Followers

Sunday, July 01, 2012

It's the food, stupid!

It IS the food; well, that and the lack of exercise, totally sedentary workplaces, etc.,.

I just heard a commercial, for the umpteenth time, for a "natural" weight loss product. The product (names are unnecessary--they're all snakeoil) is touted as a "hormonal balancer".  This product is only one of the dozens for which I've heard ads on the radio. All of them promise two things: rapid weight loss and a "no-risk trial".

Anytime someone tells me that I can get a "no-risk trial" I know that the money is easy to spend and VERY hard to retrieve. If they really believed in the crap they sell, they'd offer it for no cash upfront and let you pay for the first batch, if it works, when you order the second.

I've been on various "diets" in my life. The one that DOES work is Sugar Busters. Not because it's magic but because when I eat less sugar, I eat less of everything. I also cut out beer, wine, liquor and virtually every food/beverage that makes life worth living! I love roasted sweet potatoes AND sweet potato pie--so no diet that restricts my food choices to those I don't usually choose is gonna be a bigass FAIL.

What got me thinking about this is a post by Southern Beale. It was nothing to do with food. It was about the very hot, early summer weather in Nashville.

AGW deniers are much like the credulous boobs who see teh Blessed Virgin Mary's face in their Dunkin' Donuts cruller (or whatever atrocious crapola "pastry" you may obtain at one of the thousands of those or like blights on the landscape). I see no specific harm in the credulity of the idiots who imagine that their pizza contains a divine message, spelled out in pepperoni slices. But, when those same idiots (and the Venn diagram for the two groups probably only takes one circle) also believe that cutting taxes will increase "jobs creation"; JESUS is coming, as soon as Israel nukes the Ayrabs or that AGW is not real--well, yeah, that's fucking harmful.

Idiots are easily led by hucksters, grifters and demagogues. The GOP, if nothing else, has made a "science" of dupin'tehstupes. They have reduced the world around them to TWO tribes, "US" and "teh OTHER, 9-1-11ity!". The two sacraments of their tribe are "Patriotism" and "JESUS!, shut-up, that's why!".

Science is not a guessing game. Science is not a lottery. Science is not subject to change, based on someone's desire to show that a carbon chain is, in reality, unicorn pooh. When someone's fabulous beliefs, beliefs which CANNOT be falsified; are not subject to critical examination and rational inquiry AND have no evidentiary support are deemed equivalent or superior to a vast, exhaustively researched and verified body of knowledge--a body of knowledge which is accepted by many thousands of scientists who have the training and experience to actually understand wtf they're reading and debating--well, I'm gonna have to say those who are going with JESUScience are fucking idiots.

My atheism aside, I never found the whole notion of Noah's Ark or many othere biblical "facts" being things that actually, y'know, HAPPENED, to be rational.

Years ago, I was in Al-anon--for a long time. Being a "member" of that group did me a lot of good. I learned that I WAS powerless to change the world--or even one person in the world--so that it comported with my ideal. I also learned that there are a lot of folks who "enjoy" being victims of alcoholics 'cuz they can vent, forever, and never take responsibility for any of the craziness that THEY contribute to the fucked-up relationships in which they are stuck. People who have been around the program for a  while usually, in my experience, become less "GODOdidit and I can't undo it", and more, "I can't fix the world, but I can determine where I want to live.".

Maybe there should be an "AGWanon", a place where those who have been brainwashed (and it's the only word that actually applies) into thinking that shit that will eventually exterminate humanity--without, per George Carlin, harming the planet--is just HIS way of testing us. Someplace where they might depend on the experience, strength and hope (and maybe a soupcon of science) to see where they strayed from sanity.

I will be as one voice crying in the wilderness.

WAKE THE FUCK UP!

2 comments:

dog gone said...

their venn diagram is one circle may be my favorite phrase of the week; I doubt anything else in the next six days will top it!

I classify those who believe that a rigid conformity will somehow serve as religion, in total ignorance fo what constitutes spirituality, is pure superstition of no higher order than 'step on a crack, break your mother's back' to make hopping down the sidewalk more fun. Clearly, hitting a crack didn't do anything to mom; and thank goodness there were not theologians to argue if the cracks in concrete counted the same as those between sections of sidewalk paving.
That's what I think of when I hear that our current problems are caused by Jesus crying that gays love each other - gay humans, gay dolphins, gay penguins, etc. Or that the Haiti earthquake was caused by dealing with the devil a hundred years ago instead of tectonic plate activity and other geological activity. That is a clear case of religion causing mega-brain rot, not an improvement of humanity. Sheesh!

Good post democommie! Thanks!

democommie said...

Good morning, dog gone:

Yeah, religion IS a delusion (much like the belief that buying a lottery ticket gives one some sort of realistic chance of winning millions); the effects of delusional thinking are the real problem, not the thinking itself.