critical thinking

I’ve been cruising the interwebs looking for a good graphic for atoms or chemical compounds or something of the sort, and I came across an article written a couple years ago by a wellness specialist named Vreni Gurd. Yes, really.

In her 2006 article at Trusted.MD, she points out what should be obvious, if only we had the information: polyunsaturated fats are bad. Vegetable oils, for the most part, are bad. Saturated fats, meanwhile, are good. Not to be confused with trans fats, which are as bad as ever. Polyunsaturated margarine is bad? Butter is good? Quoi? I know- not obvious yet. Continue…

It’s high school chemistry that gets you there: polyunsaturated means extra electrons looking to partner up with other molecules. Oxygen is a couple electrons short. Add heat (as in cooking) and you get oxidized oil, which is a geek way of saying rancid:

“The kicker is that most of the vegetable oils on the market are heated in the processing in order to get the oil out of the seed. (Can you imagine how difficult it would be to squeeze oil out of a grape seed?) Therefore they are already rancid on the store shelves. They are then bleached so they look nice, and deodorized so they don’t smell bad and the consumer will not know the oil is rancid.”

Wow. And you thought maraschino cherries were creepy.

She says most arterial plaque (read: heart disease) is made up of unsaturated fats. The body can’t get rid of them nearly as efficiently. Saturated fats, meanwhile, are nice & stable, and the body is already designed to ship them off if we don’t need them (within reason).

She makes another very telling point:

“The first heart attack on record happened in 1921, just as the vegetable oil industry was picking up steam, and sugar and white flour were becoming more plentiful.”

Whereas:

“Animal fats, whole raw milk, eggs and butter had been consumed and prized for their healthfulness for thousands of years…”

Makes sense to me. Food: the less processed the better. Bring on the bison and butter.

I believe it’s so enormously important to add a voice of moderation whenever possible. In today’s sound-bite culture of media driven hysteria, common sense is in pretty desperate short supply. Fact is, most people don’t take the time to get informed. They just skim the headlines and believe whomever generally agrees with them. So, if you’re a halfwit redneck, you will believe whatever Glenn Beck dishes out. If you would rather talk than think, you will swallow Betsy McCaughey whole. You think Fox is News.

On the other hand, if you want to know what you are talking about, you will cull actual knowledge from as many sources as you can, as close to the original as possible.

The fact is that the GOP is reeling in disarray, fumbling around in old school politics that no one with half an ounce of sense has any interest in anymore. This isn’t to say Republicans have nothing to offer, but I am saying that the far right is not doing America any favours. The knee jerk reactions, half-baked assumptions, and outright lies spouting from the deep right have slowed progress to a painful crawl across broken glass, for no better reason than that they rail against change. There just isn’t any nice way to say it: Hey morons, get the hell out of the breeding pool. You’re dragging us all down.

So in the interest of adding a voice of reason to the tumult, I respectfully offer this article from Newsweek that crushes the more idiotic claims.

Of course, the problem with posting this sort of thing on a blog is that, chances are, if you’re reading this, we are like-minded people, and you already know all this stuff.

The Pirate Bay was down briefly yesterday when the Swedish courts ordered their ISP raided and taken offline. Activating a plan readied years ago, the intrepid lads were back in business before the sun came up this morning, posting a slightly adapted speech that first rang out around the world when days seemed darkest for England:

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Signed;

The Pirate Bay Crew – Now until needed.

I salute you, boys. Though I can’t say I support every element of your argument, I most stridently support your voice of dissent in a world too ready to roll over. The RIAA and MPAA are wrong, and while you may not be entirely right, you at least resist. You are the future, and have been for years. Never surrender.