Pollywogs!

I can hear it being yelled at me.  Over and over.  One thing, and another thing…

…

I can’t remember quite what it was…

…

sigh

You may have heard how important vitamin D is for building strong bones, and how it is formed in your skin when you’re exposed to sunshine. What you may not have heard is how important vitamin D is throughout your body, and how little you are likely getting compared to how much you should ideally have floating through your bits and pieces.

I read this excellent article in Scientific American a week or two ago called Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin (those cockheads only let you read a little tid-bit intro, don’t they know this is 2007 (and nearly 2008)?). I’ll try to summarize the neatest (and most important) things from the article without boring the shit out of you…

Vitamin D is found a bit in fish oil and a few other sources, but by far the primary and most important source is from skin exposure to sunlight. Guess what most people don’t get very much of these days (and when they do, they’re slathered in sunscreen)… UVB is the magic ingredient in sunshine which creates vitamin D. When you go outside in the summer, perhaps in a bathing suit around noon, and you lay out in the sun for 15 minutes, your body creates 10,000 IU of vitamin D. 400-800 IU is the amount usually states as the “Recommended Daily Allowance”. See anything unusual between those last two sentences?

Vitamin D was originally thought of in terms of an ‘anti-rickets’ vitamin, which is the reason to this day it is often described as being necessary for strong bones. Yes, but not only that by a long shot! Vitamin D acts as a hormone in the body, regulating and overseeing a very wide range of systems: a hormone a chemical created in an organ (the skin) and circulated throughout the body. One effect of vitamin D is as a bolster against cancer, by enhancing the effect of genes which trigger the self-destruction of healthy cells with damaged DNA. Risks for breast, prostate and colon cancers are at least 30% higher when you are chronically deficient of vitamin D. More striking is that they cite a figure of 77% lower risk for all cancers for women over 55 who took 1,100 IU a day over three years compared to a placebo group (more details on this study here). Personally, I find that “fucking amazing”.

Vitamin D also strengthens the immune system by increasing the antimicrobial powers of our immune cells. The specific action of vitamin D just happens to be very effective against the tuberculosis bacteria, which is why those sick with TB ‘back in the dark ages’ often got better when convalesced in sunny locations. The article suggests that vitamin D enhances the immune system in this fashion to compensate for the fact that it slightly suppresses inflammatory responses (the authors further describe how vitamin D may be useful in assisting with autoimmune diseases such as IBD and multiple sclerosis).

So, nearly everyone doesn’t get enough of this essential vitamin (hormone, even) that regulates and has a very wide range of beneficial action throughout your entire body. What to do? One author takes 4,000 IU a day during the winter months, the other takes 1,000 during the winter months. Myself? We’ve added 1,000 IU twice a day, probably cut back to 1,000 a day during the summer. Basically, there is so little UVB during at least a one month period during winter that your body is basically making no vitamin D, and your blood levels decrease further and further. And if a little bit is good, an 10,000 IU per 15 minutes is natural, I have no problem at all taking 2,000 daily year round.

In fact, it is one more little thing that helps set my mind at ease…

But I guess it is long overdue. I’ve thrown my considerable support and vast resources (”lol”) behind both Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Kucinich follows my own personal viewpoints more frequently, but it seems plain to me that both care much more for the American people than your common candidate. Both are unafraid to challenge the status quo, to buck the party line and to be they believe they ought to be. It seems to me that someone like Clinton or Guiliani wouldn’t take a shit without first having polls run to gauge the impact that taking a shit may have on their prospects…whereas both Kucinich and Paul act and vote from their concious (much love to Feingold due to this too, though he isn’t running). I mean, reading the USA PATRIOT Act, who in their right mind would vote for legislation that is not only nearly universally unconstitutional but also GUTS FREEDOM AND LIBERTY RIGHT OUT OF THE UNITED STATES???

Wha wha what??? Voting from your concious? Not simply spouting some clip friendly nonsense that looks great to the solid quarter (you know, those clueless twats who actually believed that douchebag come guzzling bitch Bill Frist (or for that matter his butt-fucking circle jerk buddies Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay)).

Now, that said, I don’t think there is anything wrong with either John Edwards or Barack Obama. I would vote for either man and know that they are for the most part honest and care about the public. But I don’t get the same sense of ‘getting it’ that I get from Kucinich and Paul. Slowly the mainstream is starting to catch on to the seriousness of the crimes which have been perpetrated against our country, but it isn’t going to take baby steps to get us back. It is going to take massive and sudden change (much like the change which must be instated TODAY to stave off the worst of the effects of global warming).

I think the people who care most for the Constitution and for the United States in general (the United States as PEOPLE, not the United States as a device to exploit for personal profit) should be President.

I’ve also donated to Edwards, Obama and Dodd (I really appreciate the lengths Dodd is going to to thwart both his own party and the Bush administration). But at the end of the day I want radical change. I want a revolution. I want the truth.

Sure, Ron Paul may be a bit of a religious nut and has a couple of places where our viewpoints do not meet, but normally a President does not make himself dictator (yes, George Bush needs torn out of the White House and given the Mussolini treatment) so I’m not too worried…but I think he should run with Kucinich as both would help balance the other and together probably do the best damn job restoring the country at this critical juncture.

UPDATE: Micheal Moore seems to feel much like I do.

“FFUCK JOE THE PEACOCK FUCK HIMA ND RAPE HIS MOTHER FUKC IS FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUCK FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKF FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Why so glum?

THE WHORESON CUNT BITCH HAS COMMMENTS DISABLED ON HIS BLOG AND FORCES ME OT GO TOS OSFMDOFI SJDFOH FUCKING FORUM AND FUDSFOISHDF OSDSFUCKING REGISTER FUCK HIM FUCDISJCHSD:OHFNDS:Fn BASEBALL BAT FUCK DFSDOIF DSOIFUSDLKJCUFCKC FUCK FUCKF FUFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Absurd. He is using blogger and yet forces me to register at some random website to post comments? Fuck him. I know how to fix this little problem…

http://www.garrettsocling.com/2007/12/17/stealing-music/

On Dec 17, 2007 2:01 PM, sweet adeline wrote:

http://www.joethepeacock.com

entry for 12/13/07″

—

Hmm…what is the cause for this schizophrenic, rage filled email reply? Joe posted two interesting things lately, one the stealing music that instigated my madness, the other a neat post about espresso beans that primed my brain to release a torrent of insanity. I happen to find them wonderful (chocolate covered please), but apparently Joe knows some interesting people. I really enjoyed reading about the crazy people in the espresso bean post, and it seasoned my mind for what was about to come…

So I was reading the stealing music post, and noted that he saw No Doubt in 1996. I believe I saw them the same year and from what little I can remember they were better than STP (who they opened for), so I was curious as to why he felt it was wasted money. Since I already have a blogger account, it is a simple matter to post a comment/question and I went to click on the link hey wait hold up this is a new site…a forum?? Register to post???

Commence insanity, espresso bean hater style…

Sorry, I have to register for too much shit as it is, too many fucking logins, too many passwords for too many sites…I have a login for a website (forget where) with the username HateRegistratio and another (gamespy) with IHateLoggingInEverywhere. At youtube I got pissed and just ripped out a couple sequential keys (fghjtyui). For EA.com, I came up with Sg12agf545 by beating on my keyboard. I use KeePass to manage my massive, drowning sea of logins…I can see why kids these days consider accounts disposable, trying to manage them in the old fashioned ‘real world’ manner results in what I like to call “bullshit”.

So no offense to Joe, but I’d sooner get anally raped by a grizzly bear than register at yet another niche forum. I’ll post comments to his blog here, where anyone can post without registering (of course, this being the cyber-equivalent of China I could censor or outright mangle your comments at the slightest whim (as I’ve been known to do (mentally insert link to where I’ve done this before (I’m quite too lazy to actually try to search for it myself))). Then, Joe can fail to answer them and everyone can walk away satisfied. Except me, but that is OK as I was only just a little curious.

I’m not sure what struck me to do so, but I sat down with a calculator and a sheet of paper and figured out how many calories were in each Christmas cookie Kell was making:

• 12 servings of Crisco - 110 cal, 12g total fat, 3g sat. fat per serving
• 63 servings of brown sugar - 15 cal per serving
• 23 servings of chocolate chips - 80 cal, 4.5g total fat, 2.5g sat. fat per serving
• 5 servings of flour - 100 cal, 0.5g total fat per serving
• trace amounts of salt, milk and egg

And the totals? 4605 calories, 250g total fat, 93.5g sat. fat per batch and the recipe makes three dozen…drumroll please: 128 calories, 7g total fat, 2.6g saturated fat per cookie…per fucking cookie…