Bombastic 'Mo

Any volunteers?

Master Cleanse: Day 2…The Finale

While this technically happened yesterday, I was too busy binge eating to out myself online.

I made it through an entire day of the Master Cleanse.  After a day of drinking nothing but spicy lemonade, and a morning of chugging salt water in order to force an unnatural BM, I decided that this was stupid and I’d rather have a cup of coffee and a burrito.

Without my morning coffee and tri-daily meals, I lost all desire to do anything.  I pretty much sat around the house and felt sorry for myself.

Fuck that.  I’m eating.

Master Cleanse: Day 1, an hour later

So hungry.  This is stupid.  How could I possibly make it ten days?

I’m on my second drink.  Attempting to sip it slowly to ensure it sends the illusion I’m not hungry.  I was never one to fall for illusions….

Master Cleanse: Day 1

Seeing as I have no 9 to 5 requirements, I decided I’d give the Master Cleanse a try.  I was a bit nervous, as apparently part of the process involves A LOT of defecation.  Like, invest in a book and a bunch of extra toilet paper “a lot”.

But I’ve had more than a few friends do the process, and despite their complaints, they seemed to be really glad they made it through the cleanse.

While my initial goal is to make it ten days, my willpower has always been rather bipolar so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I’ll cut it far shorter.

Today being the first day, I cheated and didn’t start until about 4 PM.  I decided that I just had to have one last cup of coffee before I started the quasi-fast, and I wanted to make sure I was home (instead of in Olympia) to ensure I didn’t get myself in a bit of trouble while making the 70 minute drive North.

I stopped by Safeway and picked up 5 organic lemons ($1.29 a piece, there may be a better season to try this), two boxes of tea (Smooth Move for the digestion and Throat Coat just cause I like the taste), a container of cayenne and a lime to mix things up.  I started up a small conversation with the checker as she scanned my items, assuming she would guess what I was planning.  She picked up on it pretty quickly, thank you Beyonce.

I’m actually very surprised with how amazing the lemon mix tastes.  I used the following ingredients and proportions:

• 1 whole Lemon, juiced.  (On a side note, I’m not sure I’ve ever juiced a fruit before in my life.)
• 2 tablespoons of Grade B Maple Syrup
• 10 oz of water
• A dash of cayenne pepper.

The Grade B Maple Syrup has a wonderful flavor (I’ve never appreciated the normal stuff we put on pancakes) and the cayenne and lemon go together wonderfully.  My nose is tingling from the spice, but after drinking about 2/3 of my glass, I’m already feeling pleasantly full.

Tomorrow I’ll do the first Saline Cleanse.  We’ll see if I’m still so happy then.

That’s not a fucking Privilege

I’m still editing the earlier story, and listening to the Senate hearing.

I just had to spit out.

No one has the privilege to make sure that no one else has privileges.  You do not have the right to know that people you don’t like don’t have rights.

Crazy old lady just gave us a Sex Ed talk about Adam and Eve and men and women coming together physically.

Ah!

At least I still have my health

“Dear MR. GLASER:

Basic Health (BH) has reached it’s enrollment limit and cannot offer you coverage.  When space is available, you will be offered enrollment; you will receive instructions at that time.  If we know we will not be able to offer you coverage within 60 days, we will return any money you have sent.

If you applied for coverage through a sponsoring organization, we will notify your sponsor when space is available.  Contact your sponsoring organization if you have questions.

We expect to offer you enrollment soon; however, we cannot guarantee enrollment by a specific date.  Once you are scheduled for enrollment, you will receive a confirmation letter indicating when coverage will begin.

…

Sincerly, 

Basic Health”

Higher Brow than Bloody Chickens

Warning: Probably Not Safe for Work.

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

“THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS A NAZI DICTATORSHIP USING NAZI PSEUDO-SCIENCE TO PERSECUTE INNOCENT PEOPLE!”

I stumbled across this link while reading a great story on a new smoking ban in California.  That momentous step forward aside, I wanted to draw your attention to this outstanding, upright citizen’s website.

http://www.smokershistory.com/

Titled “The Conspiracy against Tobacco”, the site is one long, rambling rant against Anti-Smokers.  Someone needs their nicotine fix.  Some of my personal favorites:

“For six decades we, the American people, have been victimized by deliberate, knowing scientific fraud, perpetrated by the American Cancer Society and its accomplices, and funded by their corrupt lackeys in Congress, whose goal is totalitarian dictatorship over every detail of our personal lives!”

And of course:

“Worthless Congresspussies Still Bend Over for the Anti-Smokers!

These brain-dead, spineless pieces of human junk should be holding hearings exposing the anti-smokers’ deliberate, systematic, and decades-long use of defective studies that ignore infection, to falsely blame smoking and lifestyle for diseases that are really caused by infection - not sniveling about slippery slopes like a bunch of stupid little children.”

If anything I ever create comes across this ugly and completely incomprehensible, please put a stop to me.

“The health fascists turned America into a giant Tuskegee Experiment!
Infectious diseases are the leading preventable causes of death in the United States and throughout the world, and always have been. By their obstruction of the truth, the anti-smoking conspirators have caused the needless deaths and suffering of uncounted millions. They have compounded their crimes by persecuting the innocent, and stealing their victims’ money to line their own over-privileged pockets, under the pretext of the Big Lie that smoking is an economic burden to society. Morally, the anti-smokers deserve to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and hanged like the loathsome criminals that they are.
We must have REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE! for everything they’ve done to us! Never forgive and never forget their crimes!”

Pam Anderson to India: Dogs need better Sex Ed

In case you missed this one, well-known civil rights activist Pamela Anderson wrote an open letter to the municipal commissioner of Mumbai.

Ms. Anderson felt motivated to express her disdain for Mumbai’s recent High Court ruling that stray dogs should be killed in order to protect the public from a public health nuisance.

In the open letter, Anderson explained to the government officials of India “Dogs cannot use condoms, but with the municipality’s help, they can be ‘fixed’ - painlessly, quickly and permanently”.

Honestly, I’ve been a vegetarian for nine years now.  I have to leave the room when my family carves the turkey during Thanksgiving.  But even I realize this is just stupid.

“Killing is not the best way but stray dogs are a menace,” said medical professor Samir Gulivani in a BBC interview. “The way they suddenly pounce on bike riders is dangerous. Something has to be done and they have to be off roads.  [Pam Anderson] is hot but why is she writing to the municipal commissioner?”

CSI: Poopy Puppy Division

The Seattle times today posted a story about our leash and pooper-scooper laws.  According to the Times, an estimated 125,000 dogs live in Seattle, and in turn, these dogs dump approximately 41,250 pounds of poop onto the ground.

For those without a calculator handy (and you’re on a computer, so there’s one handy), that’s upwards of 15 million pounds annually.  If only we could build condos out of this shit.

Of course, the problem isn’t the poop.  It’s the placement.  Despite the nominal threat of fines, poop still litters are streets and parks. Want a solution, switch to a bigger Times.

The New York Times ran an article on the city of Petah Tikva, a city near Tel Aviv.  The mayor worked with the city director of veterinary services and created a system to establish a system able to DNA fingerprint the dog droppings left in public places.   In order to so, they created a dog DNA registry of licensed dogs, and to convince citizens to take part, they rewarded dog owners who voluntarily registered their dogs.

The city placed specially created poop dispensers around the city, and paid city officials to sift through the properly-disposed-of excrement to find matches.  When a registered dog’s poop was found in the bin, the owner received a prize.

Genius?  Kind of.  Once enough dog owners buy into the idea, it’s only a matter of time (and logical public policy) to start fining the owners of dogs whose DNA is found in piles on the street corners.  And with an actual risk of getting caught, 100% of dog owners may start doing the right thing all the time.

While on some level, it’s very sad that we would need to create a publicly funded police force to encourage dog owners to always do the right thing, I think we’re there as a country.  As a nation, and often as a city, our sense of entitlement and lack of accountability has created an incredibly irresponsible populace.

Pop back to the Seattle Times Article.

Apparently pooper-scooper laws are discussed in University of Washington law and economics classes.  Professor Steve Calandrillo told the Seattle Times that irresponsible dog walkers who don’t pick up after their dogs are caught on average 1 out of 100 times.

This level of accountability turns a $54 ticket into a 54 cent per-pile fee.  As someone who steers as far away from poop as I can, seems like a pretty good deal.  Calandrillo suggests a fine closer to $500.

Which brings us to the conclusion: is it really that big of a deal?

Fecal landmines aside, the rainwater causes all of this poop to enter our waterways, streams, and eventually Puget Sound.   The waste can contain such ickies as roundworm, E. coli and Giardia.  Kind of detracts from the adorable wintertime images of kids eating snow off the ground, making snow angels, or even just playing in the yard.

David Ward, principal watershed Steward of Snohomish county, told the Seattle Times “Pet waste comes consistently to the top as one of the principal sources of contamination in urban waterways”.

I don’t know.  Seems like a great way to provide jobs to our local unemployed geneticists.  Let’s get some of that Obama stimulus money and put it to work.

Cancer update: Your Ottoman’s smoking habit is deadly

According to a new article by Scientific American, third hand smoke is yet another way PhilipMorris can kill your children.

According to Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician in the Boston-based Harvard Cancer Center, “third-hand smoke is tobacco smoke contamination that remains after the cigarette has been extinguished.”

Third hand smoke contains some of the same toxins as second and first hand smoke, but has comparably little notoriety.

Children, babies in particular, are especially endangered as they tend to crawl around on carpets and furniture, materials which are most likely to retain some of the toxins from third hand smoke.  Their proximity to these materials means they inhale more dust than adults: taking their diminutive body-size into account, children inhale 20 times the amount of dust.

The article also cites the well known fact that the developing brain is much more susceptible to even low amounts of toxins, you know, those found in cigarettes.  As three concrete examples, the article mentions:

• Lead:  a substance that has been associate to diminished IQ in even small levels.
• Cyanide: used in chemical weapons and the teeth of secret agents.
• Arsenic: aka Rat Poison.

With all of this information about how completely nasty cigarette smoke is, CNN took the story a step further and looked to investigate why the hell so many people continue to smoke.

The CDC reports approximately 43.4 million Americans smoke.  The CNN article even has a great graphic illustrating smoking rates per state.   Washington state boasts an amazing 16.8% smoking rate, which is drastically lower than the rates in the majority of the Midwest (save Mormon-heavy-Utah..).  It’s also below the U.S. average of 19.8%.  Interestingly enough, it doesn’t coincide heavily yet with states that have enacted smoking bans.

The CNN article draws some really interesting conclusions:

• The prevalence of smoking has a direct correlation to education status, which often is equivalent to income status.
• Approximately 90% of smokers start smoking in high school.  (When we’re all uneducated.)
• Groups of severely disadvantaged people have smoking rates of more than 40%.
• It’s disgustingly hard to quit.

On a personal level, I’ve never wanted to smoke because of the blatantly obvious health detriments, both to myself and to those around me.  I often found it hard to stand up for myself when I was around friends who smoke, as many are oblivious to how heinous it is to be in the presence of their smoke.  With the knowledge that a night spent around second hand smoke now turns me into a toxic offender, I think (at least hope) it’ll be easier to avoid spending extended periods of time around smokers inside.

I’d also hope to see more smoke-free homes.