The Drumpf or the King?

I don't usually write about politicians here because, well, they're pretty much all liars. But one person has gone way too far. For a while I'd just assumed that Donald J Drumf was a big Poe having a laugh at all the idiots who hang on his every hateful word. After watching how far it's gone and how utterly absurd the Republican race for the white house has become, it's clear he's not joking, though he certainly has the world laughing...at Americans.

I've seen people draw parallels between Hitler and "The Donald" but I don't see that connection. Hitler, while an evil man, was driven by singular goals and was in fact a self-made man. Drumpf, on the other hand, was handed millions after being born and raised with a silver spoon. The Drumpf has never known what it's like to live as the people who rabidly cling to him as their candidate. Instead, he truly reminds me of King Henry VIII. Let's explore why.

Henry was born into royalty - he never knew a day of hunger, his education was provided for him and had a profound sense of entitlement to all of it.  When Henry VIII ascended the throne, he had a massive surplus in the national treasury - thanks to his father. But  the junior Henry didn't have a vision for the country, its alliances or a strategy. Henry VIII cared only about Henry VIII. His driving forces were greed, ego and lust just like the Donald.

Henry is largely credited with religious reformation in England but it wasn't due to deep introspection or firmly held religious views. He just wanted a new wife. So he made himself the supreme head of the church and annulled his marriage despite the fact that he had a child from that marriage. As an added bonus, he was able to fill his coffers with all the holdings of the monasteries (since they were now his not the pope's), who had significant lands and often operated as the centers of communities and fed the hungry - but hey, it was just business. To quell an uprising over these drastic moves, he promised the rebels amnesty and then executed most of them. Seems you couldn't trust his word - sound familiar? But after that, Henry blew through wives like kleenex, executing two of them, deciding that one would become his sister and on the path to executing a third when he died. What this illustrates about Henry VIII is that he would stop at nothing to get his own way because he felt he was entitled to it. Women were mere vessels for his children or eye candy to drape on his arm and prove his waning vitality. Use them up and throw them away. Interestingly, all of them except his first, were significantly younger than he was.

Trump, of course, is on his third wife and numerous self-professed extramarital affairs. He lied and cheated in business, defrauded investors as well as those who are currently suing him over his failed Trump University fiasco. He thinks nothing of these things because hey, that's just business. After all, he needs to rake in the big bucks to pay for the latest million dollar wedding. Yes, he spent more on one wedding than many of his admirers will make in their lifetime.

Henry VII was also very divisive - his policies changed from day to day and he frequently pitted his closest advisors against one another to test their strengths and loyalties. Kinda like a royal version of the apprentice except instead of losing their jobs, they lost their heads on the block. His friends and allies never knew quite when Henry would turn on them and send them to the tower (cause Henry had a tower too) for a bit of torture until they testified against themselves. This flip-flopping and extreme paranoia led to some costly wars both from the standpoint of lives and depletion of the treasury, after which Henry, quite literally, was taxing his own people to death.

Trump, too is very divisive. He pits people against one another on a reality TV show because that's how he operates in business as well. He's famously turned on the Clintons who he once claimed were good friends, Univision, who took umbrage at his racist comments, NBC, Macy's and even Samuel L Jackson in a twitter feud. His history is littered with those he's used and cast away when they displeased him. He also advocated torture and killing the families of those he suspects to be terrorists with no due process. He promises to 'take over the oil fields' of another nation, simply because he thinks he can. All this he thinks he can do as president - order illegal activities and people will simply 'do it' because 'he's a leader'.

The risk of a greedy egomaniac in power is real. Things Trump is told that he can't do on his own - citing the balance of power of the US granted by the constitution - he claims he'd just issue edicts instead in the form of executive orders. The reality is that Trump is not likely to deliver on any of his twisted promises because our constitution will prevent. However, he will continue to spread the type of hatred that he's created and alienate the global community against all things American, quite possibly sending our economy into a tailspin that could take years to climb out of. That the public conversation has become so ugly amongst those that are vying to be the one of the world's most powerful men is not only disgusting, it's dangerous for this generation and for generations to come.

That's All Folks.

Enjoy this video too!

Pirate of the Caribbean

I've posted before about the self proclaimed "Food Babe" aka Vani Hari, aka Vain Hair. Whelp, truth is always stranger than fiction, or so the old saw goes, and this food barbie makes a good case for the truth of that.

Whilst her vast "army" was out marching against Monsanto and GMOs, Vani was happily posting pics of her West Indies vacation on Instagram, never once considering that she should be leading this fight against the enemy that she claims is the root of all ills (literally). It seems like basking in the sun (sans effective sunscreen of course) was a much better use of her time and the money she earned from her "army" purchasing the overpriced products she promotes on her pages. A pirate is a thief and this one loves the Caribbean.

From Vani's Instagram

Many of her followers excused her obvious absenteeism, claiming that she works so very hard that she deserves to be on vacation spending her shillbucks on expensive private bungalos and sailboats in the Caribbean. But, many of those of us who aren't necessarily enthralled by the brand of woo she peddles wondered if she had kept to her strict dietary regimes, while enjoying the fruits of her pseudoscience.

Turns out she's a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to that. She'll happily grill the staff about their food products and preparation even going so far as demanding to tour the kitchens and have special meals prepared based on her daily whims. However, according to Vani herself, she can't seem to resist "croissants and the most delicious breads". Now hold on there a moment! I thought that gluten, GMOs and non-organic foods were poison? At least that's what Vani tells her followers every chance she gets. So, tell me why would a poisonous concoction of these foul ingredients be even remotely tempting? Seriously, I hear that antifreeze tastes sweet but I am never, ever, tempted to swig the stuff just to please a temporary sugar craving.

From Vani's Instagram - Echire butter is the most expensive in the world.

So why does Vani claim that it's human to crave desserts and breads? She has also stated that when you go through her juice cleanses and start eating strictly from her $17.99 per month food guides, that your body will crave only good foods. Are you seeing the hypocrisy here? Oh wait, if you look at Vani's real goals, there is no hypocrisy. Vani is in this game to build herself an empire of fame and fortune. The more her army harasses companies like Monsanto, Kraft and Subway, the more she can claim personal victory for any changes those companies do in fact make. Of course, even when they make changes, Vani still won't relent, it only fuels her hunger (pardon the pun) for more fame based on fear 

Take for instance Kraft foods. In particular Kraft Mac & Cheese. She claims a personal victory for Kraft announcing that they would change their formulation for their popular Mac & Cheese to remove the artificial color - that orange color that kids around the world have come to equate with their after school Mac & Cheese treat. But was that enough to appease Vani and her army? Nope. She's like a food terrorist, once she sees that she has a little power, she is unwilling to let it go. In fact, she is demanding that people who purchase from her line of over-priced guides and partner products, NOT purchase Mac & Cheese from Kraft. Honest. This is a screen shot of the Vani's checkout page on her website:

Theoretically these statements are legally binding agreements. Now, I'm not an attorney but that statement sure doesn't seem legal to me. Seems to me that it violates competition/anti-trust laws that prohibit agreements that prevent fair trade between competing businesses. And this, after Kraft bowed to her ridiculous demands?

But back to Vani's perceived hypocrisy. Vani eats whatever the hell Vani wants. Her goal is to make the rest of us follow her rigid guidelines because it brings her more fame and wealth. That's the bottom line. So if Vani gets caught with butter running down her chin and croissant crumbs on her billabong top, she twists it into a way to make more bucks from her army.  She sent an email to her army (full disclosure: she has banned me from her facebook army, her page and even receiving her email newsletters) telling them of her "slip" and proclaiming that as a result, she was doing a webinar; but only for those who would order her juicing guide within 24 hours, to get back on track. Of course, they weren't the ones eating croissants in St Barths, but they should have to pay the price anyway, apparently.  It was when I went to see how much her juicing guide cost, that I found her not-so-legal insistence that you could have her or you could have Kraft but not both. Never both.

From Vani's Instagram; she captioned it: "My ride for the next 2 weeks"

So for Vani's indiscretion, it will only cost you an extra $24.99 and with it you'll get even more pitches to purchase partner products, but hey, your money will help get Vani back on track. Won't you be so proud? I'm guessing that some fan - or not fan - must have snapped a pic of her stuffing her face with foods on the Vani unapproved list, so she took the opportunity to turn a fault into some more big fat dollars for Mr & Mrs Food Babe. After all, 2 week vacations to the Caribbean aren't free you know! But according to Vani. she's personally cheering you on...between dives, sails and croissants. For real, she cares and I guess all  that expensive French butter she's using makes her hair shiny in the Caribbean sun. Don't you wish you could afford some?

So for these reasons, I once again award Vani Hari with our highest honors. The 5 brigade, Too hot to get near, Pants-on-Fire award. (she doesn't buy her own garbage any more than I do)

That's All Folks!

Ads By StealingYouBlindinParadise

Eat Me Babe, I'm GMO free.

I eat food. You probably do, too. I want to be healthy. You probably do, too. That makes us a target audience for some of the worst kind of fear-mongering, pseudoscience, mumbo jumbo snake oil salesmen around. I touched on good ole Dr Oz in my first post but if you haven't met Vani Hari - AKA (self proclaimed) Food Babe you are in for a comic treat. This chick is her very own Oz - as in wizard of Oz and she recruits munchkins to help spread her disinformation. She calls them the food babe army but they are as blind to her tricks as the munchkins were to the wizard.

Vani is the author of a blog called Food Babe and of a recently published book that is full of outlandish fear mongering about the safety of the food on your plate, yet promises to heal you in a mere three weeks. She happily publishes shopping lists of "babe approved food" along with recipes, all the while telling you the perils of not doing things her way. OK, so nothing wrong with eating healthy but scaring people out of eating perfectly safe FDA approved foods and into non-FDA regulated products IS wrong.

Let's start with the biggest issue for me; her credibility or lack thereof. I am flummoxed that anyone can put any stock whatsoever in what comes out of this chick's mouth. She has the gall to weigh in on every scientific aspect of food production (not to mention vaccines),  though she has zero scientific background.  You see, Vani used to be a coder - as in software nerd - with bad skin, a runny nose and more than a few extra pounds. Not uncommon for the stereotypical coder who sits for hours at a time, chugging mountain dew and eating M&Ms as if they were their own food group. I know coders. I've worked with a lot of them. But then Vani started eating right and exercising, lost the weight and cleared up her skin.  She claims all this is due to ridding herself of artificial flavorings and colorings, however. In one interview about her book she claims to have completely overcome all of her health issues, including allergies.

Fabulous. I applaud that but I guess the fat to thin diet book market was oversaturated so she embarked on a quest to blame her former physique on everything from pesticides to GMO and (cue the music) the dark conspiracy behind it all; Monsanto. I think she watched Food Inc one too many times and decided that the Monsanto corp was equivalent to Hitler's 3rd Reich. I mean, she did tweet that vaccines had been used as genocide. I kid you not. Her claims are absurd but since it's fear based, it can be effective to all those tin-foil hatters who are simply into confirmation bias.

But let's go back to the allergies and bad skin. If, indeed purging her kitchen of all evil chemicals (which includes any chemicals at all according to our food barbie - er babe), then why is she touting bizarre skin rituals and hawking skin care products on her site? In addition, why is she posting to facebook that her eyes are swollen due to allergies? Yeah, you smell a rat, too, don't you? Here's a link for you - if you can stomach watching it, the part about your blood circulating through your skin is quite amusing! Food babe skin crap.

You know I like to keep a sense of humor about these things, so let's take a look at some of her more comical assertions. My personal favorite was the post she made about the airline conspiracy to deprive you of oxygen onboard an aircraft to save money! OK, wait. I'm laughing again... She claimed in an article she posted in 2011, that the airlines were mixing as much as 50% nitrogen in with their oxygen and this would make you feel bloated aboard an aircraft. Seriously, I can't make this crap up! Any 5th grader knows that air comprises a mix of nitrogen and oxygen at about an 80% - 20% respectively. She later pulled the post, alternately saying it was an old post and saying, she had made an error.

No, that is not an error. An error is a misspelling or something, it isn't declaring the airline guilty of sabotaging its own passengers based on a ridiculous lack of understanding of the basics of natural sciences. For an absolutely hilarious reply to her airplane article - click here. It is so full of baseless blather that I can't even cover it all here!

Now, if she were simply stupid and touted her thoughts as opinion, that would be one thing. What she does is tout her opinions as fact and if anyone dare challenge or even <gasp> disagree; she labels you as a Monsanto shill and encourages her mob - er, "food babe army" to attack and discredit you all over social media. This is typical Dark Triad behaviour from a previous post.  She also makes claims about microwave ovens and irradiated spices that have no basis in fact whatsoever. She knows they are fake but she pushes them. Why? Because on her site she shills for 'natural' foods and other products, one of which had to be pulled from shelves for salmonella - wow, sounds healthy to me! She also wants to earn big bucks on her new book, written in conjunction with Dr Hyman ( a close pal of good old Dr Oz) - another woo peddler extraordinaire. She claims to use peer reviewed academic papers in her research, but I gotta tell you, if those peers are Dr Mark Hyman and Dr Mehmet Oz, then you'd better get to the bank, because any science they are selling you is designed and communicated to line their pockets. Nothing more, nothing less. (we'll talk more about the good Dr Hyman and his pals pictured here in a future post).

Now I've got nothing against eating right and leading a healthy lifestyle but when you take it to extremes to bash companies and proven science based on a random thought you had in the middle of the night while consuming contaminated coconut oil with a spoon; maybe, just maybe, you've gone off the deep end. That would be a compliment though I don't think our little naturopathic shill HAS gone off the deep end. I think she's in it for the money, and I'd love to check her sock drawer for a hidden cache of gummy bears.

But hey, you don't have to take my word for it - google her or here's an article to get you started from the Atlantic (and incidentally this is the most positive article from a reliable source that I could find.)

For these reasons and many of her public outright lies, we're gonna award her a big fat, way off the scale, 5-alarm, Pants-on-Fire.

So with that, I do believe I will eat a yoga mat and wash it down with a Starbucks Pumpkin Latte!

Click through for the truth on these campaigns.

That's all folks!

Ads By CrazyFoodBitches