J’s Law. The linguistic phenomenon also known as the Beavis and Butt-Head principle.

What do these words have in common?

Donkey
Rooster
Cat
Embankment
Exuberant
Strange
Sober
Patio door
Siphon
Viennese
Richard
Hillock
Burrow
Bump

Stumped?

How about THESE words:

Ass
Cock
Pussy
Dyke
Gay
Queer
Straight
Back door
Suck
Wiener
Dick
Hump
Penetrate
Butt

I bet you can think of something in common for those. They’re the same meanings as above, you sick pervert. Yes. That, my friends, is J’s Law. The law states:

Should any word have two meanings, one of which is prurient, sexual, or scatological, that meaning will overtake the other neutral, innocuous, or practical meaning, eventually rendering the word useless for polite conversation.

Hence, any word that shares its spelling and/or pronunciation with a dirty word is doomed to become hopelessly dirty itself. Isn’t that sad?

Spammers create much unintentional humor

Two spam messages in a row:

• Watch her gasp at your new size
• Get an instant cut off

Oops…

A dangerous and evil ideology

What’s the best way to discredit a viewpoint? Anyone want to guess?

Associate it with racism, of course!

Eugenics, in most basic form, simply is the science of improving a gene pool. But associate it with racism, and it suddenly becomes a fascist tool to wipe out ethnicities arbitrarily deemed inferior to the chosen one.

Support of English as the national language is nothing more than the wish to preserve America’s fledgling culture in the face of encroaching globalism. But conflate it with racism and it suddenly becomes a hatred of Mexicans. To hear it from the whackos, anyone who would not like to be confronted with “Not to spig Inglich” when they try to order a Big Mac must be a fanatical Nazi, with swastika-emblazoned jackboots and “1488″ tattooed on their knuckles.

Opposition to fundamentalist Islam is met with seething accusations of anti-Arabism, never mind the legions of Arabs who are Nestorian Christians, liberal Sufis, and even non-religious.

This is what is called Fallacious Conflation (FC). FC is the erroneous and usually very intentional intermingling of two unrelated issues. In general one issue is the subject of moral ambiguity and the other is morally obvious. Racism is a popular morally obvious half because most of humanity can agree the proscribing of individuality subject to one’s physical features and genetic lineage is a backward and rather repulsive practice. To ascribe racism to an ideology that has nothing to do with it automatically makes that ideology repulsive in the minds of the ignorant. Of course, other ideologies are often used in FC besides racism. Godlessness and nihilism are ascribed to supporters of abortion, gay marriage, and evolution education. Anti-Americanism is leveled against opponents of the “War on Terror” and the war in Iraq. Anarchism is leveled against those opposing the War on Drugs, and anti-environmentalism is ascribed to those who want to continue to drive personal transportation. Even weirder fallacious conflations exist in Germany where those who complain about the bad behavior of certain Turkish immigrants are prosecuted under laws intended to root out Holocaust deniers.

Fallacious Conflation is a useful and insidious tool to destroy a perfectly good idea. It’s a form of guilt by association, and of course it’s disturbing enough that such a practice is accepted by so many Americans. But now FC is being taken to a new level. It’s being used not just to serve an end, but to serve a new and very worrisome end. Slavoj Žižek has a new video up on YouTube accusing the film “The Sound of Music” of racism. Now, you might wonder what on earth this guy is smoking. The movie is blatantly anti-Nazi.

As you will see in the video, his assertion is that the movie paints the good guys (the anti-Nazis) as honest, hardworking people of the land and the bad guys (the Nazis themselves) as cigarette smoking, city slicker bureaucrats. “So?” you ask. Well duh! According to Žižek, this means that the Nazis in fact represent Jews! Apparently the honest, hardworking Austrians represent the Aryans and the conniving Nazis represent the Jews.

Excuse me?

In other words, he attacks the movie on grounds of racism because it negatively depicts a racist group of people exhibiting traits stereotypically ascribed to Jewish people. Nevermind the the movie draws NO connection between Jews and the negative traits the Nazis show. A film can only, ONLY be racist propaganda if it illustrates a connection between a specific ethnic group and a negative trait. To those unaware of Jewish stereotypes, the film would in no way encourage hatred of Jews. In fact, those who are completely uninformed about the situation would ascribe the traits of honest, manual labor and steadfastness to Jews as opposed to their cartoonish stereotype of aversion to physicality and love of money.

What does this mean? It’s very disturbing indeed. Now, apparently, hatred of the traits ascribed by racists to a particular group means we hate that particular group. Ergo, those who hate avarice, usury, and political skullduggery must hate all Jews. Those who hate gangs, promiscuity, and teen pregnancy must hate black people. Those who hate reckless overbreeding, welfare abuse, and drug running must hate Mexicans. In short, according to this dangerous way of thinking, in order to be anti-racist we must not just accept all colors of skin, but all forms of behavior, no matter how reckless. Nevermind that behavior and race have nothing to do with each other.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a lone whacko or some new fringe group. A large contingent of the anti-racism movement has supported this notion. Anti-racism is a cover – something everyone can agree with. Once we’re hooked on the notion, they reel us into ever more insane ideas. Their real goal is not to end racism. They are cultural terrorists. If someone attacks another person for hating traits ascribed by racists to Jews, despite that the person despises racism, the attacker is in effect seeking to protect those repulsive traits the other person hates.

This brings us back to Fallacious Conflation. Cultural terrorists have selected a number of antisocial behaviors ranging from criminality to usury, identified racist groups who name those traits as justifications for hatred of certain ethnicities, and tied the racists’ words to our associations with those behaviors. You think usury? You think Jews. You think welfare abuse? You think Mexicans or blacks. Thus, the cultural terrorists disguised as anti-racists are actually in fact very much racist. The cultural terrorists then take our mental association of ethnic groups and antisocial behaviors, harness the internalized racism they instilled in us, and the end result is that we associate hatred of one thing with hatred of the other. Thus, cultural terrorists conflate beliefs on antisocial behavior with beliefs on race. Two things which have NO business together.

This leads us to ask why someone would want to use Fallacious Conflation or any method to legitimize antisocial behavior. Well, frankly there are as many reasons as there are antisocial behaviors. Loansharks would have us believe those who oppose usury are rabid anti-semites. Israeli child-killers would like us to believe those who oppose militant Zionism are also anti-semites. Sometimes the cultural terrorists don’t even have so pragmatic a motivation as the last two. Often extreme leftists want to sow dischord and depravity on some twisted principle, and thus will conflate opposition to dischord and depravity with some racist agenda.

Normally some whackjob on YouTube spewing nonsense does not merit a blog article, let alone one of this length, however Žižek represents the tip of a very large iceberg. The more our society accepts that it’s ok to associate hatred of a behavior with hatred of a group to which that behavior is stereotyped, the more we will fear to oppose anything bad. We need to nip not just the rhetorical sin of Fallacious Conflation in the bud, but to completely uproot the hordes of cultural terrorists disguised as anti-racists. They will not only discredit the true anti-racist movement, but damage irreparably American intellectualism.

I can’t believe we need an article like this

Is açai all it’s cracked up to be?

The question this article asks is if the health benefits of the açai berry are as great as people claim. Well, that depends to whom they are listening. Leave it up to pharmo lunkheads to view natural health and medicine through the same lens they do their own dangerous practices. The last sentence of the article says “If you still smoke, drink, don’t exercise and eat fast food, drinking a few ounces of açai juice every day isn’t going to keep you healthy.”

No. Shit.

Açai, white tea, turmeric, and red wine are not medicine. They are not intended to solve specific problems. They are nutrients that fuel your body’s own natural medicines. Pfizer would love nothing more than to tell people a superfood did not specifically cure someone’s cancer, and that they should instead use their body-ravaging chemotherapy instead. And that is the refrain I hear from every pea-brained doofus who is a skeptic of natural health. “Where are the studies showing this cures X disease?”

Firstly, there won’t be any studies. Pharmos won’t pay for studies that discredit their own products. Secondly, even if there were, there are a ton of other factors at work. Not the least of which is the lifestyle as a whole of the patient in question. Just as the article said, those who eat trans-fats, sit on their fat ass watching reality TV, and drink and smoke are going to feel minimal benefits from superantioxidants and flavonoids. If the body is so beleaguered just trying to purge toxins from its inner recesses, it will practically ignore anything good that comes through. Think of it as a poor farmer out in Afghanistan. You could give him a computer and even a rudimentary internet connection, but since he’s not even literate in Dari, what good will it do him? Give that same computer to a working-class American and they might use it to get an online degree and a better paying job within a year.

By that same principle, if your body is on the defensive, giving it offensive weapons won’t help. And generally speaking allopathy is the type of defensive support a body in trouble may need, basic healthy living is what’s needed to kick it from neutral to offensive, and natural health goods are what fuel the all-out assault on disease.

And therein lies the problem with the “health”-care industry. Their definition of health and ours are not very well in line. They would like people to believe health means no immediate symptoms that cause debilitating pain. As long as you can get out of bed, go to your job and work there for 8 hours with the help of much coffee, then slog out the remaining hours drinking, watching tv, or having lazy, unfulfilling sex, you’re “healthy”.

Health is a feeling of power and energy. When you are healthy, your body feels as though it can do things you never thought possible. You may feel lighter and yet more solid. More present in your own body rather than cloistered in your brain relaying orders to an alien set of limbs. The second you get a taste for that health, you’ll also get a disdain for the poisonous notions the industry feeds you. The fact that açai isn’t making you run marathons is like the fact that giving an idiot a wrench won’t allow him to repair the space shuttle. God forbid you actually have to work to be healthy.

If you want a feeling of “health” for almost no effort, but a very hefty price paid, then by all means go on living like a slob and ingesting things never meant to be consumed by humans, hoping that some geeks in a laboratory paid for by obese corporate moguls will come up with a way to keep you from keeling over in five years.

If you want to feel healthy, to run for miles, copulate for hours, and know what it’s like to be alive, then learn to live healthfully, and only start expecting dividends from your investment in natural health once you’re no longer running from your own body.

Firefox 3 ate your bookmarks? Think again! I’ve got the fix. (aka why I’m smarter than Mozilla)

So I didn’t get the memo that you have to back up your bookmarks when you “upgrade” your browser. You’d think if that steaming pile of bullyware is barraging you with requests to upgrade to FF3 that it would take care of that crap for you. Not so much.

So finally I caved in and installed this thing, and let me tell you. Whatever assclown thought it was a good idea to fuck with the URL bar and include that extra unneeded information should get out of project management and into grocery bagging. But, back to my point. When I started up FF3 for the first time I couldn’t help but notice something wasn’t write. The thing felt strangely sparse. Wait! My bookmarks! I looked and indeed they were gone. Completely gone.

It started to dawn on me that rather than actually upgrading, the dim-bulb application had completely re-installed the browser with no concern for user data. It just hadn’t occurred to me given all the updates I’d downloaded up to that point that such a thing would happen. Well, I was pretty pissed. So in an act of pure symbolism, I deleted the entire “defaults” folder as it was full of absolutely nothing I’d created. The folder would serve as an avatar and effigy of a void. By bringing life to a void, I could bring death to it. Such was the symbolism.

Except by sheer luck, the death was not just symbolic. I brought death to the void in reality, apparently. I signed in to Firefox hoping the program would protest the lack of these files I’d deleted. No such thing happened but something was different. Some old buttons were there. And the bookmarks! They were there in full force.

So long story short, if you just installed FireFox3 and forgot to back up your files, just delete the “defaults” folder from your new installation and somewhere on your hard drive, your old bookmarks are still sitting, waiting to be accessed. I honestly have no idea where they are so I am just going to re-save them elsewhere. But let this be a lesson to you all. As a matter of fact, if there is information you value in your bookmarks, it’s best for you to not just save the bookmarks, but download the information in them. After all, those links are no good if something happens to the web pages themselves.

Beef in Heaven

In Heaven, it would be unfair to deny the virtuous souls eternal access to delicious steak. But the problem is where does the steak come from? If it’s in Heaven, it means it’s already dead and can’t be killed. But maybe… just maybe if you kill something in Heaven, it reincarnates on Earth as the next evolutionary stage up. Therefore, if you slaughter a cow in Heaven, it might come back as a pig. And pigs are considered unclean in many parts of the world. So, the more cows you kill on earth, the more humans come back eventually, overpopulating the planet.

And that’s why Hindus don’t eat beef.

I need to stop smoking weed.

Ah, I suppose I owe you all an update

I had two apples last night, around the 118 hour mark. I preferred not to eat them too soon before bed so I guess I slightly cheated. Big fucking whoop. This morning I had some organic strawberry yogurt, then a little bit later I had steamed brown rice with tomatoes, carrots, shallots, and middle eastern seasonings. That was the first proper meal I’ve had in a week and it was damned good. I also had a scallop wrapped in prosciutto later, and while that probably the best of ideas, it’s all wholesome and good.

Needless to say I’m feeling great. Breaking this fast gradually was a wise idea. I encourage you who might fast to do the same. Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you break a week-long fast with country fried steak in sausage gravy with bacon and eggs on the side chased with a triple chocolate shake and find it coming rapidly out both ends. I’ve even heard about people dying from reckless breaking of very long fasts, so I advise you to not take that lightly.

That’s all you’re getting tonight. I’m afraid I’m all out of inspiring thoughts at the moment. But as usual, I’ll be back with more.

117 hours. Drinking a glass of grapefruit juice.

Let me tell you. This is the best glass of juice I’ve ever enjoyed. I previously didn’t even like grapefruit juice. Obviously hunger tends to make everything taste better, but there’s something more at work here. A fast rids the body of entrenched toxins, as you already know, and some of those toxins dull your senses. The reason people crave unhealthy food is because they are addicted to it physically. Yep. The same way they are addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, and whatever other drugs they consume.

In a sense I’m breaking the fast as I’m diverting from my water-only regimen that I’ve been undertaking for the past week. This is an important first step as the body’s digestive system needs a jolt to get it started, but nothing solid or heavy that would bog it down. Think of it as a sink drain. If you throw watermelon seeds down it, one by one with the tap on, they will pass into the sewer easily. If you drop a whole clump of them in there, it will clog the drain and even your disposal will have a hard time chewing them up. In fact, an inactive digestive system is analogous to a sink drain without a disposal. You need to power the thing back up again before you can process these solids. The introduction of nutrients without solid mass into the body will prime the digestive process, and the follow-up of simple, fibrous foods will get it going in earnest.

One thing that is a fact about fasting is that your body is cleaner afterward. Because of this, all of its pores, nooks, and crannies are empty and more accepting of whatever is introduced to them. For this reason, the utmost caution is required in re-filling those spaces. Before you even think of taking on rich foods (as I am longing for right now), you must first re-introduce good healthy foods. One thing I have read is that the digestive system best handles a single type of food at a time. In everyday life this is impractical but for the first day (or more, depending on how long you went) it is absolutely essential. The body has a different way of processing each food that comes into it. If you put two types of food in at once, it must work harder to produce two separate digestive solutions. For a digestive system that has been in hibernation for several days, that will prove an untenable situation.

My regimen for breaking the fast is as follows. At around 5:30, I drank a glass of peppermint teasan (tea without tea). At 6:45 or so, I began drinking the first glass of grapefruit juice slowly. I drank a second several minutes later. Some might advise that this is too much, but since I’ve only gone 5 days, it’s not too much. I wanted more, but I knew it was a bad idea, so I waited an hour, and am now drinking another glass. Within two hours I will move on to an apple. My hope is by the time I go to sleep I can have some yogurt, but if I can’t, well then so be it.

Tomorrow, I would have loved to gorge myself, but for the reasons I mentioned above, that isn’t going to happen. I’ll be sure to eat yogurt, maybe a small amount of granola, more fruit, and maybe a salad, but since dressing contains fermented, glutinous, acidic vinegar, I need to see if that’s cool to do so early on.

Besides the cleansing, detoxification, and healing the body does during fasting, there is another benefit of reduced dependency on fats, salts, and sugar. As I mentioned before, those things should most certainly be enjoyed, however in moderation. Most of us do not enjoy them in moderation, though, but feast on them whenever possible. Therein lies the difference between simple enjoyment and addiction. When you are wolfing down a bacon cheeseburger with fries, ranch dressing, and onion rings, are you doing it because you want to enjoy the variety of rich, vibrant flavors present, or because you feel a physical craving? Fulfill your physical desire for sustenance with healthy, nutritious, and wholesome foods, and fulfill your mental desire for sumptuous taste with occasional treats.

If you know you love good food, but also feel that your love may be turning into an infatuation, consider a fast to simply break that infatuation. Of course, it’s also good to evaluate your diet and see where you can make it healthier without sacrifices in enjoyment. The crazies will have you believe the only acceptable way to make your diet healthier is to go raw, go vegan, or even only eat things that fall from trees. Fuck them. Fuck them hard. I said before you should seek to add rather than subtract from your diet. How many healthy foods out there do you not eat simply because you haven’t taken the time to enjoy them? Some of us, myself included, have very sensitive tastebuds and are pickier than others in what we will eat (and fasting definitely won’t help that!). In such cases it’s a matter of continuing the search until you do find healthier things. As opposed to eating meat every day, try alternatives such as seitan, which when seasoned and sauced right, is a dead-ringer for chicken, or even fried or grilled eggplant. The best foods are those that offer heartiness, nutrition, and taste all at once. And for the love of God, swap out as many foods as possible for organic. Other than cost, you make no sacrifices.

In short, I am happy to be the guinea pig for all your benefit, provided at least some of you will listen to me. I damn well better not be preaching to an empty house.

97 hour update

Well folks, as of 11PM Thursday, I’ve been at it for 4 days. Definitely a new record for me. I have absolutely no intention of carrying this past the end of Friday. A 5 day fast will certainly be enough to reap benefits before starting to lose muscle mass. As it is, I’ve dropped 8 pounds, and for me that’s pretty bad. Fortunately it appears to be fat loss since none of my muscle tone seems compromised.

For those who think fasting enervates you to the point of vegetation, enjoy being proven wrong. As I stated in my last update, I woke up feeling terrific. After work, I went and hiked 4 miles. Now, understand that I was not hiking at the full capacity I normally do. Typically I am passing everyone on the trail, bounding down hills and plowing up them unstoppably. Today, I found myself having to put one foot in front of the other by force of will, and even noticed some middle aged ladies behind me catching up. I managed to stay ahead, but the fact was, I definitely was running at lower capacity than usual. Even so, I pulled 4 miles with 4 days of fasting behind me. Also some of my slowness was intentional. I could have forced myself to go faster, however I am trying to give my body a rest somewhat.

That’s about all I have to say for now. Hopefully you’re enjoying reading my updates, even if there is inevitably some sadistic component to your enjoyment.

Face deep in a 5 day fast

I barely thought I’d make it to the 3 day mark. I almost thought I’d give up yesterday morning. Now here I am, it’s 88 and a half hours in, and I’m planning on letting this run till Friday. I must really have lost a few screws, right? Except that the real benefits come after 3-4 days. The minimum time for professionally supervised fasting is 5 days. 3-4 days is how long it takes to fully shut down the body’s digestive system, allowing it to focus on the truly powerful healing of which it is capable. Shorter fasts are good for detox, no doubt. They are good for giving the digestive system a rest, which is a healing process itself, but the most profound benefits are found almost a week into the fast.

This, of course, sucks for me. I really was looking forward to eating today. But I talked to a doctor, no less, who advised me on this. So I’m inclined to take his word. All the same, I am not particularly hungry right now. I’m thinking I’m in that healing mode as I type this. I feel a whole lot of energy, and unlike yesterday, it’s not the nervous, highly uncomfortable energy it was previously. I’m not going to waste all the hell I’ve already gone through just to drink some grapefruit juice, followed hours later by an apple. As much as I was looking forward to spending the weekend eating progressively more fattening and delicious foods, it’s going to have to wait.

Which brings me to another point. A lot of fasting experts are going to hand you some nonsense that to truly be healthy, we must live on a raw vegetables diet. In some strict sense of the word, it’s more physically “healthy”. But The best things in life are at least slightly unhealthy. Don’t buy into the hype that you have to be miserable to live 100 years. What is the point of living that long if all you have to look forward to every day is kelp for breakfast, raw spinach and carrot juice for lunch, and steamed kale for dinner? Granted if you like those things, dig in! But why do you think fatty and salty foods taste so good? We clearly evolved to enjoy them. The health freaks want to ignore one part of evolution while focusing on another.

No, the way to live a long, healthy life is to reduce consumption of fat, sugar, and salt while enjoying them on occasion and in the highest quality possible. Are you the type who will eat a candy bar every day? Maybe several times a day? Well stop! Eat a pint of delicious organic ice cream once a week instead (2 weeks if you’re not active). Eat red meat less, but when you do eat it, make it Kobe beef, make it Italian Fiorentina steak. Quit with the daily low-grade hamburgers. Fried foods? Enjoy occasionally as well, and make sure it’s not trans-fat. The health nuts have never heard of moderation, to hear their diatribes. If you enjoy rich foods on occasion, and of the highest quality possible, you will gain a greater appreciation and derive far more enjoyment from them than if you were to feed on their low-grade incarnations on a regular basis. And you will enjoy life much more with these physical pleasures than if you submit to an existence of pointless asceticism.

In fact, the way you will get the most out of life is by adding things to your diet and lifestyle. NOT subtracting things. Make sure you’re taking your vitamins. Drink plenty of healthy fruit juices such as acai, mangosteen, goji, noni, and any number of exotic tropical superfoods. I believe you will get a lot more benefit from adding these things to your balanced diet than from attempting to subsist on a raw vegan diet. And let’s not forget the most crucial, God-damned important ingredient of all. Physical activity.

All the self-denial in the world won’t do a lick of good for you if you are sitting on your bony ass all day. Get out in nature. Find friends and hike. Ski or snowboard. Climb rocks. Take up martial arts, mountain biking, kayaking, deep sea diving, yoga. Anything that stimulates both your body and mind. In doing this, you will increase blood flow, tone muscles, exercise your heart and lungs, and circulate Qi through your body. Humans are designed to move around, to exercise. Back before we could write, or even talk in coherent language, humans were constantly on the move. The men had to kill large beasts with just stones. The women had to climb trees to pick fruits. Occasionally tribes would go to war with each other, and in the absence of advanced weapons, war was a strictly physical engagement. When all was peaceful, whole tribes would wander their regions searching for the most fertile place to rest and eat. In short, there wasn’t a whole lot of time spent sitting around.

While it may seem that technology has given us more reason to become fat and lazy, in fact we forget that that same technology can help us do what is most healthy for us in less miserable, more fulfilling ways. Hiking is a lot easier now with the various outdoor gear they sell than it was when humans had to walk barefoot in loincloths. Even videogames can be a workout thanks to things like the Wii and DDR. So the last thing I need to hear is some luddite, anarcho-primitivist douchebag spewing bile about how we need to revert to stone-age ways to be healthy.

In the end, it is up to you to decide what is the healthiest way to enjoy your life. My recommendation is you never give up what pleases you. Simply enjoy it in moderation and strive for quality, not quantity when you do. Always keep active, and find new fun ways to do it. Life is to enjoy. You cannot enjoy life if you are sick, and you cannot enjoy life if you are so obsessed with the minutiae of health that you miss out on all the fun. Balance is key to everything. Plato and the Taoists knew this 2500 years ago. No doubt the ideas were floating around well before then. People will sell you extremes because extremes are easier to comprehend than a perfect balance which by definition is neither here nor there. The extreme of overconsumption is bad for your body and the extreme of asceticism is bad for your soul. In the end, just wise up and listen to your intuition and you should end up doing what’s best. Trust me. Trust yourself.