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Every where I go I'm inundated with low fat this, low fat that, no fat, no cholesterol, not meat, et al. It's been 20 years since the AMA dropped the bombshell that fat was killing us, and in spite of the absolute lack of information to back it up (and where it exists, lets call a spade a spade and admit that it was junk science at best). Everyone has been pushing this anti-fat nonsense, yet Americans are getting fatter and fatter, heart disease is on the up as is diabetes, and millions of Americans find that they can't control their cholesterol no matter how hard they try - and now they are on dangerous liver-killing drugs to try.

When will America cast of this "fat is bad" myth, and accept that the real evil - the only evil - in our diets is all the processed crap and high sugar/carbs we consume? In 1910, the average American consumed roughly 1.5 lbs of sugar (and it was unrefined cane sugar at that). Heart disease wasn't even something most doctors knew about because people were dying of crap like tuberculosis and influenze far more often then from heart attacks. Fast forward to today: The average American consumes some 118 lbs of refined sugar. Food makers sell prepackaged foods which are highly profitable, chocked full of artificial flavors and colors, and made mostly from fillers. Labels like "low fat" and "no fat" make people salivate like pavlovian dogs when they think that it must be heart healthy, but eveyone is ignoring the obvious. Scientists still can't tell us precisely what roles cholesterol play, they can't agree on what is good, what is bad, and nobody has a clue on how cholesterol goes from lipids in the blood stream to plaque along the artery walls.

And the diet fads: First we're told that vegetarianism is the way to go, but every vegetarian I've ever met has been relatively unremarkable in their health, and never any better off than before they made their "commitment". Then there are 'hollywood' diet plans that offer people the chance to lose gobs of weight in only weeks, but what they don't mention is that you'll gain all that weight back and then some.

The only vegetarians/vegans I respect are the ones who go on the diet because of concerns about the treatment of food animals. There are alternatives: Nuts, vitamins, soy, etc. But outside of that, anyone who foreswears meat for 'health concerns' is a stark raving fool who is willfully depriving themselves of a number of essential amino acids needed to keep the body healthy. And before you go slathering that baby back ribs with gobs of barbecue sauce, look at how much sugar/sucrose/fructrose is in there. In fact, look at all your foods. If it has "ose", "ayse", or anything you can't pronounce you should toss it in the trash. People rave about the evil of sodium, but if you're drinking water and sweating, sodium is the least of your worries. Watch your intake of sugar and simple carbs. Ban yourself from white bread, cornbread, and anythign that isn't 100% whole grain. Walk straight pass the aisle with all the potato chips, pretend you did'nt even see the pastas, and get your ass into the produce section. If you want to be healthy, make sure there is not more than a few steps between you and your food. And for those of us still eating meat - know where your meat comes from. Free range, hormone free, non-corn-fed meat is the only way to go. And if you don't have a concience, consider this: stress causes animals to pump natural hormones out that make meat taste gamy. Make sure your meat comes from animals that lived happy, and died fast.

One more thing (and I dont think anyone can disagree with this): Unplug yourself, put the remote down, and go OUT SIDE! You see that big burning ball of fire in the sky? That's called a sun. Try to expose yourself to it more often, it's a great source of vitamin D (not directly obviously). Here's a concept that works: RUN. Sweat. Give yourself some cramps somewhere besides your wrists for a change. Unless you want your legacy to be that you wrote somethign that got included in an obscure 8 digit release Linux kernal, then you died fat and alone in your one bedroom apartment in front of your computer while wearing only your underwear and clutching a twinkie in your left hand, you should excercise. Believe me, running a 100m dash in 10 seconds is just as satisfying as killing a bug in your source code.

Okay, I'm done now...oh, and if any of you are wondering what inspired this rant, it was spending the first 24 years of my life as a fat out of shape and hypertensive stress ball. Since I saw through the lies, I have lost 130 lbs. I feel great, look great, I'm happy, and I actually get laid on occasion now. Oh yeah, some light reading on the subject from the New York Times (no registration required, put it helps to have Acrobat reader installed).

If you want total and complete freedom in hosting your web site, you'll need to get a hosting provider outside of the country you're likely to piss people off in. I have a friend that runs both a couple of pr0n sites and a gambling site (ironically, he's a rather square dude), and he lives and works in Costa Rica. That costs mucho dinero, especially considering that outside of the US and EU, good bandwidth is hard to get. The next best solution is to be your own ISP: Arrange to have a T-1, T-3, or OC-3 connection of your own with a Tier1 provider like Sprint or Qwest, and as long as you pay that $1k USD per month they don't particularly give a shit what you do with it. But then, you'll have the expense and time of setting up your own DNS servers in addition to web services.

The hosting provider I go with is Esosoft, and although they don't offer alot of bells and whistles, they do support PHP, Perl & C CGI, Frontpage 2K extensions, Miva (which is what my site). They use a virtual server system running on Linux (although they say unix, it's Apache). Not only do I run my site (yep, 2nd plug), but some organizations I used to belong to used them for several years, and we get away with lots of shit, including posting porn. I'm none to shy either, but I also excercise practical restraint: although I don't have the luxury of anonymity, I choose my battles and stick to my guns, and have found that most people are full of shit when it comes time to actually file a suit against you or your hosting provider.

If you want total and complete freedom in hosting your web site, you'll need to get a hosting provider outside of the country you're likely to piss people off in. I have a friend that runs both a couple of pr0n sites and a gambling site (ironically, he's a rather square dude), and he lives and works in Costa Rica. That costs mucho dinero, especially considering that outside of the US and EU, good bandwidth is hard to get. The next best solution is to be your own ISP: Arrange to have a T-1, T-3, or OC-3 connection of your own with a Tier1 provider like Sprint or Qwest, and as long as you pay that $1k USD per month they don't particularly give a shit what you do with it. But then, you'll have the expense and time of setting up your own DNS servers in addition to web services.

The hosting provider I go with is Esosoft, and although they don't offer alot of bells and whistles, they do support PHP, Perl & C CGI, Frontpage 2K extensions, Miva (which is what my site). They use a virtual server system running on Linux (although they say unix, it's Apache). Not only do I run my site (yep, 2nd plug), but some organizations I used to belong to used them for several years, and we get away with lots of shit, including posting porn. I'm none to shy either, but I also excercise practical restraint: although I don't have the luxury of anonymity, I choose my battles and stick to my guns, and have found that most people are full of shit when it comes time to actually file a suit against you or your hosting provider.

I totally submitted this story hours ago...and it got rejected. Slashdots editors are phuqed.

It's a good thing I save all my /. subs at my web site.

(This is not grousing, this is a legitimate bitch - there's a difference).

hose of us who have worked in a scientific field as a researcher