Wednesday, July 17. 2013
 Today's image stolen from Am. Digest
Altho I am a Dunkin' guy, I do like the Starbucks House Blend.
The problem's not fatherhood, it's manhood
The New Puritan Parent
Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on
Vacation
Mining in Space – The Next Frontier?
The man with no memory: Navy vet wakes up, speaks only Swedish
Feds admit improper scrutiny of candidate, donor tax records - Justice has declined to prosecute any of the cases
Mort Zuckerman: A Jobless Recovery Is a Phony Recovery - More people have left the workforce than got a new job during the recovery—by a factor of nearly three.
There are now 175,000 pages' worth of federal laws. Local governments add more.
We are all felons
The Election of a Black President Has Meant Nothing
Sultan: Looking for racism in America
IGNORED BY LIB MEDIA: Zimmerman Was a Democrat, Voted For Obama, Tutored Black Kids
Althouse on Why Are Black Boys Expendable?
Confessions of a Racist
A George Zimmerman Tip Line Goes Horribly Wrong
I once saw George go to a white barbershop instead of a black barbershop
In
the postmodern, antifoundationalist world of the New Left, justice is
perverted into mob rule - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=50102#sthash.VQfAipUi.dpuf
In
the postmodern, antifoundationalist world of the New Left, justice is
perverted into mob rule - See more at:
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=50102#sthash.VQfAipUi.dpuf
Tuesday, July 16. 2013
 First off, to those few brave souls who donated a few shekels to my Help Keep Doc Alive & Online fund a while back, much-much thanks. It all helps. At the moment, I'm almost two thousand clams in debt to the hospital and my local GP and thus am still considering dumping my expensive $120/mo online service and just using the local library a few times a week, but we'll see. I'd still make the occasional post, but nothing like those monster video essays I'm famous notorious for. In case you missed them, recent essays include one on the great TV show NCIS, one on the Asiana airliner crash, the disinterment of Flight 800, the amazing answer to the crash of Flight 447, and a shorter one on golf movies.
The good news is that whatever ill effects I've been feeling since around last Xmas appear to be nothing more than ultra-high blood pressure (something like 195 over 155, aka Stroke City) and something about an "elevated red blood cell count", but I never pay any attention to the details. It's just "gimme the pills" and I'm outta there.
I did, however, make one real glaring error in my last post on the subject when, puzzling over the recent diagnosis of ultra-high blood pressure, I noted that I hadn't recently changed anything in my dietary routine.
That is, if you call your lunches and dinners going from 5% frozen TV dinners to 95% frozen TV dinners over the course of a year "not changing anything".
I honestly (because I had ultra-high blood pressure at the time is my best excuse) wasn't thinking clearly and had only dashed back a year in my mind as I typed the words. In truth, until a year ago, I've never been into TV dinners much, usually eating either sandwiches (homemade, deli, Subway) or canned goods for lunch and dinner. It was only after the operation, when moving around became such a chore, than I fell into the warm bosom of easy pop-in, pop-out, meals.
Worse, I then discovered how delicious some of them are. The Marie Callender's Salisbury Steak is totally scrumptious. That set me down the whole dark path of going through every Marie Callender's and Stofer's on the shelf, plus the lesser brands, only to end up one day at a notable moment in my life. I had turned down the canned goods aisle by habit, glanced over the beef stew and chili and spaghetti and... and then just kept walking. It was the first time in my life I'd ever done that. All I had eyes for was the frozen section.
Such are the depths of the addicted.
Well, these days, all tuned into the Daily Value (DV) figure on the back of the package, I have heart palpitations just reading the labels of the things I used to gobble down by the bucketful. With admonishments of "DON'T EAT ANYTHING WITH A DV OVER 20%!!!" blaring in my head, most of the TV dinners and canned meats out there are somewhere around the (cough!) 50% mark. And that's what I'd been piling down for both lunch and dinner for almost a year.
And that's before grabbing the salt shaker and giving everything a good blast. In my whole adult life, I've salted very few things (eggs, potatoes), but once you're in the tropics, aka Sweat City, you just naturally start adding salt to your diet to make up for what you drip onto the ground while walking out to the car.
As a couple of commenters noted in the thread, some people are much more susceptible to sodium kicking up blood pressure than others, and it appears I'm of that group. I can only say "appears", though, as I've been on blood pressure medicine since that day so I can't really measure how the sudden lack of salt in my diet affects it.
I'd also note that both Bird Dog and Dr. Bliss have recently linked to the latest findings by the CDC that salt isn't as harmful as has previously been the notion, although I have reservations about the overall "IT'S OKAY, EVERYBODY, EAT ALL THE SALT YOU WANT! YIPPEE!" tone of the articles. Since human beings are involved, we always have to be on the lookout for that classic human foible of jumping from one extreme to the other, and just because something isn't as bad as previously thought doesn't mean it suddenly goes into the Eat All You Want! column.
I have a few more notes below the fold, but that's the gist. Again, my deepest thanks to those who have tossed a little something into my Help Keep Doc From Gnawing Off His Right Foot fund. Any help with these nasty medical bills would be very much appreciated.
NCIS fans, be sure to tune in tomorrow for an intriguing update!
Continue reading "Health update 3"
Monday, July 15. 2013
 Owning a Home Isn’t Always a Virtue
What if your gluten intolerance is all in your head?
Yes, the middle-class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower-class, they’ve risen into the upper-class
McArdle: Why I Think the GOP Will Have Control in 2017
Obamacare Will Make the Primary Care Doctor Shortage Even Worse
The Economic Blunders Behind the Arab Revolutions
Obama Using the EPA as His Weapon of Choice
Zimmerman was No True Hispanic
Farm subsidies in Manhattan
Saturday, July 13. 2013
Regardless of rationality, Leftists always seem to want to control others. That's a truism.
It has always seemed to me that if a person can control himself, and his kids, that is plenty challenge enough in life.
The Secularization of Notre Dame: Is There Hope?
Thursday, July 11. 2013
Opium, gin, and Soma: There’s a Pill for That
Roger Kimball goes fishing
Related: How Big Government Erodes Quality of Life
Documents Detail the Department of Justice’s Role in Organizing Trayvon Martin Protests
Small town America: Remington, U.S.A.
How to answer questions like a White House press secretary
Failure to Rescue: How FDR hurt Jewish would-be immigrants
'The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact With Hitler’
Obama's Sex Harassment Policy for Colleges:
Unauthorized,
and Very Likely Unconstitutional - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/07/obamaharrasspolicy.html#sthash.fyFhWTAA.dpuf
Dr. Carson: Restoring plain and civil speech to politics - Breaking speech taboos reinforces the power of
persuasion
Just when you think that the EPA cannot possibly get any more idiotic…
Britain set to privatize its Royal Mail postal service
Wednesday, July 10. 2013
On Immigration, Strong Words
Mourning the Birds and the Bees
Fear and Loathing at Commerce - How a simple computer bug was mistaken for an act of war.
D.C. Council poised to chase off 900 jobs because they don’t like Wal-Mart, so there
Charter Schools and Their Enemies - Why undermine institutions that have benefited thousands of city students?
Early photos of the Middle East
A brief version of Glenn Reynold's Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime
Tuesday, July 9. 2013
Piano Lessons With The Maharaja of the Keyboard
That will give anybody piano-envy. Magic.
Five men stuck in a tree surrounded by Sumatran tigers for four days
Another ObamaCare Tax That Is Bad for Your Health - Venture capital is drying up for medical-device startups facing the new 2.3% levy.
Feds add Greek yogurt to school lunches
Gasland Director Presents Anti-Fracking Hoax as Evidence in New Film
Why Obamacare Threatens Immigration Reform - In delaying the employer mandate, Obama shows his disregard for the rule of law.
Colorado Baker Faces Up to a Year in Jail for Not Baking Cake for Gay Wedding
Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker-man....
George Will: 'What ObamaCare Requires For it to Work - Mass Irrationality'
Matt Ridley gave up on climate change
Who’s a journalist?
We are journalists
TV Is Americans' Main Source of News - Preferred news source varies by age, education, and politics, among other factors
The Year of Confirmed Suspicions, Immigration Edition
France's Big Brother, by contrast with the United States, is totally illegal
A secret thanks to librarians
How much do you appreciate people who want to raise your awareness?
Hey, New York: It was really only $750/hr
Same price as a fancy lawyer
Buchanan: Why the Reagan Democrats Departed
Sultan: Egypt is never going to get any better
Small banks can't afford Dodd-Frank compliance staff
Related, from a farmer: “I can fight the bugs, I can fight the lack of rain, but when the guy comes with a clipboard what are you going to do?”
Sunday, July 7. 2013
Everything possible is going wrong: White House Down, Obama Version
Is it incompetence, bad luck, or by plan?
Suddenly, unexpectedly, we have too many lobsters. I doubt that the lobster community would agree with that.
A few years ago, the cyclical decline in lobsters was blamed on global warming. Our local lobster, Homarus americanus, is the largest crustacean in the world, lives in cold water, and many people consider it a tasty treat. So do Striped Bass.
I think they are fun to eat once in a while, but there are many seafoods I prefer to lobster. If you want lobster, my advice is to get the biggest ones you can find. The bigger the lobster, the higher the meat/shell ratio and the more cost-efficient it is.
Phone the seafood market and ask them to steam a 5-pounder for you. There will be plenty of leftover lobster meat for sandwiches or lobster salad the next day.
Saturday, July 6. 2013
A series of Condell talks.
Just wait a minute between each presentation. Good fun on a warm day. He is indeed a passionate and entertaining atheist, but that is not his main theme.
Dr. Helen: Six Reasons Why Men Are Avoiding Marriage
She says she is "essentially honest."
Colorized History
Always lots of gems at American Digest
Grilling Over Charcoal Is Objectively, Scientifically Better Than Grilling Over Gas
I agree. In fact, I use a charcoal base with wood on top.
2 films, one about pop background singers and one about Breughel
I guarantee that you will love this
From a gay guy: Gay Marriage: “What-The-F- -Ever.”:
Every day American culture is a little more like a Black Mass against nature and manhood and anything decent or beautiful or noble or worth saving. Western Civilization has become a Black Mass for Western Civilization. Everything our better fathers believed in has been spit on and placed like a tainted Host between the yeasty thighs of a giggling whore.
In some formerly great nations, like England, I could probably be jailed for “hate speech” even writing that.
Kimball: July 4, 2013: Thinking about the Summer of 1776
The State’s Case Against the State - Who in his right mind would ever hire George Zimmerman’s
prosecutors?
EPA Growth Knows No Limits
Hinkle: Commit any felonies lately?
Drudge:
ONLY 47% OF ADULTS HAVE FULL-TIME JOB...
Longest Stretch of 7.5%+ Unemployment on Record...
Krauthammer: Obama’s Global-Warming Folly - No, Mr. President, we don’t need a war on coal.
I don't mind the guy being on his sailboat, but why lie about it?
... it turns out there’s a reason they call it “jailbait,” after all.
Hannan: Those greedy frackers
The top 5 lies about fracking
How Hate Facts Kill Scientific Inquiry:
Academic outsiders seldom grasp the personal consequences of expressing hate facts. The penalties are especially grim for those who mistakenly soldier on marshalling yet more solid evidence for their "hate." Nor can distinguished academics escape the anti-hate rage. In fact, it seems the more renowned the messenger, the greater the indignation, a perfect strategy to intimidate those with less prestige.
The world famous Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson was physically assaulted and repeatedly harassed for his work on sociobiology. Noble Prize winning geneticist James Watson suffered a similar fate when he said that according to his reading of the research literature, low IQ among sub-Saharan Africans Africa limited their economic progress (he also emphasized his unease about that conclusion, but this hardly helped). The American Sociological Association's campaign once tried to excommunicate James S. Coleman after his infamous report on schools' limited ability to boost academic achievement.
Wednesday, July 3. 2013
Kenyon College's young Andrew Pochter was tragically uneducated in the existence of evil and malice. I do not blame Kenyon for that. It is a wonderful school which is not overly-steeped in moonbatism.
That kumbaya stuff is not "idealistic," it is playing with fire and in denial of human nature. Andrew Pochter: Murdered in Cairo
Related, Egypt: Epidemic of Sexual Violence - At Least 91 Attacks in 4 Days; Government Neglect Means Impunity Rules.
Is this fascinating country ready for representative rule? The Egyptian army always seems to be the only half-sane part of the government.
Tuesday, July 2. 2013
Media and academic elites prefer to focus on the old South while a new one marches on.
It is rising again.
Article here.
Traditionally first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and 34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young, first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to choke...
Well, many figure that owning property is just a money pit anyway. Truth be told, my place has been an excellent investment, but I would never sell it. I'll die here. Where else? It's home. And the bank still owns 1/3rd of it anyway.
Even though I am opposed to the mortgage interest tax deduction, I am not retarded. I would never pay off a mortgage unless to get a better one.
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.BXSGcD7E.dpuf
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.yeVwqfD2.dpuf
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.yeVwqfD2.dpuf
|
Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th?