TMR's Weekend Linkfest: You're A NewAger! (1)

You walk around saying silly things, like "some guy" is the equivalent of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, when he actually died in hiding so he'd never have to see the inside of a jail cell. But you ignore all that. Nowadays, you put a lot of effort into ignoring things. That's how it is.

You're divorced now, so you spend a lot of time with psychics, wondering if the witches can find you a "soulmate", because - though you've bought a billion of them - none of those self-help books seemed to work at making you interesting. Not even to yourself.

People who don't believe as you do, somehow, can see right through you and you still can't figure out why. You try to put up a good front, staying up on all the news so you have something interesting to talk about, but other than your poor humiliated ex - who said they loved you (no matter what) - other people just find you really weak-minded and superficial. Where's your Guardian Angel when you need her?

Of course, it's all Bush's fault - you just know it. Everything was different before he came along. (Oh, if only Al Gore had won!) Your guru was always coming over in those days, explaining things so you could understand them, and there were so many possibilities that it just seemed like anything could happen. But that was a long time ago.

Right now, though (Be Here Now!) what you need is another session of yoga and meditation, a really stiff drink, and somewhere quiet to write some of that amazing poetry you know you've got in you:

It's sure to change everything,...

(To be continued.)

Nothing That Big Moves This Fast Either

Los Angeles: in motion from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.

This video claims it's featuring Los Angeles, but is really just the places tourists go (Venice, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Downtown) with not one scene of South Central, Inglewood, East L.A., The Valley, Pasadena, Compton, Watts, Torrance, or anywhere else I think of as "home".

Oh well, it still made me a little homesick. I love L.A..

Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs

UPDATE: The great Joseph Nigro (whose contributions to this blog are terribly missed) sent me these two reminders, above and below, of what the "real L.A." experience is like - Man, I got so good at avoiding bullets that, at times, I felt like I was Wonder Woman with those fucking bracelets! - and, yet, I still miss it. Sigh. I'll get back there again, one day. I can hardly wait:

The Macho Response: Michael O'Leary

"Was the education doled out with a good stiff slap? Yes. Did we suffer great emotional trauma? No."

-- Michael O'Leary, chief executive of the excellent European budget airline Ryanair (you can get tickets for as little as 5 euros) and one of the most successful businessmen in Ireland, letting the world know why it's become too soft to be as successful as he is - it lacks The Macho Response - as does The New York Times.

"Arianna" Must Be The Greek Word For Stupid

"[Arianna Huffington's] desire to be different became,...clear when I looked at her views about health. In her 2006 self-help book, 'On Being Fearless,' she provides her own definition of preventive care, one that's indistinguishable from Evans' blog post. 'In today's world, where thousands of chemicals are being used all around us, it's essential both to protect against exposure and to maintain some kind of detox program,' Huffington wrote. In the New Yorker, Collins revealed that Huffington has undergone 'mercury detoxification, fire-walking, est, microdermabrasion, infrared saunas' and a long list of fad diets. In 'On Being Fearless,' she gave a description of her own experience with mercury detox, saying she was 'stunned to find how much mercury I had in my body.'

What Huffington may not know is the test used to determine the amount of mercury in the body is a sham, as proven by medical researchers at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Emory University and other public health institutes. The test artificially elevates the levels of heavy metals in one's body, falsely leading one to believe that they've been poisoned by toxins. In fact, a doctor who routinely prescribed the test has been investigated and disciplined.

In an e-mail to me, Huffington touched on her long and winding road through alternative therapies, dropping the names of major universities (Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UCLA) with centers for complementary and alternative medicine, where she has been a patient. But health coverage on the site goes beyond complementary medicine. In fact, the more I read the site, the more I realized its health writers were being chosen not in the name of diversity or on the basis of their qualifications. Rather, as Collins revealed in the New Yorker, they appear to be picked by Huffington on a whim."

-- Rahul K. Parikh, M.D., on the piss-poor NewAge medical advice you can find on The Huffington Post - which is the same nutty nonsense he found coming from Oprah Winfrey - which isn't a surprise, except all of this looniness is being covered so well by Salon.

Methinks It's Time To Cut Prof. Obama's Class

Joe Hicks: Another black fly in Obama's buttermilk.

What It Means To Be A Man (It Never Changes)

"It was either I remain loyal to somebody or to a cause that wasn't loyal to me, be loyal to a gang that didn't care about me, or I can do for myself."

-- Devaughndre Broussard, the totally sympathetic killer of journalist Chauncey Bailey, explaining why he decided to testify against Yusuf Bey IV, leader of Oakland, California's Your Black Muslim Bakery - and revealing the one choice all cults present, from the very beginning, but few followers discover until the very end - in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Damn, y'all. In two days I've found reason to feel *something* for an American homeopath and a cold-blooded killer:

I must be getting soft in my old age,...

This Is A Dog That Don't Hunt

"Barack Obama’s approval ratings have suffered major declines. The president’s overall job approval number fell from 61% in mid-June to 54% currently. His approval ratings for handling the economy and the federal budget deficit have also fallen sharply, tumbling to 38% and 32%, respectively. Majorities now say they disapprove of the way the president is handling these two issues. The new poll also finds significant declines over the last few months in the percentage of Americans giving Obama high marks for dealing with health care, foreign policy and tax policy."

-- The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Don't forget this article as you watch Obama's nose-dive, people:

It's a pre-election portrait of the "messiah" Americans hired to fix things - and our liberal media that chose not to better inform them.

Look Out World: We've Got Another One!!!

"Word of advice to gays and lesbians: enjoy your comfort zone while you can.

Leftists claim to be die-hard humanitarians, yet they are the continual robbers and stiflers of free expression - always for the greater good - a compulsion that has nothing whatsoever to do with altruism, spirituality, or even with thought. The reality is they loathe people one on one, and prefer the safety of Utopian ideas.

Six months ago, to crib from Martha Dobie, I started to feel so damn sick and dirty I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I declared myself an apostate right here - because, as the New Age slogan goes, you’re only as sick as your secrets. If conservative really is the new gay, then the time for all closet cases to come out, loud and proud, is now.

My phone’s been ringing a lot less since then - a generous tactic better known as the silent treatment. Silence is supposed to be golden. When it’s a personal choice, it can be sacred. But petty tyrants walk among us - at the supermarket, in the gym, at the office, the stoplight - and some of them are your friends.

Once you’re out, some of them may choose to remember you the way you were before you woke up. And I suppose there’s something touching, maybe even flattering, about a loved one who clings to a fond memory of the past.

But make no mistake: there’s nothing considerate, or peace-loving, about silence when it’s used as a muzzle. And for the Left, past and present, the ultimate goal is to keep the lies current, no matter how much denial, fear-mongering - or voodoo - it takes."

-- Charles Winecoff, a gay American - emphasis on the word "American" - finally declaring himself a conservative, while living in Big Hollywood.

Read the whole piece. Just as I've always made clear, Charles Winecoff states that Shirley MacLaine is a NewAge liar, and shows the devastating effect her lies have had on the lives of others. It's TMR's opinion that, at the very least, she should be shunned by all right thinking individuals.

BTW - I'm black and he's gay: Don't think for a minute conservatism is just a bunch of white guys,...that's just another liberal NewAge lie.

Oh No! Say It Isn't So! I-Just-Can't-Believe-It!!!

"Idol ain't all it is cracked up to be...It's certainly not the fairytale most think it is.

They pay for our lawyers to negotiate against their lawyer (which is BS). They make us COLLECTIVELY choose the lawyer, then they act like it's in our best interest. Craziest stuff I've ever seen. I have a son to feed. I HAD to ask questions and know what I was signing. Plus I write my own songs and I needed to know details...Some folks were like, 'Just shut up and sign on the dotted line.' I know better than that...I wasn't complaining...I was asking basic legal questions. There's a huge difference between the two.

I definitely believed that affected my time on the show. They didn't like the fact that I wouldn't sign 'just anything' and that other contestants were coming asking me questions. So I think they ousted me the first chance they could get...Even if I didn't get in on votes...how did I not get picked for the Wild Card show when I received comments from the 'judges' that were better than most of the contestants who were picked for the Wild Card show?

The producers know who they want and they slant it to reflect that. They fix it in a way that makes you surprised but it's still manipulated. Think about it...ADAM, ADAM, ADAM, then...Kris....SURPRISE SMITHCHES!!!!

What I mean is that people think AI is a talent show. No. It's a reality show with writers!! We're all actors. All these shows have writers that guide the public opinion. The Hills, Real World. All of them. Do you think a billion-dollar enterprise is subject to the whim of the public?"

-- Ju'Not Joyner, revealing the rot at the bottom of another endeavor that so many gullible types put their "faith" in - American Idol - because "honesty is the best policy" (right?) at least according to Yahoo! Music.

Placebozos

"Richard Dawkins is concerned because the British health care system is paying for placebo treatments using tax payer dollars. The treatment is called Homeopathy, which consist of giving a patient water as a medication and spending a lot of time talking to him."

-- Poppy Moreno, putting this universally applauded "treatment" in plain language for all to see - which they don't because their insanity blinds them - but not The Salt Lake Independent Examiner.

This is Madness

"Americans spend about $34 billion annually on alternative medicine, according to the first national estimate of such out-of-pocket spending in more than a decade.

Chiropractors, acupuncturists and herbal remedies are commanding more consumer dollars as people seek high-touch care in a high-tech society, the report released Thursday by the government shows.

'We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from promising and sensible to potentially harmful,' said Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the federal agency that leads research in this field.

More research into which therapies work is critically needed, because the spending on them is 'substantial,' she said.

Some consumer advocates say people are wasting money on some products that rigorous studies already have shown don't work.

'Even in these recessionary times, a great deal of money is being spent on some forms of complementary and alternative medicine whose efficacy is questionable,' said Bruce Silverglade, director of legal affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.

The last government estimate out-of-pocket spending on alternative medicine came from a 1997 survey. That research estimated $27 billion was being spent.

The new report concludes that 38 million adults visited alternative medicine practitioners in 2007. They paid less than $50 per visit on average, but many paid $75 or more for services such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnosis therapy.

The average annual spending per person to see practitioners was about $122, and the average spending on products was $177.

A whopping $3 billion was spent on homeopathy,..."

-- Marilynn Marchione and Mike Stobbe, on why those "crazy people in government" shouldn't be looked upon as the only Americans hell-bent on wasting our money by the bucketful: they've got lots of help in the private sector - and I don't mean "Big Pharma" - but the idiots who aren't capable of understanding The Associated Press.

UPDATE: I did find some good news in all this nonsense - the "practitioners" are going broke! - from The Los Angeles Times:

"The survey found CAM makes up just 1.5% of U.S. healthcare expenditures. However, it accounts for 11.2% of total out-of-pocket expenditures. Of the $33.9 billion spent out of pocket on CAM, most of it was for self-care products, such as classes, products and materials. Compared with the last survey of CAM practices in the U.S., in 1997, visits to CAM practitioners have plunged 50%." [Underlined emphasis TMR's]

O.K., so the NewAgers are catching on that these people are con men and not doctors. Great. The next step?

Convincing the NewAgers that they're not doctors either,...

NewAger = Evangelical Preacher = Nothing New

"Neo-shamanism, which is a subset of neo-paganism, which is a subset of New Age spirituality."

-- Robert Wright, making sure we get the neo-lineage correct - while also informing us (as I have many times) that "New Age spirituality is no more pure than old-time religion" - so you might as well forget the whole neo-thing and start off smart, with atheism, and a clean Slate.

After informing us that shamans are (and always have been) all about fraud, money, and sex, Mr. Wright (a believer) also adds:

"If you try neo-shamanism, don't be under the illusion that you're helping to recover a lost age of authentic spirituality. Religion has always been a product of human beings, for better and worse."

An Example Of The Government We Deserve

"The former secretary of a western Pennsylvania borough told a judge she spent some of the $200,000 she stole from the municipality on [a] psychic to contact someone in the afterlife."

-- The Associated Press

And isn't it bizarre that her "positive" NewAge beliefs didn't stop her from stealing?

Actually, no, it isn't.

Just You Wait: He'll Spin It As Toughening Us Up

"Nobody wants to hear it, but this fact is too important to ignore: So far, the first African-American presidency has been one of the worst ever for African-Americans. The economic crisis has predominantly hit non-white working class men; the collapse of the auto industry is threatening to destroy the basis of the Midwestern black middle class. Key matters for African-Americans languish — the overincarceration of young black men that makes a mockery of American justice being the number one example. Government aid? That goes to bankers in Connecticut. If the President were white, there would be riots."

-- Stephen Marche, not really noticing it was much the same situation during the Clinton Administration - AKA The (Other) First Black President - which is why I rarely post items from Esquire.

And ain't it grand he's lecturing black fathers on taking care of their kids at the same time? He's the best president EVER!!!!

The Old Gray Lady And Her Old Gray Man

In a post I did a while back, called The NYT's Paul Krugman Is An Idiot, I described a scene where the clueless columnist was made to look like a fool by a bunch of Canadian healthcare recipients. Well, as you can see above, someone caught that very scene on video for the world to behold. Yes, liberal NYT readers, there's your Pulitzer Prize-winning economic genius when he can't find anything - like newsprint or a computer screen - to hide behind.

Now why, you may ask, do I still think Paul Krugman's an idiot? Two reasons:

1) Though the episode happened in public, the dishonest bastard never wrote about it - and the NYT didn't think it was news either - so they probably thought the story wouldn't get out.

2) The idiot's are still advocating for Americans to go with Canadian-style healthcare.

Learn from this experience, people:

Paul Krugman and the NYT are not good sources of journalism.

This Is Going To Be Way Better Than Judge Judy

"Michael Savage's court case against the since departed Home Secretary, the statist buffoon Jacqui Smith, should be a riot."

-- Mark Steyn, on the one-and-only time I've ever found myself rooting for a homeopath, and it had to be someone in The National Review.

Even I Get In The Mood For Just Horsing Around

Evander Holyfield To Box Horse For Heavyweight Title
Evander Holyfield, boxing with a horse? A man caught on camera having sex with a horse? Can't you stupid people leave the little horsies alone?

Don't you know they were made to run free?

Agreed: Waking Up Is A Strange Reason To Die

I Am Glad I've Been Too Stupid To Fall For This

"Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

'A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance,' said Alan Dangour, one of the report's authors."

-- Ben Hirschler, revealing how the Western World has been throwing it's money away - up to 50 cents more, per item, to support a very-popular health lie, like yoga - or, rather, Reuters.

Well, well, well,...it seems that another issue people have been willing to argue with me over has fallen, decisively, in my favor.

I think most people today have a broken bullshit detector - they're too gullible - for instance, falling victim to the stroking their fellow foodies will offer on their "enlightened" and "open-minded" outlook, good taste, and/or their ever-present wrong-headed concern for "the environment". Ripping such people off is like shooting fish in a barrel. One poor fool recently told me to "eat shit and die" after I tried to tell him he was being taken for a ride, on multiple levels, because he was a sucker for organics. I was only trying to help.

Oh well. If that's my role in life, then so be it. I probably lost a wife over it, and some people got killed, but, I guess, if wishing me the worst makes them all feel better than dealing with the fact that, for decades, they've been willingly tossing money down a hole for nothing because some actual assholes - after convincing these geniuses of some stupid bullshit lie about "the environment" and their health - discovered they could easily capture and control the mind, cash, and habits of one "mark" after another. They'll even line up for it - and possibly have sex with you, too!!! What a scam!

So, the great con of our time goes on,...resulting in those who give out correct advice to endure regularly hearing things like "eat shit and die" from suckers who consider themselves smarter, nicer and so much more "enlightened".

This really is a wonderful world NewAge has created, huh?

It's no wonder I stay so fucking happy,...

Seems To Me Like There's A Few Guys Missing

Hat Tip: Niflheim

Big Heads, Big Money, And Even Bigger Beats

"Aura dazzles, but argument gets things done. Consider the debate on the Democrats' health care bill and the increasingly negative response to Barack Obama's performance. Democrats have the numbers to pass a health care bill -- 256 votes in the House, 38 more than the 218 majority; 60 votes in the Senate, enough to defeat a filibuster. But they haven't come up with the arguments, at least yet, to put those numbers on the board. It's something not many predicted that bright January inauguration morning.

We knew that day that Obama was good at aura, at generating enthusiasm for the prospect of hope and change. His inspiring speeches -- the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Des Moines, the race speech in Philadelphia, the countless rallies in primary and caucus and target states -- helped him capture the Democratic nomination and then win the presidency by the biggest percentage margin in 20 years.

But it turns out that Obama is not so good at argument. Inspiration is one thing, persuasion another. He created the impression on the campaign trail that he was familiar with major issues and readily ticked off his positions on them. But he has not proved so good at legislating.

One reason, perhaps, is that he has had little practice."

-- Michael Barone, admitting he saw something that was never there - Barack Obama's "aura" - allowing a nobody to become somebody, to The Washington Examiner.

Sorry it took me so long to get the first post up, but I've been arguing with my "special" liberal scientist, The Mighty, Mighty Orac, after he exhibited one of the liberal-of-today's favorite tendencies - anti-white racism. I would offer to buy him a ticket to Barack's house for the "beerfest", with Henry Louis Gates and Officer Crowley, but I just don't think that little "education" session is going to prove to be the right call,...


I'll be poking in-and-out today, so give me a few thought-provoking comments - preferably not anonymously - and even consider making a donation (My roommate - who's kinda liberal but getting there - after telling me how different my offline personality is to my online persona, suggested I ask, "Wouldn't you like to see this kind of conservative in a Rolls?") all of which would be greatly appreciated:

Being a professional asshole is a really lonely job.

And BTW: As I've said, many times, none of this money is going for anything as silly as a Rolls Royce, but to turn this guy:

Into a conservative version of this guy:

And that, I assure you, is a goal worth donating to - for me and you.

See you in a bit,

CMC