Honestylog.com

Kennedy

I'm sitting here at a bar in a casino (where else at 5:30?) the TV is going, sound off, no subtitles, and it's wall to wall Teddy.

Did he check out, or do I need to start praying?

Las Vegas or Bust

Bit of a delay, and whereas Beatrice was going to come along, she has remained back to supervise dog procreation efforts. But US Airways seems to be handling everything just fine, and I managed to snag the $50 first class upgrade.

I'll be downtown this time, at the Golden Nugget, for Art De Vany's EvFit seminar on Sunday. Should be at the hotel by noon. Steak, eggs and fruit for breakfast it'll be.

-- Sent from my iPhone

Automatic Lying

That's all this is about. Here's Warren's take. And Billy's. This bears reflection:

For years now, it's occurred to me that America would bring its characteristic (almost an instinct for) innovation to tyranny. This government would write new chapters in its annals, sprung from a uniquely American ambition and sincerity but bent so far around historic corners that all sight of home was lost. And so it would sink below its nature to something old and sick, but uniquely descended.

Get it?

Billy also linked this by Roy Spencer, who, of course, also notes that the polar bear population is likely at or near a record high since keeping track of such things. But what does that matter? There are "positions to stake out," "roles to play," "stances to take," and "poses to strike." ...All, euphemisms for plain old lying.

By the way, I picked up Spencer's book last weekend and would definitely recommend it. The sort of tragic-humorous-ironic style in that article is throughout the book. Here's a six-page excerpt (once you get there, click on the "Excerpt" link in the left sidebar).

What's Guaranteed to Set Me Off

Well if you must know, it'd be, for example, when a well-meaning employee emails a link to "Bike To Work Day" to all employees. Here's the touchstone of disgust:

Throughout the Bay Area, dozens of local events taking place during the month of May will get people excited about bicycling and the benefits it provides for public health, traffic reduction and our environment.

The best description I can think of on the fly is that of a smiley face telling you how great your sacrifices are going to be for everyone and everything else but you.

I love bikes. We got bikes. I use mine often, particularly so since the weather has warmed up. Why do I use the bike? Because it's the best thing for me, according to the context of the particular facts of the specific event in which I intend to use it. I live downtown, and it's usually far more pleasant, for me, to take the bike -- not the least of which is parking. And, it's just plain fun.

You know, it's always about guilt, isn't it? Either you're vermin who're messing up god's perfect universe, or you're more sophisticated -- not so weak minded as to believe in anthropomorphic gods. So, now you get to be vermin infesting mother earth. At root, it's the same formula: repent of your sins, and atone through self sacrifice.

Finally; I can tuck in my shirts

It's been a number of years, perhaps six or seven, since I've been comfortable tucking in my shirt, save for when I'm wearing a suit and the coat covers the sin.

Here was my last photo set, not quite three months ago, end of February. Net weight loss has been real slow (only about 5 pounds), but very steady. I think I've reached somewhat of a tipping point, however. Fat loss has been far in excess of what would be implied by weight loss. I estimate just on volume that I've gained 10 pounds lean in my thighs. They are getting to be quite large and dense, and I can't pinch but a quarter inch of subcutaneous fat.

The belly is the big challenge, but when I began, it stuck out a good six inches. Now, maybe one inch or so. In addition, I have the subcutaneous layer between the skin and the abdominal muscle that has not yet seemed to kick in. My trainer says that in men, it's always the last to go.

Anyway, here's this afternoon; about 20 hours since the last meal and an hour from a workout. Art told me in an email to smile when I take photos, because I deserve to. Voilà. It's a far cry from this.

What I See

Recently, I began receiving this Financial Times newsletter in my email box. I was awestruck by the image, and I still am every time I see it.

The sorts of people I hate & loathe would look at that as a scar on the planet. Those whom I consider stuck in dead-end, primitive superstition and fairy tales downplay such potential as "merely" the work of man. For me, it represents the path to the very highest ideals achievable by man through molding and leveraging physical reality, capital, values, and relationships in the pursuit of his highest moral purpose: the advancement of his life, ultimately reflected back in happiness and genuine, long-term well being.

You want to go to heaven? Look right up there. It's actually achievable; not through repentance to and redemption from either mother nature or imagined gods, but rather through reason, capitalism, individualism, and the exchange of values to mutual benefit.

How Do You Do It?

I caught like five minutes of Terry McAuliffe on Tim Russert yesterday as I was packing up in San Fran.

It's all just automatic lying, all the time, and everyone is perfectly happy to play along. Disgusting. I don't know what I'd do if I thought that ultimately, what I make of my life somehow necessitates a daily dose of the bullshit they're peddling.

I don't think the nightmarish disaster that is national politics will in any way be solved until people lose interest in the spectacle, beyond derisive ridicule and moral condemnation for the whole lot of it, without distinction or equivocation.

San Francisco

Bea & I are up for the weekend, along with my mom & dad. We have a membership with Worldmark, which we have never regretted buying for a minute. In fact, we've gone back two more times to buy extra credits. Highly recommended. But it spoils you. It's very difficult to stay in a standard hotel room, any more.

That was taken from across the street, just outside of the Tunnel Top bar (Stockton Tunnel, just off Union Square). It's a fun bar, and, they stock McCallen.

We'll head over in a bit for breakfast atop the Hyatt, then maybe head down to the Apple store, shop generally, maybe a movie over at the Bloomingdale's Mall (or whatever it's officially called), and dinner tonight is at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. That'll require a cab ride (once my car gets parked, it stays parked until I leave).

Oversight

I think I was remiss in not highlighting this wonderfully descriptive image in this post, specifically the link to Mark Sisson.

It concerns doing lots of cardio, which makes you hungry, especially for carbs, which spikes insulin, driving the carbs to fat and making you even more hungry, so you do even more cardio.

It’s like digging a hole to put the ladder in to wash the basement windows.

That could apply to a whole lot of quotidian clusterfuckery I observe.

God Bless the Intertubes

Delicious.

(Beck snagged that from Soja)

Organic Enterprise Sales Team

Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company.

So, you tell me: is Steve Jobs ever going to screw up?

Another Smackdown: Derbyshire Puts Ben Stein in Short Pants

Greg Swann quoted the best part. I'll take on the second best.

And now here is Ben Stein, sneering and scoffing at Darwin, a man who spent decades observing and pondering the natural world — that world Stein glimpses through the window of his automobile now and then, when he’s not chattering into his cell phone. Stein claims to be doing it in the name of an alternative theory of the origin of species: Yet no such alternative theory has ever been presented, nor is one presented in the movie, nor even hinted at. There is only a gaggle of fools and fraudsters, gaping and pointing like Apaches on seeing their first locomotive: “Look! It moves! There must be a ghost inside making it move!”

The “intelligent design” hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism. (A thing that cannot be said of Darwin. See Chapter X of Voyage of the Beagle.)

And yes: When our greatest achievements are blamed for our greatest moral failures, that is a blood libel against Western civilization itself. What next, Ben? Johann Sebastian Bach ran a slave-trading enterprise on the side? Kepler started the Thirty Years War? Tolstoy instigated the Kishinev Pogrom? Dante was a bag-man for the Golden Horde? Why not go smash a few windows in Chartres Cathedral, Ben? Break wind in a chamber-music concert? Splash some red paint around in the Uffizi? Which other of our civilizational achievements would you like to sneer at? What else from what Waugh called “the work of centuries” would you like to “abandon … for sentimental qualms”? You call yourself a conservative? Feugh!

For shame, Ben Stein, for shame. Stand up for your civilization, man! and all its glories. The barbarians are at the gate, as they always have been. Come man the defenses with us, leaving the liars and fools to their lies and folly.

The whole thing: A Blood Libel on Our Civilization.

Smackdown

This is just too good to quote any of it. You'll just have to go read the whole thing, as Peter -- the very smart UK veterinarian -- ridicules the "calories in / calories out" oversimplification.

Stephan has commentary, and Mark, looking great at 54, has prescient insights into exactly what Peter is talking about.

Read it all. Then, consider being of some help to your family and friends who've suffered too long under the Diet Delusion. You very well might save their life.

Repent, Sinners; The End of the World Draws Nigh

My bother emails some funny religious predictions for the end of the world as we know it, circa 1970.

AI

Well, David Cook made it through, which is good, because I think he's got the most edge and talent. I could definitely get along with he and Syesha in the final, but it'll probably be Archuleta and one of the other two. David A. has a great voice and all, but he seems to have only one game, and I really dislike the phony coy humility. I'm much more a solemn nod kinda guy, like Cook gives off.

My main reason for blogging this, however, was that one of my two favorites across all the series is Bo Bice, and he turned in a pretty good guest performance last night. Played electric guitar, too. My other favorite was Daughtry.

Here's an example of why I dig Bice, from very early on in season 4, Whipping Post: