Archives for September 2015

You can subscribe on the right sidebar, under where it says “Occasional Newsletter.” Well, this is the first one since May, so I think I qualify for occasional. If you do subscribe, you get the confirmation thingy, and once you get the welcome, you can click on the link, upper right, to open in your browser. Then you should see the tab to access the archive and thus, access what I just published.

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Theory To Practice Is Changing Everything

By nature we continually seek a narrative, or storyline, that’s comfortable and workable to and for us; we hold onto it. We promote and advance it, teach it to our children and grandchildren. We celebrate generational solidarity to the narrative.

Generally, it’s a very successful survival strategy…and it must be understood that a minuscule percentage of peoples on Earth—who’ve ever lived—and even in the last few hundreds of years—ever got an opportunity to be exposed to Enlightenment principles (not perfect; but a sea-change change: from belief and learned, to evidence and testing). Much less have more than a relative handful percentage of people who’ve ever lived had the opportunity to test such principles and their results amidst life in a modern society.

It’s not the purpose of this newsletter to explain why, only identify.

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1. Here are the previous posts on this hyper-probiotic:

• Gut Bugs, Probiotics, Prebiotics…And how our microbes make us who we are
• FODMAP Prebiotic Arms Dealing, Probiotic Mercenaries, and Uganda
• The New Science of Probiotics
• More Crazy Probiotics Stuff
• The Right Probiotic Could Change Your Life
• Elixa Probiotic and uBiome Experiment With Me As Test Subject
• After Years Of Trying Everything, Woman Finds Eczema Relief In Elixa Probiotic at a Fraction of the Cost
• Elixa. The World’s Most High-Tech Probiotic. Now Shipping.

I was going to just update that last post in that list, but since this is now my exclusive focus for a while, and I need to get something fresh on the blog, let’s just do a richer article.

2. Another testimonial.

Michael says:

September 22, 2015 at 07:54

Big fan of Elixa here. Been lurking around FTA for a while now and purchased Elixa for my wife with Crohn’s. Her response to it was incredible and she thanked me for finding the one thing that helped her live a more normal life again. She had a sinus infection and was prescribed antibiotics and her symptoms began to return and after another round of Elixa, she felt relief again. It worked for her (and a friend with IBS we recommended it to). Worth a shot for anyone and thanks for finding this product. Oh, Karl answered every question I had via email promptly, which is also pretty amazing for a company CEO to do.

I really do not want to be too hyperbole oriented in all this, but it’s a pretty big deal to provide relief for those suffering from Crohn’s disease.

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Due to the huge number of orders that have been placed by FreeTheAnimal visitors and readers, Elixa has sold out twice. In response, Karl Seddon—its Oxford University-educated founder—has brought new production and distribution capacity online, and after about a month of being sold out, is once again shipping.

You might be unaware that Karl is not your run-of-mill supplement entrepreneur. His formulation is unique in the tech he invented to “breed strains;” but also in the delivery method, such that it fools your digestive tract into rejecting it, getting it to your colon unscathed…so that it can take up residence and populate there, where it’s supposed to—and not anyplace else, like your small intestine.

Moreover, he’s also not like a run-of-mill supplement entrepreneur who just farms out…selects stuff from a manufacturer’s catalog according to a concocted recipe, slaps his own eye-catching label on it, and then spends 50% of revenue on flashy, over-hyped marketing. Elixa is manufactured in-house, under Karl’s close, up-until-midnight supervision. He tells me he just spent three 18-hour days in a row calibrating his latest machinery-tech addition to the production line. In other words, all manufacturing capital is owned and iron-grip-controlled by Elixa, which is another way of saying: Mr. Karl Seddon.

Elixa is simply the highest-tech, most closely and carefully monitored probiotic in the world, and you can order it right here and try it for yourself.

And you can follow along with the experiment that’s about to take place with me as lab rat. A 12-day course, accompanied by nine (yes, 9!) biometric test kits taken before, during, and after the probiotics course, in order to provide the best resolution that’s ever been published on a blog, where you get to comment about what you think.

What does one do with a Woodchuck Pirate, aka Raymond J. Raupers, Jr USA? 

Woodchuck has dropped comments on my blog for years. He always puts a lot of effort into it. It’s sometimes a bit lost on me contextually, but since I’ve traveled in such circles for a couple of decades, I well know that anyone’s synapse firing in the moment doesn’t always line up with my own. But, I always know when I’m dealing with a thinker, rather than a regurgitator. And there are no shortcuts in that. Take a few years of focussed effort and you might become a real thinker, rather than a regurgitator. Otherwise, I’ll always catch you pretending, and will gleefully point it out.

Raymond tosses around the 99.99% figure—as we all do—to make his distinction. He’s probably being way generous, because I doubt there are 7,000,000 (7 million) people on the planet who aren’t worthy of characterizations I’d make, that you’d chalk up as misanthropic. However, I hold out hope for some of the millions of kids in underdeveloped countries now getting on the internet, but not sacked by doG & Cuntry baggage that you all embraced out of convenience, free shit, comfort, convenience…and a burning desire to get along with people spouting bullshit.

I’m posting a comment here by Raymond from a couple of moths ago that has been on my mind; principally, because of his 2-word formulation that struck me distinctively: focussed misanthropy.

(I hope Sir Raymond excuses a bit of editing for emphasis.)

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It’s time to get this thing done. It stands currently at 19 Chapters and two substantial appendices. This is Chapter 1, and I will publish Chapter 2 here (Your Second Brain), within a few days to a week, when it feels right.

And it now feels like the right and prime time to drive it home. Timing and circumstances continually plagued me since Tim “Tatertot” Steele and I set out to do this. Over and over, I thought I was on the cusp of diving in and getting it done, only to have a crazy gonzo life get in the way. I’ll not bore you with details. It’s just furiously onward, now.

I present chapter one…

Who are you? A doctor? A farmer? A father, mother, son, daughter? You may be any of these or a few, but it isn’t even close to describing who you really are in total. You aren’t even a single entity, but a collection of living things that work in unison, mostly symbiotically. Inside each and every one of us is a world so bizarre, so strange and alien, that we couldn’t even begin to fabricate a story so implausible. It’s science, not fiction—and the unison of the two is ironically less strange.

To make sense of it, we often call it nature, a sort of catch-all. Or, we punt in various ways, invoking superstition. Doing so is probably nature and natural, too.

LET’S JUST SAY LOTS AND LOTS

There’s about 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and about a million bacterial cells in a milliliter of fresh water. In total, there’s estimated to be about five million trillion trillion, or 5 × 1030 (5 nonillion) bacteria on Earth with a total biomass equaling that of plants. Some researchers believe that the total biomass of bacteria exceeds that of all plants and animals.[1]

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I’ll probably disappoint some with a paucity of input, here. But, I promised, so here is going to be my honest take on the matter.

The background is that way long time ago, 2008, I read a post by then student, now Dr. Stephan Guyenet, referencing a post by then student, now Dr. Chris Masterjohn. And it fucking rocked my world and connected so many dots that I’ve still not collected every single one into a coherent montage I’m satisfied with.

I keep trying. It’s arguable—to me at least, trying to understand my own ways—that those two post set everything in motion for me. It made a ton of things not add up, while suggesting clues towards adding up other stuff. I recall sitting on this info for for some months before daring to blog about it.

The long story short is that it’s likely that what Weston Price discovered in his world travels was Vitamin K2, and it’s very special, acting in concert with Vitamin D from the sun, and Vitamin A from animal flesh to make your intake of minerals go everywhere they should (bones & teeth), and no place they shouldn’t (soft tissue). I’m a total sucker for simple and elegant, like that.

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It’s getting so over the top. Every time I turn around I have to change a password, answer security questions, look at some pic-icon, or, worst of all, get a text or a phone call to “verify” I’m not the retard they’re treating me like.

Here’s a good way to know all the silly people in your life. First, have them take you to dinner (gotta figure that part out by yourself). Just as the tab arrives, strike up a conversation about Internet security and providing CC numbers online. Listen to their blather while you watch them physically hand their CC over to a minimum-wage employee to take to a back room.

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That doing this twice daily is the most important thing I do in life.

It’s really super very hard to get me to spend time listening to a Podcast. I don’t really get the whole enthusiasm with podcasts, much—perhaps, because I spend as little time sitting in traffic in a car as possible. I’d rather be poor and die.

This one is different.

You can also just read the transcript.

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First, an update on yesterday’s post where comment input from John Brisson and Allan Folz has motivated Karl Seddon and I to modify the Elixa Probiotic experiment.

I’ll let Karl explain:

I’m thinking I should send some more uBiome tests your way.

My main interest with the uBiome testing method is how to get the sample representative of the microbiota as a whole. Nobody really knows how representative the flora of a stool sample is of the flora of the large intestine. Many people don’t even realise that there is a significant assumption involved in the thought process here. I.e., the assumption that a stool sample will contain a microbial population that mirrors that of the large intestine. After all, uBiome is not sampling biopsies of large intestine. There is some question as to whether certain bacteria will slough off, die, and mix with the soon-to-be-poop within the large intestine as easily as other bacteria. Similarly, bacteria based deep within the mucus layers may not proliferate much within the actual food bolus that moves throughout the lumen of the large intestine (and becomes poop).

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Guess what’s in the works.

The plan:

1. Take a uBiome sample prior.
2. Begin the 12-day Elixa hyper-biotic regimen.
3. Take another uBiome sample halfway through the course.
4. Take a final uBiome sample a week after the course has completed.
5. Publish all results right here.

There’s big news about Elixa in the works, including reformulation and distribution (how about 2 U.S. distribution points, so you get your order in a couple of days—not 2 weeks from the UK?). I’ll save that for later, as I transition into a mode of promoting what so many have found important benefit from, in what I now call hyper-biotics. It needs that kind of distinction.

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Other than this mussels & clams dish at a benefit dinner for a dear friend Saturday evening in Saratoga, CA, life has been tough.

We’re literally living in a trailer on 5 acres in the east hills, caretakers of a property with assets for the taking that require guarding; and it was only because of my experience with no power pole to the house in Mexico that I said: “yea, fuck yea; let’s do it, I can do it. It’ll be fun.”

Our three rat terriers haven’t had a leash clipped to them in over a month. They roam completely free on 5 acres. Come and go as they please. It’s perhaps my primary joy in all of this, watching them develop into true dogs, well adjusted. They know home.

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Briefly:

In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983. In 2013, the percentage of workers belonging to a union in the United States (or total labor union “density”) was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983.[1] From a global perspective, the density in 2010 was 11.4% in the U.S., 18.4% in Germany, 27.5% in Canada, and 70% in Finland.[2] Union membership in the private sector has fallen under 7%[3] — levels not seen since 1932.

In the 21st century the most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as city employees, government workers, teachers and police. Members of unions are disproportionately older, male, and residents of the Northeast, the Midwest, and California.[4] Union workers average 10-30% higher pay than non-union in the United States after controlling for individual, job, and labor market characteristics.[5] (Wikipedia)

Here’s a graph:

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…Interesting that the very two first French films I ever watched were Jean de Florette and Manon de Source… Look ’em up.

I’ve made much of working electricity, via the S[o]n. Here’s the quick vid I did of that yesterday,  no editing,:

Solar music. What you see on the controller, in succession, is battery voltage, charge input in amps, and load outgo in amps…so even though I’m using, all is sun power and 3-4 amps to spare going into the battery for tonight, just in case we want to watch Netflix, HBO or something, on the free energy stored.

But I got a question, via Beatrice, from a smart friend. How can we have water if we have no electricity and there’s no city service (there are wells, but pumps require power)?

So, let me water you down.

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Via my Facebook Files: this, quoted in its entirety.

Jean-François Gariépy

This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University with no intent to solicit employment in state-funded academic research positions in the foreseeable future. Many reasons have motivated this choice, starting with personal ones: I will soon be a father and want to be spending time with my son at home.

Other reasons have to do with research academia itself. Throughout the years, I have been discovering more and more of the inner workings of academia and how modern scientific research is done and I have acquired a certain degree of discouragement in face of what appears to be an abandonment by my research community of the search for knowledge. I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world.

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A couple of meanderings, today, shot over the bow of my Facebook page.

First was this piece by Jeffrey Tucker of Libery.me, via his Beautiful Anarchy page: Has Donald Trump Unleashed the Neo-Nazis?

I am daily taken aback at the abject ignorance of history in this country and the circumstances that gave rise to National Socialism (“Nazi,” for short) in Europe, in the 1930’s. Just like east meets west, the political right eventually meets the political left, just with different styles. Here’s a quote from the article.

It’s time libertarians get serious about realizing that there exists such a thing as Brown-shirted socialism. It masquerades as patriotism. It seeks national greatness. It celebrates the majority race and dehumanizes the other. It is violently protectionist. On cultural matters, it is anti-leftist (“politically incorrect”). It is unapologetically authoritarian.

Even given all this, we are mostly mystified by it. It doesn’t strike us as a coherent ideology. It seems like a string of bad policy ideas (and some not terrible ones too) rather than a real political tradition. This is because we, as libertarians, are well-schooled to fear the socialist left but have little preparation to understand the threat from the other side.

Events of the last weeks should heighten our consciousness. There really is a brown-shirt movement in the U.S. It’s been building for many years. They have their organizations, books, websites, and splits within splits. The neo-Nazis are the most extreme variant. But fascism has many other types of expression, each reflecting a special interest, but each of them leading to a special kind of authoritarianism.

Then this:

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OK, I’m working on the Green Pastures FCLO post, but I find it difficult to not keep watching this.

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[Yes the post on Green Pastures FCLO is coming next…]

One thing I’m liking about the left nowadays, is that I see them attacking Trump on principled grounds (morally). I don’t really share their principles, but it’s different than is typical, where discourse is limited to some “calculus” over how different ways checkers get moved around the board, and that “causes” certain consequences, and the antagonism is reduced to ‘will I be better off?’ (all the while they ironically preach altruism as principle). Of course, that’s all silly fantasy, because the checkerboard is as the checkerboard does…and how’s abouts a box ‘o chocolates?

In other words, what’s important in the game of practical politics is engagement in the game. Love and hate are two sides of the same minted coin. Indifference is worthless. It’s all about creating as many “political junkies” as possible, regardless of their Tweedle[d(x)] status. Political junkies are as political junkies do…and how abouts a box ‘o chocolates?

But here’s what I find hilarious in the spectacle. Trump is being roundly ridiculed by the left for simply stating his [stupid] positions frankly and openly. One might even say he’s being honest, or at least truthful. Whether or not he could ever actually accomplish any of this stuff as president is an open question—but one that favors doubt, I believe. But, it’s quite something to watch a guy actually be who he is in this top level of the political arena and have so many people get so gobsmacked over it.

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Well, glad to have created a bit of a stir so far, given the last post on this topic: How Wheat Went From Superfood To Liability.

I really could not be happier that Tom “Fat Head” Naughton decided to advance the discussion: Ancient Wheat Was Superfood? While Tom still concludes by being unpersuaded, his treatment is very fair, and when you read the comments, they’re very constructive (Duck and I have been in there, and there’s a cameo by Tatertot). It reminds me of a conversation Tom and I had way back about why he chose to keep his standup comedy routines PG. Do take a look.

I want to emphasize that this is more like what we mean. Click on it to open it big enough to read the back of the package. You can get their flour at a pretty decent price: Community Grains 100% Whole Grain Hard Red Winter Wheat Flour, 4lb Bag. Here’s their website.

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Going on now, in your local Nevada desert.

I’ve actually seen that part of the dessert. It’s near Gerlach, and as a kid, I was in the area 120 miles north of my hometown of Reno two or three times with my dad. That’s irrelevant, I know, just a perspective.

I was first made aware of the Burning Man event in the early 90’s via my subscription to Reason Magazine, whilst living in France. Already a proto atheist (dumping the fantasies my parents taught me, taught to them by their parents), and anarchist (dumping the fantasies voters taught me, taught to them by other voters), I simply did not get it and never bought the schtick they were selling.

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This is important enough to just put out there.

I’ve been aware of Max Borders for some years but just like a lot of things, don’t really spend much time or energy focussing on personalities. That said, this is a completely refreshing viewpoint. In particular, check out the part in this 6-min vid how the developing world is using smart phones to draw and agree to land title.

Fascinating. I have long hoped that the developing world would leapfrog the Soviet world, which we euphemistically call “civilized.”