Archives for November 2015

Post #7 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,265 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

This will count for my last post touted as a “blog marathon.” Seven posts in three days is way above average, but nothing at all like the 12 posts I did the first time, or 20 posts the last time.

I’ve been defeated, so no feats for me!

Last week I did a laudatory post on chronic but mild cold exposure, which we really just happened upon. It’s not by any design; it’s simply a tradeoff. But, we were looking at the forecast for this week and saw that temperatures were going to go from mid-40s in the mornings to mid and low-30s. For example, this morning, 5th day in a row like this:

So let me tell you the story of how I failed at this blog marathon. I’ve been trying to work it out in my malfunctioning brain since like 2 am this morning when I had a few hours of sleeplessness. It’s still all a muddle, but I’ll try to tell the story and organize my take on the n=1 data, sloppily filtered through my malfunctioning brain.

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Post #3 of my 12th Anniversary Blogging Marathon, post #4,260 of my dozen years of daily blogging.

We used to laugh uproariously and poke fun at the articles and authors tagging Paleo as a fad.

“Well, it’s a 2 million year old fad, then.” HaHaHa.

There were right; they are right. It is. I’m not sure it started out that way. I certainly wasn’t trying to make it so, but rather, was participating in what seemed to me like a food revolution based on a really sound foundation…human evolution. And it was powerful. Myself and many others lost much weight. We achieved improved health markers from whatever baseline.

Sometime back I stopped putting my posts into categories or tagging them, and I collapsed all my categories into “No Particular Category.” I have a queer visceral distaste for SEO bullshit and all that stuff. I just want to write and hit publish. Google treats me pretty damn nice in spite of my SEO incompetence.

I don’t recall the exact number, but it was something like 300 or more posts of my cooking in my Food Porn category. Haphazardly, I published some few dozens to Pinterest along the way.

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I recently blogged about this topic here. It was actually a bomb of a post (it happens). Little to no interest, which kinda mystified me, since it has been such a big deal in times past. But it also happens that I sometimes miss the mark in blogging what might interest me, but not correspond elsewhere (it happens).

Stalwart I am, I’m going to try again, a bit different angle, more experience, and some pics. And, a big qualification to render this as something of curiosity, not something you necessarily want to do.

To recap, Beatrice and I took on a project to live off grid, guard a large property where a fire took place in August, and I may be managing the rebuilding project on site, 24/7. But the important thing is that the view is astounding and it’s 3 miles down the hill to her work. We love it, 4 dogs and all, all camping out in an RV. We regularly laugh at how crazy we’ve allowed ourselves to become.

For instance, when she’s head down, cleaning up the RV, I like to joke that she’s going to tarnish our trailer trash image. We have so much fun poking fun at ourselves, the dogs. It’s a crazy life. Being all together in a 30′ RV every night lends a special touch to simple human contact and closeness…and canine contact, with 3 of the 4 of them playing musical bed & covers periodically throughout the night. Scout (“butt hole”) growls if you change position while sleeping. I could go on and on. We laugh all the time—unless we both tipped a bottle a little too much, and we have a little mini shit-talking fight.

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There are two essential errors of thought that stand in the way of eradicating terrorism—or, simply relegating it to the back of the bus, as just part of the low-level, incidental evil that will probably always measurably unsettle humanity.

1. The idea that’s it’s somehow not ideologically tied primarily to the religion of Islam.

2. Hand wringing over collateral death and destruction, leading to the tying of hands in terms of effective and lasting action.

I aim to give you reasonable cause to dismiss both of those.

First of all, understand that the entirety of the schtick that goes ‘terrorists aren’t true Muslims’ is actually an informal logical fallacy known as No True Scotsman. Definition:

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.^[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim (“no Scotsman would do such a thing”), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule (“no true Scotsman would do such a thing”).^[2]

In practical parlance, it takes this form:

Philosophy professor Bradley Dowden explains the fallacy as an “ad hoc rescue” of a refuted generalization attempt.^[1] The following is an example of the fallacy:^[3]

Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”

Person B: “But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge.”

Person A: “Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”

You can find it all the time, even amongst communists who assert that the USSR and China weren’t truly communist countries, or even libertarians who assert that we don’t have true capitalism. The latter charge has merit, and has been well differentiated by decent libertarians and anarchists, but I’ll save that digression for another post someday.

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It’s the philosophy, stupid. And women.

Now, I know some are asking ‘what in the fuck is anarchist, State-hater Richard doing?’

Simple. I’m picking a side and setting aside a side, for now, because as I opined previously, Anarchism is a political philosophy for civilized people, inapplicable in large measure, now. In other words, we have an organized and determined anti-civilization that presently requires utterly obliteration and destruction—without mercy or pity; without reservation, or purposes of evasion—and then and only then can we have beers in the pub where we solve all the world’s problems again, go to a stripper bar after, and end up in a curry house at 2 a.m. Then we move on.

It’s the left that stands in the way of this, and that includes their libertarian allies, I’m sorry to say. They stand in opposition to doing anything truly effective, on so many levels it’s almost a situation where the anti-civilization problem is far more pronounced than just the radical Muslim primitivity might suggest. It’s a two-front war.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. The Muslim Brotherhood formed in 1928.

The Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sunnah as the “sole reference point for … ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community … and state.”[13] Its mottos include “Believers are but Brothers”, “Islam is the Solution”, and “Allah is our objective; the Qur’an is the Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our wish.“[14][15][16] It is financed by members, who are required to allocate a portion of their income to the movement,[17] and was for many years financed by Saudi Arabia, with whom it shared some enemies and some points of doctrine.[17][18]

A little bit before GWB’s time, wouldn’t you say? Even, shall we say, a bit before Middle Eastern oil became a geopolitical football? That was 1928, right around the time of the flapper era, the Great Depression, and the eve of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Coincidental timing, I’m sure. But girls just wanna have fun.

Even 25 years later, in the early 1950s, they were uncompromising in terms of the inexorable advance of such modernity that was “brazenly assaulting” the Muslim world, just like everywhere else.

Here, you can understand it in just 2 minutes and 12 seconds. This is a video of an Arab leader—president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser—speaking to a crowd concerning his 1953 attempts to compromise with the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s damn remarkable to watch him mock them while the crowd cheers.

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“Those who know history are doomed to watch others repeat it.”

Over and over, in less than 5 minutes, watch Brigitte Gabriel cite five documented historical references to explain why the peaceful majority were always irrelevant, utterly laying waste to the fucking bla-bla of some abjectly moronic law student in her fancy hijab.

No need to add anything to that.

…Along the same lines, a commenter from yesterday emailed this article, thinking he was making some point about painting with broad strokes, or whatever, just like that stupid emphasis on the peaceful majority, above.

What I Discovered From Interviewing Imprisoned ISIS Fighters – They’re drawn to the movement for reasons that have little to do with belief in extremist Islam.

Yea, like what, 72 Virgins or some other equally delusional thing? Dominate wives and rape their daughters, perhaps? Just bored? Long for attention with a chance at hero status? Unemployed? No real future? Can’t afford an iPhone? What, exactly is each fighter’s specific “motivation?” Do they fucking lie? I know that’s a strange concept for a pissant leftie “thinking” moron to grasp … that people who vow to kill innocent people are capable of lying.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

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Further to my previous post, So Europe, Paris; America: What Now? there was part of the underlying idea that I set aside for later; i.e., for now.

It’s a conflation of our ethics with their metaphysics. Recall from your general understanding of philosophy, if you have one, that the hierarchy flows from metaphysics (the study of the given; reality), to epistemology (the study of knowledge of reality), to ethics (the study of moral right & wrong), and then finally to politics (the study of man’s social organization). There’s also esthetics (the study of art, which is basically an integrated reflection of the foregoing branches), but let’s just deal with that latter branch by noting how ISIS has been busy destroying ancient cultural artifacts and art. This should count as a clue, because art generally reflects a philosophy that in various ways celebrates the value of life and the many corollary values that humanity pursues towards it being a happy and fulfilled life.

My heightened awareness came about when, in a short comment thread with Billy Beck in the aftermath of the previous evening’s Paris massacre, he drew an important distinction that sent me down rabbit holes of reflection. The idea is that suicide in a military context (e.g., Kamikaze) is a matter for ethical analysis in that context whereas, the actions by ISIS and other sects or organization of Muslims are not applicable to anything resembling our ethics, since their ethics are based upon an entirely different metaphysics (see foregoing paragraph). As I quoted him yesterday:

These animals are acting from flagrantly anti-human metaphysics: even more evil than socialists of all stripes. At least the socialists make a claim to valuing human betterment, even so horrible as they are at it. These vermin are not like that: all their values lie beyond death.

They will not be demoralized by their own deaths, that of their families or anyone else. Death itself, is the value to them.

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When is enough enough, and it’s time to just let “God sort it out,” as they say?

There is precedent.

Amongst rolling my eyes all morning at everyone changing their Facebook profile photos to overlay the Tricolore, or The Eiffel Tower bastardized into a “peace” sign, I was looking for something that actually spoke some meaning and distinction to the issue.

Robert Bidinotto delivered:

SO, LET ME SEE. Months ago, after the terrorist attack in Paris on the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, some “liberals” claimed that the victims KINDA provoked it by publishing insulting cartoons of Muhammad. Then there was the terrorist attack in Paris at a kosher deli, targeting Jews — and of course many on the left secretly felt, “Well, you KINDA had to expect the attack on Jews, because Israel, the Jewish state, oppresses Palestinians.”

But now we have ordinary diners, sports fans, and concert-goers targeted by Islamists for mass murder on the streets of the City of Light. What, exactly, did THEY do to provoke their militant Islamist murderers? For example, does anyone care to ask Ron or Rand Paul if ISIS is in France because France is “over there” in Syria or Iraq? No? Then what could have “provoked” them?

Could it possibly be that these innocents were deliberately targeted precisely because their specific activities symbolize and embody the enjoyment of a modern Western lifestyle?

It’s a crucial point that 1) cannot be legitimately denied, and 2) undercuts the whole of the anarcho-left, libertarian-left/right, and lefty-left narrative.

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Let’s begin with a distinction. In common Internet context, a written rant—a proper one—is something that minimally rests upon some rational foundation of commonly understood and generally accepted ideas or principles, those ideas and/or principles being disregarded or ignored, and the reasons for ridiculing a wanton disregard or ignorance of common sense or common propriety are delivered passionately, with purposeful offense, and with the intention of being utterly devastating to the targets—such that as many people laugh at and ridicule them as possible.

This is differentiated from temper tantrums which, as it just turns out, are basically what this post is about. Thus, the need of drawing a distinction up front.

Let’s continue with infants and children, the topic we’ll remain on for the duration of the post; but make meaningful distinctions there, as well. Such as this: we’re going to juxtapose normal children and their childish behavior with retarded children; and by retarded, I mean it literally. I don’t mean it as once used commonly to describe those lacking in mental capacity, by no fault of their own, or that of their parents. No, as you’ll see, this is true retardation and by the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll be able to refer to all those Yales, et al, as retards, with full moral and intellectual authority.

One can’t over-baby a baby. As mammals, we must nurture our young for various periods of time, and for human mammals, it’s an exceptionally long time. But, there are distinct stages. One of my favorite current images seen often these days is some young, gang-banger looking guy, tats & all, in the supermarket line with a basket full of Pampers and a little baby snuggled up to his chest as he’s holding it. Always gives me a smile and a ray of hope for the human race. While we’re certainly not exclusively “instinctual” beings, there appears to be innate heart-tuggings on some levels.

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I had never known what it was really like to be really damn chilled to the bone all the time, in nearly 55 years of life.

Until the last few weeks, and it’s been 24/7.

TL;DR: adaptation is very remarkably doable. I say “doable,” rather than “easy,” because while it might strike one as easy because it just seems to happen, the process is really only fairly described as doable, because there will be discomfort. Lots of it. Sometimes, really discomforting discomfort. But one seems to naturally set it aside—almost like not thinking about it—but also without thinking about not thinking about it. If you know what I mean.

What has really convinced me of this is not myself, who got really enamored of all this, way back, when I first saw Ray Cronise’s TED talk—because it was in Tim Ferriss’ book—then started chatting with Ray and exchanging emails. I happened to have access at the time to a gym with a cold plunge they maintained at 45-50F. I built up from 3 minutes to 12-15 minutes, nude. I was The doG. But I never noticed all that much from it beyond the short-lived euphoria, just figured it was probably a good thing to do, like popping a particular supplement or something.

Of course, that all led to a real conflagration of sorts, if you recall the Jack [C]ruse debacle, and accompanying drama I doubled down on, at the time. What has convinced me far differently, this time, is my wife Beatrice, who never even tried one of my many cold plunges a single time. And now, this Latina, who was given to complaining about how she felt cold in a house heated to 74 F, is walking around in light clothes when it’s a damp 45 F in the trailer. She hasn’t complained a single time, and she’s never curled up shivering. What gives?

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Out of the six uBiome gut samples I took before, during, and after a 12-day Elixa Probiotics (ElixaFTA.com) regimen (posts here, here, and here) I’ve received the results on five of them. One sample was damaged in shipment (the final test, 2 weeks from completing the course) and uBiome has sent a replacement. Still waiting on results from American Gut (one of which was taken from exactly the same poop sample as the uBiome kit that was damaged).

We’re still looking to crunch raw data and taxonomy, but I can pretty much tell it’s about what I always thought of these tests. They really don’t tell you much useful, they don’t seem to correlate with anything concrete I can think of, and they’re all over the map. For instance, in my first test, my “diversity” was in the 80th percentile. Jump for joy, right? Well, then 10 days later, the next test (and this was right before even starting Elixa), and diversity is 12th percentile.

Then, during the Elixa 12-day course, in the first week, massive shifts in bacteriodetes and firmicutes, The former went from 30 to 80% of my microbiome and the latter, correspondingly, from 66 to 16%, so basically a complete reversal in the space of a week. Elixa? Well, perhaps, but then another week, i.e., at completion of the course, firmicutes were up to 30%. If Elixa were the cause of reducing them so dramatically after 1 week, then seems like they should have at least stayed there the 2nd week, not basically doubled.

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