At least, not at first. As the scandal heated up, EFF took an impassive stance. In a blog post, an EFF staffer named Donna Wentworth acknowledged that a contentious debate was brewing around Google’s new email service. But Wentworth took an optimistic wait-and-see attitude—and counseled EFF’s supporters to go and do likewise. “We’re still figuring that out,” she wrote of the privacy question, conceding that Google’s plans are “raising concerns about privacy” in some quarters. But mostly, she downplayed the issue, offering a “reassuring quote” from a Google executive about how the company wouldn’t keep record of keywords that appeared in emails. Keywords? That seemed very much like a moot point, given that the company had the entire emails in their possession and, according to the contract required to sign up, could do whatever it wanted with the information those emails contained. EFF continued to talk down the scandal and praised Google for being responsive to its critics, but the issue continued to snowball. A few weeks after Gmail’s official launch, California State Senator Liz Figueroa, whose district spanned a chunk of Silicon Valley, drafted a law aimed directly at Google’s emerging surveillance-based advertising business. Figueroa’s bill would have prohibited email providers like Google from reading or otherwise analyzing people’s emails for targeted ads unless they received affirmative opt-in consent from all parties involved in the conversation—a difficult-to-impossible requirement that would have effectively nipped Gmail’s business model in the bud. “Telling people that their most intimate and private email thoughts to doctors, friends, lovers, and family members are just another direct marketing commodity isn’t the way to promote e-commerce,” Figueroa explained. “At minimum, before someone’s most intimate and private thoughts are converted into a direct marketing opportunity for Google, Google should get everyone’s informed consent.”

Google saw Figueroa’s bill as a direct threat. If it passed, it would set a precedent and perhaps launch a nationwide trend to regulate other parts of the company’s growing for-profit surveillance business model. So Google did what any other huge company caught in the crosshairs of a prospective regulatory crusade does in our political system: it mounted a furious and sleazy public relations counteroffensive.

Google’s senior executives may have been fond of repeating the company’s now quaint-sounding “Don’t Be Evil” slogan, but in legislative terms, they were making evil a cottage industry. First, they assembled a team of lobbyists to influence the media and put pressure on Figueroa. Sergey Brin paid her a personal visit. Google even called in the nation’s uber-wonk, Al Gore, who had signed on as one of the company’s shadow advisers. Like some kind of cyber-age mafia don, Gore called Figueroa in for a private meeting in his suite at the San Francisco Ritz Carlton to talk some sense into her.

And here’s where EFF showed its true colors. The group published a string of blog posts and communiqués that attacked Figueroa and her bill, painting her staff as ignorant and out of their depth. Leading the publicity charge was Wentworth, who, as it turned out, would jump ship the following year for a “strategic communications” position at Google. She called the proposed legislation “poorly conceived” and “anti-Gmail” (apparently already a self-evident epithet in EFF circles). She also trotted out an influential roster of EFF experts who argued that regulating Google wouldn’t remedy privacy issues online. What was really needed, these tech savants insisted, was a renewed initiative to strengthen and pass laws that restricted the government from spying on us. In other words, EFF had no problem with corporate surveillance: companies like Google were our friends and protectors. The government—that was the bad hombre here. Focus on it.

I don’t know whether it is illegal for someone to open a letter addressed to you or not, in the country you live, but this is pretty important. If the information presented here is accurate, this is not simply EFF focusing on the government, its EFF actively resisting similar rules to be applied on e-mail as those applied on regular mail. Would anyone use any of the non-electronic mail service providers or courier services if it was a given that for each piece of mail sent, there would be exactly one open and read, shared with multiple other parties besides the sender and receiver?

It seems to me that this is the whole point of this (quite long, but interesting) article and this instance probably illustrates it better than any other chosen to discuss in the article.

First of all, this guy claims he is natural. Does his body composition look natural to you? I really find it difficult to consider advice about health from people who use PEDS to support more muscle mass than their frame (and accompanying gonads with it) can naturally support (I hope you know there is a limit on that).

Second, I watched this part, about the study that shows no difference between low sugar and not-so-low sugar. It takes years of continued abuse of how insulin works (or less time when completely being idle) to start developing problems with your pancreas. A few weeks don’t seem like enough, especially if the rest of the food is properly structured. I am curious to see more, if you can find the study mentioned.

Third, and this is why I have a hard time trusting PED mutants discussing food & health, what he is talking about when he speaks about plant protein, especially when it comes to leucine, is just not right.

Take for example chickpeas . I use this link, for two reasons. One is that this is coming from a quite reliable calculation approach for aminoacids (the site is a front-end for this database, where you can learn more about how they calculate amino-acid profiles). The second is because it is easier to calculate the quantities before cooking (which wikipedia doesn’t).

So, let’s take the RDA for adults, which is 42mg/kg. I am 84 kg (with low enough body fat so that you can see most of my muscle definition, an athlete). This means that I need 3528mg of leucine, or 3,528 grams. One meal (which I really have no issue digesting, I hit the road with my bike half an hour after the meal, quite often) of chickpeas contains (I always measure before cooking and split in meals) 150grams+ of chickpeas. Which is 1.29 X 1.5=1.935, or 1,9 of leucine. Most legumes and beans have similar or higher quantities of leucine*. This is one meal of the 3 I eat in a day. I can tell you with absolute certainty (because I 've spent quite some time calculating what my food contains) that I get more than enough leucine between breakfast and a legume/bean meal (all of it plant based).

Let’s look at the other part of his statement. Which is “you might need an isolated form of protein”. Look at the RDA again. According to the RDA I need ~ 3,5g, why should I get 3 or 4 times this from an isolated form of protein powder (super processed “food” btw)?

*Since leucine is the amino-acid mentioned, a few examples (in dried form, which is what I find easier to weight before cooking):

• chickpeas 1.29g / 100g -> 1.935g per meal for me or 54% of the RDA
• white beans 1.87g / 100g -> 2.805g per meal for me or 79% of the RDA
• lentils: 1.87 g / 100g -> 2.805g per meal for me or 79% of the RDA
• cranberry beans 1.84g / 100g -> 2.760g per meal for me or 78% of the RDA

So… what gives?

If you want, I can show you why what he said about BCAA’s is not true either. It really is not that hard, takes less time than the segments I just watched. Him being an expert on nutrition, shouldn’t allow him to spread this kind of information. Unless he cares about turning a profit from this.

I 'll try to refrain from commenting on all the manipulative comments he made when talking about obesity, cause I 'll get really negative. But I will say this, it’s really depressing how people who actually care about improving the condition of their bodies, fall into these traps for years.

when your body doesn’t know how to handle the glucose anymore.

Anymore is probably the key word here. And for younger beeple, I would suggest wondering why is that. Is it not possible to keep your carbohydrate metabolic pathways strong and healthy, like you keep… I don’t know, your lungs? Do you have to destroy your pancreas before you learn to eat properly?

Low carb, high protein and fat to satiety is the way to eat ad be healthy long term.

Its one way, and pretty limiting too if you consider a life without supplements. For that reason alone I am pretty certain its not the only way, as long as someone is actually healthy. How many people are actually healthy and why, is a very interesting discussion.

I am eating something like 400grams of watermelon as I read this study. My feet hurt a little, its been a long ride, almost 3,5 hours (no snacks) on the bike. 80+ km distance, 1300+ meters of elevation. I keep wondering, does that count as hibernation? Will I become obese until I get 40 (getting close)? Will my (lower than 15% atm) bodyfat increase? Is it only the few grams of fructose in watermelon, or is it sorbitol (produces small fatty acids when eaten in moderation) too? What about lycopene (makes my sperm diagrams look like I am in my 20ies)? Oooof, all those studies, really, make me worry! At least I 'm safe, in the winter there is really no watermelon for poor me that doesn’t shop fruit out of season. Maybe that’s the secret and I don’t get fat? Who knows !!

Besides, if one does not see certain actions, those actions might as well not be happening at all. If only there was a way people who cause the greatest harm to control what gets reported in mainstream media, effectively shifting people’s attention away from the harmful practices of their businesses…