signs and lights) and replacing intersections with roundabouts.[5]

Here is a very fine essay / article by Tom Vanderbilt that delves into Han’s philosophical underpinnings as well: The Traffic Guru. I’ll excerpt the relevant part.

In the last few years, however, one traffic engineer did achieve a measure of global celebrity, known, if not exactly by name, then by his ideas. His name was Hans Monderman. The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety infrastructure—warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so on—is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.” Eventually he drove me to Makkinga, a small village at whose entrance stood a single sign. It welcomed visitors, noted a 30 kilometer-per-hour speed limit, then added: “Free of Traffic Signs.” This was Monderman humor at its finest: a traffic sign announcing the absence of traffic signs.

Monderman wasn’t an obvious candidate to become a traffic revolutionary. Born in the small Friesland village of Leeuwarden, son of a headmaster, he worked as a civil engineer, building roads, then as an accident investigator, examining how crashes happen. But he was an unusually fluid thinker. Over lunch during my visit, he excitedly told me that he had been reading about the theory that delta societies tend to foster innovation because of their necessary flexibility in dealing with potentially changing landscapes. He saw a parallel with the low-lying Netherlands. “I think the Dutch are selected for that quality—looking for changes—by the landscape.”

And Monderman certainly changed the landscape in the provincial city of Drachten, with the project that, in 2001, made his name. At the town center, in a crowded four-way intersection called the Laweiplein, Monderman removed not only the traffic lights but virtually every other traffic control. Instead of a space cluttered with poles, lights, “traffic islands,” and restrictive arrows, Monderman installed a radical kind of roundabout (a “squareabout,” in his words, because it really seemed more a town square than a traditional roundabout), marked only by a raised circle of grass in the middle, several fountains, and some very discreet indicators of the direction of traffic, which were required by law.

As I watched the intricate social ballet that occurred as cars and bikes slowed to enter the circle (pedestrians were meant to cross at crosswalks placed a bit before the intersection), Monderman performed a favorite trick. He walked, backward and with eyes closed, into the Laweiplein. The traffic made its way around him. No one honked, he wasn’t struck. Instead of a binary, mechanistic process—stop, go—the movement of traffic and pedestrians in the circle felt human and organic.

A year after the change, the results of this “extreme makeover” were striking: Not only had congestion decreased in the intersection—buses spent less time waiting to get through, for example—but there were half as many accidents, even though total car traffic was up by a third. Students from a local engineering college who studied the intersection reported that both drivers and, unusually, cyclists were using signals—of the electronic or hand variety—more often. They also found, in surveys, that residents, despite the measurable increase in safety, perceived the place to be more dangerous. This was music to Monderman’s ears. If they had not felt less secure, he said, he “would have changed it immediately.”

Ah, music to my ears: “If they had not felt less secure…” Remind you of anything, like: The Evolutionary Deterrence of the Unknown? …And so we come full traffic circle.

I could approach this from a number of angles. One such angle, however, has already been in motion for the 8 Parts & counting of my Anarchy Begins at Home Series. That is, just because you feel safe & secure by having a host of officials making your decisions for you, creating layers of rules & regulations on rules & regulations, doesn’t mean you are; and the unintended consequences are always going to be greater. Always.

The other tack is that you only feel safe and secure because you’re a lazy-ass animal and someone’s doing your work for you. You have stop signs, stop lights, a plethora of signs and road rules, so you can drive blissfully, feeling safe, but provably less safe. Or, you have gun control and a system of professional protectors that almost always get there in minutes to do your lazy-ass job for you—but too often, when seconds count.

You’re welcome to argue that both traffic regulations and delegation of all forceful defense  is “safe enough.” But that is your personal decision to make. Don’t argue that it’s actually the safest, because it’s not, and don’t argue that I and others must go along with it because it’s good enough for you. It’s not good enough for me, and many others. 

I’m on the highway to hell

Nobody gets out alive. Just make sure that you get to go to hell in your own go-cart!

Filed Under: General Tagged With: guns, Hans Monderman, Human Animal, safety, Shared Space, Tom Vanderbilt

The Evolutionary Deterrence of the Unknown: Newtown, Connecticut School Shooting Reflections

December 17, 2012 172 Comments

I had a lineup of posts I was working on Friday when the news came in, derailing those plans. For me, this sort of thing demands immediate social discourse, so that’s what I did. Don’t Worry: When Seconds Count, the Cops Are Only Minutes Away. For those uninterested in this debate and discussion, no quarrel with you. Regular programming returns after this is published. For those with some interest either way, I hope to provide additional insights to consider (lots & lots).

What an inspection of the nearly 200 comments on that post so far will reveal is lots of data, facts, citations on my part and others…contrasted with general appeals to emotion, illogic, blatant ignorance…calls for banning this and that from others.

I’d not had a chance to argue the case for more loaded guns in more places, in the hands of more people (preferably concealed; I’ll explain why below) for a while. I quickly noticed that the sources of data, crime statistics and such that support that view are better than ever, getting even better and more accessible.

The various echelons of the disarmament, defenseless, pacifist, banning, controlling, etc. side are so bankrupt in their logical thinking that all you get are appeals to emotion, lashing out….or citations to a homogenous, island culture like Japan (a police state)—where I lived for 5 years and never locked the door of my house or car, even when away for weeks and in a few cases, a couple of months at a time. Who’s next? The Kitavans?

As I considered this over the weekend with comments rolling in, some things became obvious.

  1. The “more control,” “ban certain categories,” or plain anti-gun folks are really ignorant about guns. They toss around words and descriptions like “assault rifle” or “semi-automatic” with no real knowledge of what the terms mean—just like a child uses and misuses words they learn from their parents before having a complete understanding of them.
  2. While it’s easy to dismiss the Kumbayah Pacifists on grounds of mental retardation—’tards’—there’s also the otherwise smart folk who don’t seem to understand that events like this are not a gun problem. …Anymore than a faultily constructed house is a hammer problem and getting rid of it will fix the foundation.
  3. There is very little understanding of what competent and generally effective  defense entails. Of the three, this is perhaps the biggest problem.

Let’s address ’em one at a time.

#1. A true “assault rifle” is a fully automatic weapon. That is, so long as the trigger is held down and ammunition remains, it fires continuously. Semi-automatic weapons require one trigger pull per firing and come in all shapes and sizes, even shotguns. Ironically, in inexperienced hands, fully-auto weapons would usually result in fewer deaths because more rounds are expended per kill than “necessary,” depleting ammunition “inefficiently.” They also tend to be difficult to keep on a target because the continuous recoil makes them move off (using fully automatic weapons or “machine guns“—or even RPGs—effectively requires training and skill).

But the real distinction to understand is that what makes a gun semi-automatic is that a portion of the force from the recoil of firing a round is siphoned off to reload the next round, rather than doing it manually. Well, guess what? All guns with any sort of magazine, i.e., an integral store of rounds, have manual mechanisms for reloading. Whether it’s a quick pump on a shotgun, a fast back-&-forth on the bolt of a rifle, or rapid slapping of the hammer of a revolver, all non-semi-automatic weapons can be rapidly fired just like a semi-auto and sometimes even faster; only, with manual effort required. In fact, I have a .38 revolver, and I can fire its six rounds as fast as any semi-auto. It doesn’t even require slapping the hammer with my other hand—just a more forceful squeeze of the trigger. Moreover, revolvers are arguably the best self defense weapon for Joe Average because their mechanism is simple. It’ll last forever, will never jam, and requires zero maintenance.

All of the “assault rifle” hoopla—every ounce of it—is fodder for the ignorant. It simply is. Manufactures have a certain category of their semi-autos that they manufacture to appear as nefarious and menacing as possible—though they operate just like any semi-auto—and those who lack all knowledge of guns but what they hear from dolled up talking heads on TeeVee—equally ignorant—conjure imaginations that have no correspondence with reality. It’s the blind stirring up the blind.

#2. We have a social problem and it goes very deep, has many tentacles, and banning stuff will not only not solve a damn thing, but just as with alcohol, drugs, and every other thing that gets banned, unintended consequences are always worse.

I don’t even bother to look at arguments that involve banning anything. …No more than I pay attention to arguments that unicorns, Santa, tooth fairies, and Easter bunnies might exist…or that the universe might revolve around a flat Earth. Bans and restrictions are fantasies and at a point, there’s just not enough time in the day and you have to filter out the moron to get anything done. Ban? ….Dismissed out-of-hand. Nothing to see there, except fucking moron, and there’s plenty of that everywhere.

…Oh, ya, then there’s the “bazooka” argument (“well, people can’t own a bazooka, so why not ban other ‘weapons of mass destruction?'”). I note that fissionable material is so difficult to obtain and then explode even if one did own some, whole States have been working on it for decades. I advocate for a complete lifting of the ban on private individual citizens owning nuclear weapons. I also advocate lifting the ban on armed F-22 Raptors, for individuals earning more than its base price of $137 million per year. Have at it. ….And so on.

Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) might be obtainable, but at about $100 per round and training and skill required to make them hit intended targets, it’s going to put a dent in the wallet of an 18-yr-old high schooler, and the requisite practice might draw some attention. If they wanted to use explosives, there’s plenty of ways for even primitive, dirt poor people to improvise them (IEDs).

…Or just go buy this guy’s Bofors L60 40mm automatic anti-aircraft cannon. Legal to own. Legal to sell. Legal to have the time of your life blowing shit up! Ignorants: yes, I am laughing at your utter ignorance. Hey, that’s “military gear.” Ha, and watching that video seriously makes me want to demand a refund from the producers of that 1997 film, The Jackal. …I doubt you’ll be seeing it any time soon at a school near you. So where has your argument gone?

You will never, ever ban your way out of this social problem and will only create worse problems. Here.

In studies involving interviews of felons, one of the reasons the majority of burglars try to avoid occupied homes is the chance of getting shot. (Increasing the odds of arrest is another.) A study of Pennsylvania burglary inmates reported that many burglars refrain from late-night burglaries because it’s hard to tell if anyone is home, several explaining “That’s the way to get shot.” (Rengert G. and Wasilchick J., Suburban Burglary: A Time and a Place for Everything, 1985, Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas.)

By comparing criminal victimization surveys from Britain and the Netherlands (countries having low levels of gun ownership) with the U.S., Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck determined that if the U.S. were to have similar rates of “hot” burglaries as these other nations, there would be more than 450,000 additional burglaries per year where the victim was threatened or assaulted. (Britain and the Netherlands have a “hot” burglary rate near 45% versus just under 13% for the U.S…. Source: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.

Note: a “hot” burglary is one where the occupants are home instead of away. That is, it’s a common burglary that becomes a home invasion.

Here.

But the trouble is that this kind of burglary – the kind most likely to go “wrong” – is now the norm in Britain. In America, it’s called a “hot” burglary – a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present – or a “home invasion”, which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are “hot” burglaries, and in my part of the world it’s statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it’s more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police’s petty, well-publicized pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.

Here.

Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

  • In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
  • Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
  • Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

  • Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
  • During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
  • Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
  • Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
  • At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
  • Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn’t prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

“Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime.”

My quibble: looks like the gun ban had a profound [adverse] impact on the mount of [gun-involved] crime. Whether gun-involved or not, seems to me that even victimization that has “gone beyond” guns is for a reason. Dead is dead. Raped is raped. Robbed is robbed. and violated is violated and a lifelong burden, as any raped women will tell you. Stabbed is…not a gun. It’s still stabbed.

All is not lost, however. In spite of the irrational, profit-driven sensationalism surrounding such events, as well as the understandable feelings of helplessness and doom people experience, the rates of mass killings are constant over a long period. The overall rate of violent crime over the last decades has decreased dramatically to the tune of 2/3ds, in spite of all the guns, all the semi-automatics. In spite of all the “military gear” people can now possess.

From the Oxford University Press: The Seven Myths of Mass Murder.

Myth 3: Incidents of mass murder are increasing

When a mass murder occurs, it receives instant and pervasive news coverage. Unfortunately, we are prone to overestimate the frequency of an event by its prominence in our minds, and mass murder is no exception. This is a very rare phenomenon and is neither increasing nor decreasing in the US. Since 1976 there have been about 20 mass murders a year. 2003 was the most violent year for mass murder, with 30 incidents and 135 victims. Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Edmund Oklahoma, and San Ysidro still resonate in the public consciousness, however, reminding us that these events do happen. A positive counterpoint is that rates of all violent crime have significantly decreased over this same time period, from 48 victims per 1000 persons in 1976 to 15 victims in 2010. The most lethal school mass murder in US history was in Bath, Michigan, in 1927, a bombing that resulted in 45 deaths, mostly children in the second to sixth grades.

The title of this post relates to point #3 and as is my favorite way of doing things, the most important point is the simplest point.

What is your chief effective lifelong defense against aggression?

Let me explore that by first asking: what phenomena causes all animals to have fear? Isn’t it the unknown, the uncertain, the unpredictable? The unfamiliar? It’s more powerful generally than any physical weapon. Weapons are tools for specific events and needs. But they are also far more effective in the long term and the general: as unknown deterrents.

And so, for example, the unintended consequence of making a school a “gun free zone” is that it advertises predictable certainty right out in the open. No unknowns. Zero fear on the part of predators, and the fact that vice principle Joel Myrick was able to retrieve his gun from his truck and stop a school shooting from going to the next planned school was a mere flash in time coincidence, long forgotten. If someone is intent upon killing, schools are simply: the most logical choice.

Adults ought hang their miserable heads in shame. You have participated politically in putting children in harm’s way, making them the go-to explicit targets and sitting ducks. It’s a perfect storm, and virtually no one looks at it rationally. “It’s a tragedy.” Bullshit! It is your responsibility to protect your children 24-fucking-7; no exceptions, no excuses. …No fucking contrived “tragedies” to mask your dereliction in the most fundamental responsibility that exists between one human being and another.

…Why are militaries so intent on keeping their capabilities secret, unless so overwhelming, that calculated divulgence works better? How come it’s better in a state where concealed carry is permitted, for any common citizen to keep their weapon loaded and concealed, rather than open carry? How would your driving behaviors change if all traffic cops went to unmarked vehicles? If you don’t like and don’t have firearms, are you going to put a “Gun Free Zone” sign on your front yard?

…Are you going to humbly thank people like myself and others who keep the uncertainty alive, that uncertainty, that unknown element you benefit from—or seek to disarm us too? As previously cited, how come only 10% of burglaries in the US are home invasions, while they are 50% in Great Britain? Huh?

You know, I heard a lot of prayers last night during that broadcast of the service for the victims and their families; many understandable, given the horror…and there’s no wishing them well; because their lives will never, ever be well. The prayers that I don’t understand were those thanking an Omnipotent Being for those who responded (to clean up the mess). Emphasis added. Get it? There’s apparently no opportunity to thank those who might be prepared to help, because they are legally prevented from helping in any effective way but…cleaning up the mess.

~~~

In short, armed everyman—or many—is a multifaceted complexion. What you typically find for “solutions” is that which appeals to the average ignorant (wholly or by subject), moron, or ‘tard.’

In the end, it gets very simple and clear. While only a few of the thousands of lawful and rational use of armed citizen resistance to victimization each year get publicized, a few do, and when they do, it’s almost always on local news, so as to keep it localized.

Here’s some examples. And here’s 70-something videos of mostly local new reports of everything from a 12-yr-old shooting an armed intruder with her mom’s gun, to 80 and 90+ yr-old-grannies and grandpas not sitting by to get victimized.

It must be said that every hand-wringing gun-banner of any and all sorts is implicitly advocating for these people to have been victims for no other reason than to assuage their fears, cure their trepidation, bolster their sound-smart or in-crowd, etc. Probably, the same ones displaying the most emotional reaction, too.

You want to solve this? How about resurrect, celebrate and take no substitute for the quintessential human, functioning family? No force, but pressure to bear on what can now be fashionable…because every old good idea is eventually new again, and so why not now?

But that’s a subject for a different day.

As a very second to final shot—and I’m generally not a fan of Vox Day—there’s this.

Ask them this: If guns, and not people, kill people, why don’t they first disarm the more heavily armed government and police people before trying to disarm the public?

Ask them this: How does it make any sense to disarm the public and leave the government armed when over the last 100 years, governments around the world, including the U.S. federal government, have killed vastly more people in time of peace than all of the private murders in the world combined?

Ask them this: 800,000 law enforcement officers have killed 525 unarmed citizens with guns so far this year. Approximately 310 million private citizens killed an estimated 10,500 of their fellow citizens with guns over the same period of time. Given that a law enforcement officer is 19.4 times more likely to shoot and kill an unarmed American than a private citizen, if you genuinely care about reducing gun deaths, why aren’t you calling for the disarmament of law enforcement?

And as the very last shot, what about all these anti-psychotic drugs? I’d known of it generally, had no idea it correlated this heavily. That’s a lot. I count 39 citations, and when you’re talking about mass murder, murder suicide or plain suicide which are relatively rare events, such a strong correlation is noteworthy. However, just as for my subject for a different day, this is all just medicating a more fundamental problem.

…And if I blogged about it regularly, I’d have to rename the blog to Lose the Animal.

Update: Last evening a friend emailed me with some links calling into question the accuracy of the data for Australia that I included in the post. As well, there was a comment this morning doing essentially the same thing. Here’s that comment and my response.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Australia, crime, guns, murder, Netherlands, US

Elements of Paleo Hitting the Dr. Oz Mainstream?

December 15, 2012 92 Comments

Toto, we’re not in Kansas, anymore

The other day I was alerted by my mom, via her sister that Dr. Oz had Dr. William Davis on his show, specifically about wheat and his book: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health.

I’ve blogged about Davis and his work going way back and mentioned his book here.

I’d made a note to look into this but hadn’t done so until compelled to do so by yet another paleo theme getting airtime, which I’ll get to in a minute.

So here’s the link to the 3-Part Dr. Oz segment: Are You Addicted to Wheat? It’s pretty good. I personally think it goes beyond just modern wheat, but what the hell? I’m just not one to nit-pick such matters as some others have done in response to his book. Since it’s all modern wheat anyway, now, probably not a big issue. Anyway, take a watch. Note that the links for parts 2 and 3 are right below the video.

…So what prompted me to actually look into the wheat thing I’d heard of is that I got wind of Dr. Oz having on Dr. Stephen Sinatra and Dr. Jonny Bowden, co authors of: The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won’t Prevent Heart Disease-and the Statin-Free Plan That Will.

And yea, been blogging about this forever, too. It’s yet another 3-Part segment: The Doctors Who Say Everything You Know About Cholesterol Is Wrong. Generally good, though I would liked to have seen more discussion of the root causes of inflammation (hint: start with the wheat segment).

So what is there to say about Dr. Oz but ‘good for him?’ He admits several times in both programs that he’s been wrong about a lot of things, and what more can you expect than that?

It’s also gratifying to learn that since I began writing about this stuff in 2007 that perhaps my sense of smell about all of this was pretty good, as it is for a great many others…bloggers, readers and commenters alike.

Good job all around. See, it is worth plugging away at the truth, day in, day out. Can you imagine either of those programs being aired in 2007? Me either.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Jonny Bowden, Part Dr, William Davis

Don’t Worry: When Seconds Count, the Cops Are Only Minutes Away

December 14, 2012 205 Comments

…And what do you want to bet that when it’s all said and done with the Connecticut School Shooting, just as in the VaTech shooting and others, the pigs end up being superfluous because the gunman himself did their job?

In other words, the pigs are entirely irrelevant; there, merely to stand in front of cameras pretending relevance by stern-and-solemn-face, waxing on about the “importance” of their “ongoing investigation.”

Pigs, when they’re not harassing you in the high risk job of issuing traffic citations—because that’s actually safe—are mere janitors in nearly all situations where it’s not safe.

And now, elementary school children—5-10 sweet years old—are caught in a crossfire, where Democrats and their sheltered urban commie friends are afraid of guns because they don’t understand them…just like rural Republicans are afraid of gays for the same reason. Everyone is disarmed and defenseless because everyone’s afraid—like a pool of slime seeking the lowest and darkest places. …And the only ones not afraid are the predators; not afraid of guns, or, the consequences of their predatory use.

Call 911, morons.

The pigs are nowhere to be seen at the exact time it’s most crucial and, in the fantasy world of USMA—United States of Moron America—it’s actually what they believe they’re getting—courageous protection—in spite of nearly all evidence going to the contrary. In terms of the pigs: virtually everyone else in any real situation is as defenseless as a cockroach at a tap-dance festival. The pigs almost always utterly fail in the situations that make up the only rational justification for having them.

It’s not remotely crazy to finally ask the question: would we be far better off with zero pigs, 100% of the time, 100% of everywhere? I think the answer is an obvious yes. Where they’re not more corrupt than Vito Corleone running a civic Bingo parlor, they’re a big drain on society, a fucking eyesore, and a general pain in the ass.

…I live in a country of so many abject morons, well better than 50%, and counting—tipping point time, given the vote. You wait and see. Those morons—and so many of the Europeans, where it’s been fashionable to be a disarmed, defenseless pussy for decades—will call for further disarming and pussification of the already defenseless.

In the meantime, while by no means a gun nut, I do take my own responsibility seriously—because the pigs are a bunch of fucking jody-boy wankers who I wouldn’t trust to fetch my mail.

303950 10150372277291137 1922776458 n
 

Three of those belong to my neighbor, with whom I always got along fine before they moved. It’s actually quite nice to know your neighbor is well armed and competent with their use. That’s how I grew up. Sure glad it wasn’t around a buch of hand-wringing pussy boys, or worse, Euros guys—most of whom would sooner hold a stiff guy’s cock than fire a real gun.

Get a gun. Learn how to use it and go have fun sometimes. One handed practice:

It’s pretty elementary. Let every school teacher who’s willing, take requisite training and continuing qualification, and carry right out there in front of everyone.

It’ll probably have the more important long-run unintended consequence of solving a lot of other fucked up shit in public schools.

Now go fuck off, America, Land of the Increasingly Fearful Pussies. And Western Europe? Just sit down and shut up. You’re dismissed; disqualified.

Calling 911 ought to be your backup plan.

Update: Here’s what I wrote about the Jody Boys in 2007, VaTech.

I don’t know about you, but I have nothing but a deep and profound loathing for that whole cop-scene looping continuously on the news surrounding the Virginia Tech mass murder. I hadn’t a chance to watch any TV while things were unfolding yesterday, but I flipped around the dial last evening and was just appalled by the display. Don’t know I could put it any better than Billy:

…where all the video shows us these slug-ass cops running to & fro with all their fine army-man wannabe costuming.

Bunch ‘a pussies. Losers.

You got that, Blacksburg Police Department, County Sheriff, SWAT, BATF, and all the rest of you dipshits who got all dressed up so’s you could parade your worthless carcasses around the TEEVEE all day looking all toughass?

You’re putrid and disgusting. Every one of you.

Actually, you’re worse than worthless. I could be grudgingly satisfied — or at least resigned — with worthless. But what you guys do is actively perpetuate the fraud — you get that: fraud — that honest and peaceful people are safe around you — that you’ll protect them; when in point of observable fact, you’re either preening your costumed candy asses in front of the TEEVEE completely out of harm’s way, or else you’re busting down the doors of unarmed and peaceful people where you know you’re not going to face any serious armed opposition.

Anyone with any sense at all sees completely through this charade. You know what? Here’s how worthless you are; you, with your dozens upon dozens of “highly trained officers,” G.I. Joe dress-up, assault vehicles, and dogs sniffing who knows what: a 100-lb freshman girl with a decent weapon in her backpack and a bit of nerve would have easily put you all to shame.

…

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Blacksburg Police Department, County Sheriff, guns, Jody Boys, TEEVEE, virginia tech

Endpoint Reached: The Eventual Coronation of US Presidents as Kings

December 13, 2012 15 Comments

Good video.

14 Minutes, so longer than I usually like to put forth unless it’s me. 🙂 But I’m on my 4th watching of it, even Googling and Evernoting refs. But that’s just me. Feel free instead, to meander over into the thick of the herd where there’s a lot more shit on the grass. Most do anyway. You’ll have lots of cow company.

For me, it’s a combination of a lot of stuff I’ve known for 20 years or more but new connect-dots-to-meat, with interesting—historical—gravy on top. Presidential political junkies might love it. For what it may be worth to you, while I’ve seen Napolitano here & there over the years—and read none of his books—I never saw a second of his program on FOX News.

…Loved the Thoreau reference. Of course—ref: cow in thick of herd where shit is most plentiful—not in 1 million voters have a clue in the Universe that that was the guy who changed the world radically via Gandhi and Martin Luther King (credits to the first commenter to connect those dots). Or, feel free to Google around and figure it out if you don’t know. Most Citizens of the World would have less of a clue than The Man in the Street (ref: funny YouTube videos of ignoramuses).

Have at it. At risk of tossing pearls before swine, I’m done with this b-log entry of Stardate 12/13/2013:17:50.

…I guess the Mayans were just as wrong about the end of the world as they were in foreseeing their domination by the Spanish.

Nothing new about idiot. It’s just that the fashion for it waxes and wanes.

Update: Some might like these two other Napolitano videos highlighted in comments, both about 5 minutes each. (here and here).

Filed Under: General

Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 8 – The Quality of Neolithic Social Power

December 13, 2012 14 Comments

This is a blog post rendition of my 1-hr presentation at The 21 Convention in Austin, TX in August, right after I gave a 20-minute abbreviated version of same at the Ancestral Health Symposium, 2012, in Boston, at Harvard University School of Law.

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” — Isaac Asimov

In the last installment, Part 7, I did essentially what I did in Part 1 where I outlined the quality of Paleolithic knowledge; only in that case, it was the quality of Paleolithic social power. So here, I’ll juxtapose that to the quality of Neolithic social power, just as I juxtaposed quality Neolithic knowledge in Part 2. Make sense? Good. onward, then.

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill

Voting
 

There you go: your 1 in 300 millionth say in your own affairs! Wowzers!

Compared to:

Screen Shot 2012 11 27 at 3 44 05 PM
 

It doesn’t scale, folks. It simply doesn’t, never will. Moreover, because people are incentivized to not think—but to instead simply meander with the herd—you basically end up with a dumber and dumber herd of cattle.

Free choice
 

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken (Baltimore Evening Sun; July 26, 1920)

Nobody gets out of this alive.

In the next installment I’ll give you my comprehensive list of social solutions to this little dilemma.

~~~

  • Part 1: The Quality of Paleolithic Knowledge
  • Part 2: The Quality of Neolithic Knowledge
  • Part 3: The Problem With Authority
  • Part 4: Having One’s Cake and Eating It Too
  • Part 5: The Real Hobgoblins
  • Part 6: Democide
  • Part 7: The Quality of Paleolithic Social Power
  • Part 8: The Quality of Neolithic Social Power
  • Part 9: Conclusion; How to Fix Everything

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Ancestral Health Symposium, Having One, Isaac Asimov, Mencken Baltimore Evening Sun July, TX, White House, Winston Churchill

Laf: 100% of Senate Democrats Vote Against Farmers and For the FDA

December 12, 2012 65 Comments

I’m not a huge fan of Natural News—not that I know a ton about it, either—because so often, to me, it’s tainted by the Appeal to Nature logical fallacy and has a conspiratorial bent. I could be wrong. Just my general impression as I never explicitly follow it.

Anyhoo, Mike Adams pretty much nails it here: Freedom watch: Not a single Democrat voted in favor of ending FDA raids on raw milk farmers.

Here’s some news for those who still somehow believe the political left in Washington cares about the People. After U.S. Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment that would have ended armed FDA raids on raw milk farmers and legalized free speech about the curative properties of medicinal herbs, nutritional supplements and superfoods, are you curious how many Democrats voted in favor of this?

Zero.

Big fat zero, to be exact.

Not a single Democrat in the United States Senate believes in fundamental food freedom, farm freedom or the principles of liberty. Every single Democrat in the Senate is a Big Brother sellout who supports the FDA having more guns pointed in the faces of raw milk farmers, arresting them and throwing them in prison, criminalizing real food and destroying America’s small family farms.

Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate believes that telling the truth about the beneficial effects of Chinese Medicine, or medicinal herbs, or nutritional supplements should be a crime that can also get you raided, shut down and imprisoned by the FDA. There is not a single Democrat who sees anything wrong with the government sending herbal product formulators to prison. There is not a single Democrat who believes that an Amish farmer has the right to milk a cow and sell that milk to their neighbor without being threatened by the government.

This is an astonishing milestone in U.S. history. When those in Washington who pretend to represent the People openly and publicly vote to crush the very liberties and freedoms they claim to protect, you no longer have a real Democracy. You have a police state.

Well, you’ve had a police state for a long time. They’re just more open about it, now, with Democrats leading the way and Republicans not far behind—they being more like the Mafia Don who knows what’s “bad for business.” …One might say that Democrats are more concerned with what’s bad for the State, Republicans, what’s bad for business. Only thing is, the State doesn’t actually produce anything, just steals and redistributes.

I do find it gratifying, though. From almost total Democrat Party opposition to the 13th Amendment to end slavery (with all or nearly 100% Republican support), to its opposition to the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, I’m reminded of what I heard P. J. O’Rourke say at a CATO luncheon I attended way back on the difference between the two parties:

Democrats: Smart politicians, dumb voters

Republicans: Dumb politicians, smart voters

The relevant juxtaposition, to me, is that of the patsy moron Democrat voters, combined with the appallingly stupid Republican Party elite. I suppose it’s a balance of power, of sorts.

How many run-of-the-mill Democrat voters do you suppose are not wholly ignorant of the Democrat Party‘s 100 year history of staunch opposition to every single of dozens of federal and state initiatives sponsored by Republicans, that sought greater freedom and economic parity for blacks? Here, this guy runs them all down for you.

It is to laf. In the end, though, “smart politicians” rings true for Democrats. Once they were defeated in keeping blacks enslaved and dependent upon private party slaveholders, they adapted, and over the last 50 years have successfully re-enslaved and made them dependent on the State.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Democrat Party, FDA, freedom, Mafia Don, Republican Party, state

I Like to Help When I Can: More Potato Diet Hack Ideas

December 11, 2012 40 Comments

Lots of posts, lots of comments, lots of speculation and musings in both.

Someone asked somewhere in comments about Paleo adversity to this whole idea. I’ll state it plainly: I simply don’t follow it. I’d rather just put it out there, willing to be wrong, let myself and you decide over time.

Why not decide ourselves based on the myriad different factors and observations we all experience? What’s the risk? …That we learn something new? That we weren’t as sure about everything as we thought? That some we considered “enemies” were, after all, maybe right about a thing or two we were wrong about?

It’s rather amusing when you think about it. I was never overly concerned with the label “paleo Movement,” while others expressed reservations over the years. They said, in essence: “as soon as it’s a movement, then there’s dogma, and with dogma you get saints and demons.” In many respects they have been proved right, in spite of what I figured was a pretty good mindset against that very thing: the human evolutionary basis.

The one thing I have pretty much come to conclude is that by restricting an entire class of nutrients—carbohydrate—the low carb movement is probably weighing paleo down. As for example, protein is now suspect because when starving for glucose, your metabolism makes it from protein.

So even some of the top honest guys out there appear to be willing to take a look, let their readers decide. There was the “Link Love” on MDA the other day I already mentioned and then yesterday, this Tweet by Robb Wolf:

Great post from @rnikoley https://freetheanimal.com/2012/12/protein-is-the-new-carbohydrate-and-why-to-ditch-the-low-carb-catechism-sorry-jimmy.html

Or, to put the whole thing in an entirely different perspective: if paleo is essentially about Real Foods our ancestors sourced to thrive on and migrate all over the globe, how in the world have starchy vegetables and tubers gotten a bad rap?

Huh?

With that in mind, some quick & easy ideas.

IMG 1367
 

That’s the same as this dish, but using a bit of shredded roast beef and bacon bits.

IMG 1376
 

Another soup. But wait for the punchline. This was a lot of potato, like 5 large baking taters, half an onion, 4-5 cloves of garlic (put them in peeled, whole), and half of a frank-sized elk Kielbasa. Just enough beef stock to cover and then simmer until it’s way reduced. Mash up and then….

IMG 1378
 

Only about a cup of whole milk made it nice & creamy. That’s not a lot. That was dinner for two, then leftover lunch for two, and then another leftover dinner.

Here’s what I did there.

IMG 1386
 

That was one of those sliced & baked potatoes, with leftover potato soup on it. Silly, huh?

I hope you’re getting the idea here. Results are still as to be expected for me, but with just very modest added animal protein & fat. A win.

IMG 1387
 

You recall I repurposed my panini maker to do hash browns, right? Well, I had some leftover very low fat mashed potatoes from the other night and found another way to heat them up. I used no fat on the cooking surface. A George Forman Grill ought to work just as well, or even a waffle iron or one of those clamshell grilled cheese sandwich makers.

Tip: to remove it, gently lift the right or left side with a spatula and then roll it off, parallel to the grooviness. Unroll it onto your plate.

IMG 1389
 

And finally, people have been talking about baking up a bunch of potatoes (400 for an hour is my preferred method), tossing ’em in the fridge and then eating them cold with salt & malt vinegar. This is a zero added fat way to do it. And it’s great.

In this case, I peeled the skin off, rubbed but a bit of butter all over it, then just smashed it with the cooker.

So there you go. More idea and methods than you can possibly handle.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: cooking, fat, Link Love, low carb, Paleo Movement, Real Foods

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I'm Richard Nikoley. Free The Animal began in 2003 and as of 2020, has 5,000 posts and 120,000 comments from readers. I blog what I wish...from lifestyle to philosophy, politics, social antagonism, adventure travel, nomad living, location and time independent—"while you sleep"— income, and food. I intended to travel the world "homeless" but the Covid-19 panic-demic squashed that. I've become an American expat living in rural Thailand where I've built a home. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances. [Read more...]

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