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• Your life and health are your own responsibility.
• Your decisions to act (or not act) based on information or advice anyone provides you—including me—are your own responsibility.

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The Myth that Economic Success Requires Personal Freedom

There is a persistent myth that democracy and personal freedom are necessary to produce economic growth, and that the USA will somehow retain its economic dominance solely because of our relative degree of personal freedom. (This myth is most commonly known as ‘The Power of American Ingenuity.’)

I don’t believe this is the [ . . . ]

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GERMOPHOBIA!

Americans have become paranoid about germs. We buy billions of dollars of alcohol wipes, hand sanitizers, and antibacterial soaps (even though triclosan has been proven to be both ineffective and a bioaccumulative pollutant…)

Aiello, A.E., Larson, E.L. & Levy, S.B. (2007) Consumer antibacterial soaps: Effective or just risky? Clinical Infectious Diseases, 45:S137-S147. (Or, [ . . . ]

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The Difference Between Me and Chuck Palahniuk Is That I Don't Pull My Punches

(Warning: contains spoilers if you haven’t read/watched Fight Club.)

Yes, Fight Club is an excellent book, but it pulls its punches.

It’s the equivalent of MMA fighting. The claim is “no holds barred”, but in reality, anything likely to cause real, lasting injury is forbidden. Everyone gets up, cleans up, and goes home [ . . . ]

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