New Zealand announces ‘Big Belly Day’. A world first, a day where Kiwis can acknowledge and reflect on that sad mental condition: Obesity.

I am at the point in my life I sometimes need glasses to read things.

Not all the time, at night mostly.

Being a miserable prick I have a pair of $5 glasses to assist where necessary.

In the mornings my eyesight is at its clearest.  

However this morning I had to focus three times to re-confirm the headlines in front of me on the computer screen: Third of Kiwis'need to kick food addiction'

WTF ‘Food is Addictive’?

Of cause it’s bloody addictive.

We’d all be dead if it wasn’t.

Evidently smoking, gambling and drug use are ‘so-90’s’ and grown unfashionable.

According to Christchurch-based Professor Doug Sellman the new battleground in human addictive products is the very thing that sustains us all.  

Food lures 1 in 3 humans into a destructive path, leading to health problems and premature death.  

Sellman even places the dangers of food alongside methamphetamines.

"Like people with methamphetamine, you don't get the shaking, but it's the craving, feeling deprived and really needing it. It's like they need those particular foods as if their lives depended on it. But they don't; they've got their wires crossed.”

“Like drug addictions, people addicted to food needed increasingly large ‘hits’ to get their daily fix.

"Even though they know it's bad for them they still just feel this drive to eat."

What a load of crap.

Firstly when he says these new-age addicts need ‘hits’: it is hits of Coke not water, pizza and not a salad.

They may-over eat but so do triathletes and our Olympic rowers etc. 

Then we need to place our lateral thing-caps on and ask…..

- Are there now signs affixed to the local bakery warning any fatty after a nocturnal  fix 'No Cream Buns Kept Here at Night'?

- Do we see obese people embezzling their relatives, work places to get more money to spend at ‘All you can Eat for $20’ Restaurants?

- Have you encountered large groups of dishevelled fat people hanging around KFC looking for scraps?

- Do fat people enter a life of prostitution so they can afford Belgium chocolates?    

- Do people live on the streets after wasting their lives away on Fish N’ Chips?

- Is the professor’s genomic affliction rare amongst the peoples of Sub Saharan Africa?  

In its base form: food is simply energy.

Humans need energy to live and function.

Some humans consume too much energy.

They become fat due to this excess energy.

Faced with this situation the over-weight then have two clear, accessible courses of action to normalise their weight (a.) consume less energy (b.) burn-off excess energy through exercise.

Obese people choose not to take these options of their own volition.

It is hard to get fit, re-focus oneself to show some self-control, change years of a life-style.  

It’s far, far easier to continue to blob out in the couch stuffing your gob with crap food.

What Professor Sellman is doing is allowing millions of Kiwi’s to abdicate self-responsibility.

Make them think it’s all down to their genes that made them obese and not years of poor health choices.  

Create an unwarranted victim mentality.

But it’s not that easy per Sellman, it’s actually not a physical craving.    

“it's exactly the same as drug and alcohol addiction. You just have this urge, even though you know you are not supposed to eat . . . and once you start you can't stop, you just keep eating and eating. It's not just a physical problem, it's mental."

Where I see ‘mental’ I read: weak-willed.  

When I see the the white-line in the middle of the road I know not to cross it. 

In the same article the spokeswoman for Overeaters Anonymous backed-up Sellmens claims, saying ‘food was irresistible’ as she ate her second sausage-roll for morning tea, washing it  down with a 1.5 of Pepsi.   

BTW I tried googling an Overeaters Anonymous group in Mogadishu but came-up short.    

And what is Sellman panacea to assist these poor folk in our midst who can’t be bothered going for a walk at night or resisting a second helping of desert, due to their brains being wired the wrong way?  

"The only effective way for an individual [to conquer their addiction] now is surgery”

Great let’s bankrupt the country.  

Let’s close down our cancer wards and have them full (pun intended) of far more deserving stomach-stapling patients.  

Poor things, I am in tears as I write this.

Being struck-down with debilitating disease like obesity that see’s victims sitting around watching hours of T.V and agonisingly forced to eat take-aways for breakfast, lunch and dinner must be share torture.     

Remarkably according to Sellman getting obese is in effect share torture and I am simply misinformed, an unsympathetic sod (the later is true)    

You and I should adopt the Professors sycophantic world view on obesity and therefore by rights come to the same conclusion as his research: 

Example 1: Mahe Drysdale (Single Skull Olympic Gold Medalist in London) will be 20 stone by this time next year with all the food his body craves.  

Example 2: Fat Kids are doomed to die prematurely, suffer ill-health unless they get a gastric bypass.     

Let’s therefore treat Professor Sellmans ascertains with the severity they pose and prioritise health care in New Zealand. Let Kiwi women give birth at home, on footpaths if necessary so that the mentally impinged obese can get the hospital treatment Sellman thinks they richly, as in the food they eat, deserve.

Sellman and Fatties Anonymous won’t rest until there’s street collectors on every corner chasing money for their worthwhile cause.  

An annual Fat-Belly Day!

A ten dollar donation will pay for one staple.

What a f#cking joke!

And we pay professionals to come-up with this contemptible load of horse droppings?!

The complete abdication of individual responsibility is now hoisted on to society as a whole.   

The vast majority of obese people are victims of their own actions, not their genes.   

Professor Sellman should pin the lyrics of this Tim Minchin song above his desk and recite them three times daily.    

   

Baldness Alchemy

Borrowing from ancient knowledge of alchemy, Holistic Hair is a beautiful stand alone hair care range. Nourishing both the hair and scalp is our focus and the healing properties of aromatherapy oils have been our inspiration [Holistic Hair Web Site]  

I am as they say ‘folically challenged’  

Would I like to have hair?

Sure yes, but I got over it and it doesn’t bother me being partly bald.  

One only needs to scan adverts to see 'going-bald' does bother others.

They are willing to spend a fortune on re-growing hair.

Bill Gates said recently ‘more money was being spent finding a cure for baldness than developing drugs to combat malaria.'

So this intro leads me into the murky world of New Zealand companies marketing products that claim to re-grow or save the hair of those with male pattern baldness ‘naturally’.  

There are of course medically proven products which do have some success in treating hereditary hair loss.   

Propecia and Rogaine are two of these.     

But what about the prevalent, in-your-face ‘natural remedies’ - say those ‘that borrow from ancient knowledge of alchemy’ etc?  

Yes that’s right alchemy, protoscience, a wishy-washy field of that became unfashionable around the same time we stopped treating the sick with leeches.  

This gets me to Nigel Russell’s Auckland company ‘Holistic Hair’ which I read about in an issue of ‘Sunday’ (insert to Sunday Star Times) last weekend (16^th Sept 2012)

In the article by Sarah Murray entitled ‘Hair Today, More Tomorrow’ Russell is quoted as saying he believes [quote] hair loss is treatable.

What by Propecia?

Nope, don’t be silly.

Products like this are the spawn of some evil multi-national pharmaceutical company made in some factory using – shock horror- proper medicine.  

Damn their clinical trials that substantiate their claims for advocacy and the fact I don’t have the necessary authorisation to administer a medicine of this nature.    

He’s what Russell said via ‘Sunday’….

“There are many aromatherapy oils that have shown to support hair growth such as lavender, rosemary and nettle oil. When they are applied to the scalp regularly, the hair appears to be healthier and fuller’

Really?

Aromatherapy oils can treat Male Pattern Baldness?

Let's be honest, angst ridden bald men must be the base clientele of any such hair-studio.

Enter Google.   

There was one small study in 2000 (Cooke, Edzard) that stated aromatherapy may help those with scalp complaints and had some success with baldness - more in women than men from what I can deduce. Hardly conclusive stuff worth spending hard earned money on.    

There was no other independent-study wise I could locate on the net of any substance to say lavender, rosemary oils etc had any success with male pattern baldness, halting excess DHT.  DHT is the hormone that triggers hereditary hair loss.

There is little doubt a product like Nettle Oil will cure itchiness, a symptom of the shedding process, but it is drawing a long bow to say it will stop the genetic condition altogether.  

The less fashionable Castor Oil will do the same in terms of scalp itchiness if that’s what’s bothering you rather than baldness.    

Alpha Keri is what I use.

A free and easy way to stimulate short-term growth is to rub the scalp. This practice will also make hair appear fuller but any initial ‘baby’ growth won’t last though.

Russell continues to dig himself a ditch under the unquestioning eye of Murray.

“There is also herbal remedy known as saw palmetto. When it is combined with a zinc and B stress supplement, this may be a more natural way to deal with hair loss”    

Rubbish.

There is not one shred of scientific, independent evidence to show saw palmetto can halt male pattern baldness. 

Sure SP can reduce the production of DHT, could be useful in prostrate treatments, but this doesn’t translate necessarily into stopping hair dropping out.

Zinc and B-Vitamins – give me a f#cking break!

With or without Saw Palmetto a diet consisting solely of greens, bananas and beef won’t stop pattern baldness.  

This is why most men appear at the doorstep of places like Holistic Hair – to stop male pattern baldness – get more hair.    

They are not after diet advice.

There’s the partners Woman’s Weekly on the lounge table for that.     

In short: don’t believe what you read about ‘natural’ herbal baldness cures for men who have the wrong set of genes.   

They don’t work in the same way as claiming you can magically manufacture gold from common metals.  

It’s all alchemy.

Quack Water Salespeople roll into Canterbury

"Homeopathic medicines may greatly help children, animals and adults feeling frightened and unable to sleep from the Christchurch earthquake" says co-presidents Jem Maber and Susanna Shelton from the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths.

This advice is laughable and can be quickly and conclusively dispelled.

Every parent who's up-with the-play already knows the best-cure at night at times like this is for girls to cuddle a voodoo-doll in bed and boys to play with a shrunken head under the blankets. Important: for this to work make sure it is done in conjunction with bio-magnetic bedding.

A personal ‘pagan’ favourite of mine in angsty situations is to strip naked and bay at the moon as part of its harvest cycle.

Sometimes I find myself getting naked in the back-yard without the moon even being in Virgo.

What self-respecting householder could look past that ‘old wives recipe’ of doping your cup of tea with a liberal dose of whisky? At least there is some efficacy for this treatment. But a word of warning before you start pouring Johnny Walker into the Lipton's – be sure to have your palms read first, just in case there is ‘danger in the future.’ Having your horoscope produced will be equally effective and put you and the families minds-at-rest.

Another ancient tried and true stress treatment, available at any decent herbalist, is a mixture of St Johns Wort, peppermint, willow bark and chamomile. Boil it-up and then make it into a tea in which you pour five nips of whisky. It’s also great for your prostrate as well, warding-off the flu and the later stages of AIDS.

Having your crystal necklace re-calibrated can also work wonders as a stress reliever. What's more crystals also look cool and go well with tribal tattoos. It'll be sure to be a conversation starter at the next Green Party meeting.

I really wish the media would start reporting this important scientific stuff so the public is better informed.

Let’s demand a separate system of Medical Care for Theists.

If we at all are honest as a society, we’d be open and say theist hypocrisy knows no bounds.

When are ‘we’ , the growing percentage of non-superstitious in New Zealand society, going to start say “enough is enough” and ‘return-fire’ using ironically the same rights Christians (and their allies) oh so conveniently see as theirs alone?

Let’s use these very-same ‘rights’ to bite them in the arse!

Time after time we’ve seen groups of Christians fighting every-step of the way to prevent medical breakthroughs, such as we see currently with stem-cell research and medicine.

As soon as medical/scientific advancements are in conflict with religion, like stem-cell is currently - castigation and obtrusion occurs.Protest is of course every-ones right, but later in the passage of time these evangelical protests are always proven to be self-centred platitudes, shown by history to be primordially laughable.

Inevitably what happens is at some later stage these very same protesters, or their loved-ones, needs to seek the same treatment they and their anointed representatives rallied so hard against.These two-faced, hypocrites have no compulsion seeking such treatment either.

On the other-hand God-fearing luddites are perfectly happy for others to be denied access to medical treatments, even if it means a miserable life or premature death for some other poor unfortunate – but only, if they themselves are not afflicted.

So as before you read my proposal, don’t feel any sort of compassion towards theists, for these very same individuals want to rob you and your closest of one of the basis rudiments of modern life - all to protect their beliefs. Always keep in the back of your mind, theists want their beliefs to over-ride yours – even if it means watching your own child die in a pitiless painful, fashion – when a cure is available, but denied to you because of their ancient superstitions.

Large tracts of so-called ‘loving’ Jesus followers in this country, want to deny childless couples the opportunity to have a family using medical treatments.

Cutting to the chase, what I’m suggesting is where resources are stretched in the health system, care is given to those who will appreciate it & respond. This is the same as an oncologist who opts to treat a non-smoking lung-cancer patient, ahead of one who continues to puff away.Therefore our health-system already rations medical care, so my proposition is not as radical as it first appears.Doctors, make ethical ‘life & death’ choices on daily basis and we don’t raise an eye-brow.

So where resources are stretched, why aren’t Health Boards using the discretionary powers available to them to allocate care to those who want it first?As an example, Catholics would automatically go to the bottom of IVF treatment.

Automatically no free contraception for Catholics either.

After-all their own ethical representatives have fought tooth and nail to get IVF banned. Yet, when it suits them Catholic couples will seek out the very-same treatment that they tried hard to prevent – so it’s hard to feel sorry for them. Besides they can call on their local Priest to assist (no, not in a Biblical sense but a pastoral role if that’s what you thought I was inferring to? Although I guess the first premise isn’t entirely out of the realms and would take some pressure off choir-boys)

Why shouldn’t a grateful, appreciative couple who wants a baby and have no objection to IVF treatment get priority over a couple who aren’t at all enthusiastic about the treatment due to ethical grounds?Further, the outcomes from couples who embrace a treatment such as IVF, are surely going to be more positive overall than those who are skeptical, and acting under duress, facing outside pressure to reject the ungodly procedure.

Based-on experience health-providers have a fair-idea which of the couples in this example are more likely to miss appointments, so precedency is both of benefit to the doctors and nurses but also ultimately the maligned, stretched tax-payer.

Our medical practitioners already respond to religious/cultural beliefs.Hospitals bow to pressure from the superstitious, giving them their own separate areas, actively assisting a policy of sectarianism and supporting a policy of privilege writing-it into law.

Jehovah Witness’s for example, are given the right to die rather than submit to a blood transfusion.

The religious precedent is already in existence – I’m merely taking the same entrenched statutory privileges bestowed on religion to their logical conclusion. Asking for exclusive rights is not a one-way street and should come with barbs.

If you don’t want stem cell treatment – we won’t give it to you.

If you don’t want fertility treatment – we won’t give it to you.

If you don’t want contraception – we won’t give it to you.

If you don’t want an abortion – we won’t give to you.

No exceptions.

Just don’t bother asking retrospectively for any of these things if say you are a Catholic, unless you want to pay or want to wait at the bottom of a long list.

We would then have the foundations of a separate health-system, only you and I wouldn't be funding the religious hospitals where the mortality rates would be on par with Cambodia.

Hypocritical theists can’t have it both ways when it comes to medical treatments that apparently so upset their invisible God ‘Yahweh’ and his emissaries on earth. On one hand theists can’t ask for a separate places to pray and do their thing at hospitals, demand rights that permit 'their own men' on-to the ward at the tax-payers expense, then in the next breath announce “we are the same and demand the same treatment.”

If all these two-faced theists all had true belief in their convictions, like say the witless but gutsy Jehovah Witness’s, there would be plenty of spare hospital beds for us Atheists, and over-flowing cemeteries with crosses on the graves.

So what is wrong with giving priority treatment to someone who wants it, over say someone who wants it stopped full-stop, or objects to it on ethical or religious grounds?

If it is exclusivity through extra rights, they want – let’s give it to them.

Let’s embrace those who abandon reason & science for superstition as it frees more beds for those who appreciate it.

Let the Hospitals and health-providers play their bluff when it comes to modern treatments that upset their sensibilities, let’s give them what they want & fought for.

It’s also high-time for theists to practice what they preach and abdicate themselves from mainstream medicine and get back to basics.

That’s to say: prayer and leeches.

Footnote: this is a re-hash of an earlier article I did.

Meet the 10,000th Kiwi baby The Catholic Church wanted dead!

The babies name is Zoe and her doting and proud parents are Aucklanders Natasha & Anish Martis.

Any parent can look at this photo can share their joy.

Zoe is unique - she’s New Zealand’s 10,000th IVF baby!

So what sort of cold-hearted person would deny couples like Natasha & Anish the chance to have children?

What sort of person could deny Zoe a life and brand this small 11 day-old baby as intrinsically ‘evil’ and tag her parents as 'moral deviants'?

Those callous heartless individuals happen to come with a title like ‘father’ or ‘sister’.

Those cold-blooded, semi-humans can be identified by dog-collars and habits – befittingly black in colour, like their hearts.

Today these very-same savage celibate men who wanted to deny Zoe, and 9,999 other children like her, a life are actually instructing others how to be "good" using their own warped & twisted version of the term.

In the year 2010 The Catholic Church in New Zealand still considers IVF treatment to be “gravely evil” and “morally unacceptable.”

The Vatican would like to see a worldwide ban on IVF.

The Catholic Churches stand against fertility treatment is totally repugnant and an affront to normal decency.

In-fact the policy is evil.

When the Cure is worse that the Disease:‘The 1976 Swine-Flu Pandemic’

What is now called Swine-Flu, or derivatives of the influenza C strain, have been identified since mankind developed the science to locate, and classify the infection.

The first major identified Pig-Flu/Swine-Flu/Influenza, outbreak or pandemic, was in 1918, and the last-one was in 1976.

Faced with a pandemic in the seventies, authorities in the US choose to vaccinate the population (refer photo).

Now here’s the rub, today’s lesson from history, before you go running to the doctor, or getting your kids jabbed.

The vaccine the U.S Government administered, when immunising almost a third of the population in 1976, produced tragic side-effect in certain individuals.

This was a rare pulmonary sydrome called Guillain-Barré (GBS for short)

Complications from GBS resulted in 25 deaths.

The tally of confirmed deaths from the Swine Flu itself was: one.

The single individual who fell victim to the flu, was the U.S Soldier that sparked the pandemic in the first place!

Medical Care for Theists: Prayer and Leeches only

If we are honest, theist hypocrisy know no bounds.

When is the growing percentage of non-superstitious in New Zealand society, going to start say “enough is enough” and ‘return fire’, using ironically the same rights Christians (and their allies)conveniently hide behind?

Time after time we’ve seen groups of Christians fighting every-step of the way, to prevent medical breakthroughs, such as we see currently with stem-cell.

As soon as medical/scientific advancements are in conflict with religion, like stem-cell is currently - castigation and obtrusion occurs.

Protest is of course every-ones right, but later in the passage of time these evangelical protests are always proven to be self-centred platitudes, primordially laughable.

Inevitably what happens is, at some later stage, is these very same protesters or their loved-ones, needs to seek the same treatment they rallied against.

These two-faced, hypocrites have no compulsion seeking such treatment either.

On the other-hand God-fearing luddites are perfectly happy for others to be denied access to medical treatments, even if it means a miserable life or premature death for some other poor unfortunate – but only, if they themselves are not afflicted.

So as you are about to read my proposal, don’t feel any sort of compassion towards theists, for these very same individuals want to rob you and your closest, one of the basis rudiments of modern life, to protect their beliefs.

Always keep in the back of your mind, theists want their beliefs, to over-ride yours – even if it means you watched your own child die in a pitiless painful, fashion – when a cure is available, but denied to you because of their ancient superstitions.

Large tracts of ‘loving’ Jesus followers in this country, want to deny childless couples the opportunity to have a family, using medical treatments.

Cutting to the chase, what I’m suggesting is where resources are stretched in the health system, care is given to those who will appreciate it & respond.

This is the same as an oncologist who opts to treat a non-smoking lung-cancer patient, ahead of one who continues to puff away.

Therefore our health-system already rations medical care, so my proposition is not as radical as it first appears.

Doctors, make ethical ‘life & death’ choices on daily basis, and we don’t raise an eye-brow.

So where resources are stretched why aren’t Health Boards, using the discretionary powers available to them, to allocate care to those who want it first?

As an example, Catholics would automatically go to the bottom of IVF treatment.

Their own Church has fought tooth and nail, to get IVF banned, yet when it suits them, Catholic couples will seek out the very-same treatment that they tried hard to prevent – so it’s hard to feel sorry for them, and besides they can get local Priest to assist (no, not in a Biblical sense but a pastoral one, if that’s what you thought I was inferring to, although I guess the premise isn’t entirely out of the realms)

Why shouldn’t a grateful couple who want a baby and have no objection to IVF treatment, get priority over a couple who aren’t at all enthusiastic about the treatment, due to ethical grounds?

Further, the outcomes from couples who embrace a treatment such as IVF, are surely going to be more positive overall, than those who are sceptical, and acting under duress & facing outside pressure to reject the ungodly procedure.

Based on experience health-providers have a fair idea which of the couples in this example, is more likely to miss appointments, so precedency is both of benefit to the doctors and nurses, also ultimately, the maligned tax-payer.

Our medical practitioners already respond to religious/cultural beliefs.

Hospitals bow to pressure from the superstitious, giving them their own separate areas, actively assisting a policy of sectarianism and supporting a policy of privilege, writing it into law.

Jehovah Witness’s for example, are given the right to die, rather than submit to a blood transfusion.

The religious precedent is already in existence – I’m merely taking the same entrenched statutory privileges bestowed on religion, to their logical conclusion.

Asking for exclusive rights is not a one-way street, and should come with barbs.

Hypocritical theists can’t have it both ways, when it comes to medical treatments, that upset their primitive God and his best-selling book.

On one hand theists can’t ask for a separate place to pray, 'their men' on the ward, at the tax-payers expense, then in the next breath announce “we are the same and demand the same treatment”.

If all these two-faced theists all had true belief in their convictions, like say the witless but gutsy Jehovah Witness’s, there would be plenty of spare hospital beds for us Atheists, and over-flowing cemeteries with crosses on the graves.

So what is wrong with giving priority treatment to someone who wants it, over say someone who wants it stopped full-stop, or objects to it on ethical or religious grounds?

If it is exclusivity through extra rights, they want – let’s give it to them.

Let’s embrace those who abandon reason & science for superstition, as it frees more beds for those who appreciate it.

Let the Hospitals and health-providers play their bluff when it comes to modern treatments that upset their sensibilities, let’s give them what they want & fought for.

It’s also time for theists to practice what they preach, and abdicate themselves from mainstream medicine and get back to basics.

Prayer and leeches.