God has a sense of humor, choosing a Jewish atheist woman to serve as one of the 20th century's premiere prophets
This blog will be short and sweet because if you've already read Atlas Shrugged, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you have not, all I can say is I wouldn't consider my life to have been lived to the fullest had I not stumbled across what once upon a time was the second-best selling book in the English-speaking world to only the Bible.
As the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy and KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov tried to warn us, perhaps not so coincidentally in 1984 for the latter, American society was being infiltrated at all levels: the government, the media and the education system. This was dismissed as conspiracy theory. Well, that turned out to only be half-true. The half-false part is that it's no theory.
Here is the full-length interview with Bezmenov from 1984:
Besides the obvious in George Orwell whose works needn't be mentioned in this post because they're so self-explanatory that virtually anyone who has made it this far knows that Orwell was a prophet.
It's another 20th century prophet that I'd like to discuss for a moment. I'm sure some orthodox religious believers would call it utter blasphemy to suggest that God would make into a great prophet, a woman Jew who was Jewish in blood only as she is widely reported to have been an atheist (although this contention has been challenged, I am not interested in discussing that).
Atlas Shrugged was the most influential book I've ever read aside from the Bible, and I suggest anyone and everyone who hasn't read it yet do so and do so with an open mind. Think critically, and don't allow opinions other people manipulated you into thinking were your own fool you any longer. Start from scratch and see where you wind up. I'm betting it'll be somewhere near where most everyone else who has studied Rand has with respect to her work (agreement to one degree or another).
There are some affiliate links in this post to some of Rand's works for anyone new to her or anyone who is familiar but just hasn't developed the muster to tackle a book that long in either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. I recommend readers new to Rand start with Anthem. It's short, sweet, can be read in its entirety in just a couple of hours, and provides a simplified but nonetheless profound glimpse into Rand's philosophy, expounded upon in her later works.
If you're new to Rand, perhaps view check out the above links in this post and introduce yourself. Your mind will thank you later.
For a little sampling of what you can expect from Atlas Shrugged, here's an excerpt from Francisco's Money Speech, which to me ranks among the most profound, thought provoking soliloquies ever written, a mic drop moment hidden within one of the most profound works of philosophical literature ever written.
The following excerpt from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is borrowed from Capitalism Magazine. The full speech can be seen here: Francisco's Money Speech.
“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are."
For anyone who hasn't yet introduced themselves to this work of art by Rand, consider this your formal introduction and please waste no time in becoming more acquainted.
Peter Egan Jr. is the founder and proprietor of Egan Store, a US-based purveyor of fine and exotic numismatic collectibles.
Below are some photos of Peter Egan's cousins Brooke and Bailey Gonzales taking target practice.
The final image is a target that Peter fired 8 rounds at from 75 yards with a .243 hunting rifle. All eight shots hit the target (two hit the same spot), including one bull's-eye.
Brooke Gonzales taking target practice.
Brooke did very well, hitting the target more often than not.
Bailey Gonzales taking target practice.
Bailey took a little while to get the hang of it, but once she did she was deadly from 150 feet.
Peter Egan hit the target with all 8 rounds he fired, including one bull's-eye.
Above is the target that I (Peter) used at 75 yards (225 feet), firing eight rounds with a .243 hunting rifle. All eight shots hit the target, with two rounds going through the hole bottom-right. I hit the bull's-eye once, and was inside the inner circle with all 8 rounds.
I would say that's decent marksmanship for a guy who hadn't fired a gun in over a year prior to this.
While not the actual gun used in these photos, below is photograph of a .243 hunting rifle, which is the gun we were all using when these pictures were taken.
I don't hunt because I don't like the cold. I'd much rather be fishing, especially fishing for catfish.
I have to go to my parents' house to take target practice as the area in which I reside is too suburban to fire a gun.
The Trichinella Roundworm: Diarrhea So Bad It's Scarier Than Being Attacked By A Bear
By: Peter Egan A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia dubunked a long-standing and common myth regarding roundworm infections and their respective sources.
Most people have never even heard of a parasite (a roundword, to be specific) called Trichinella. The Trichinella worm, once it makes its way inside the digestive tract of humans, attaches itself to the intestinal walls resulting in a parasitic infection known as Trichinosis.
Trichinella is most commonly spread by way of undercooked bear meat. Luckily, bear meat is not commonly eaten, but enough people eat it for it to be the leading cause of Trichinosis. What would possess someone to go out of their way to eat undercooked bear meat is beyond me. In fact, until I first got word of the CDC report, I had never even heard of people consuming meat from bears.
The most common side effects of the Trichinella worm and subsequent Trichinosis infections are intense pain and cramping in the abdominal region, as well as severe, intense and often explosive diarrhea. One final note on Trichinella, here is what the Wikipedia page had to say on the matter:
"Trichinella is the genus of parasitic roundworms of the phylum Nematoda that cause trichinosis. Members of this genus are often called trichinella or trichina worms. A characteristic of nematoda are one-way digestive tract, and a pseudoceolom (body cavity made up of only an ectoderm and endoderm)."
For more health articles please visit Peter's mother''s website. Dr. Pamela Egan, Peter's mother, has a wealth of health and wellness articles available for free on her website, PamelaEgan.com.
Peter is knowledgeable about health due to his entire family working in the healthcare industry. His mother and sister are doctors. His brother manages EGAN Caregivers and his father owns and is President and CEO of the premiere home care agency in southeast Louisiana.
New Research Reveals Bioidentical Hormones to be At Least as Effective as Synthetic HRT, and Much Safer
By: Peter Egan (Jr.) and Dr. Pamela Egan New research by an already highly acclaimed doctor and medical scientist has shown Bioidentical Hormones to be At Least as Effective as Synthetic HRT, while posing far fewer risks. This according to research conducted by doctor and medical scientist Dr. Pamela Egan of the EGAN Wellness and Anti-Aging Clinic and the EGAN Skin Care and Med Spa. Dr. Egan's research has raised new questions about the way menopausal women are treated for symptoms associated with menopause. Notably, while bioidentical hormones achieved the same or better results in terms of symptom relief and restoration of overall health, patients who used synthetic hormones throughout the trial ended up with a litany of unwanted side effects, in particular excessive amounts of estradiol, a form of estrogen that is harmful to the human body and has been linked to breast, uterine and ovarian cancers (as well as other cancers) in women.[1] It (estrone/estrodiol) prostate cancer in men who have abnormally high estradiol levels. Bodybuilders and athletes commonly experience this with age as excessive free testosterone is converted by the male body into estrone and then estradiol. Men with low testosterone but high estrogen levels are also considered to be a high-risk group.[2] Ironically, it is the men with the highest testosterone levels who have the highest probability of developing gender-specific cancer (prostate) resulting in part from the excess testosterone being converted into excessive amounts of a women's hormone with its share of negative side effects.[3]
Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
The research has been presented to the medical sciences center at Southeastern Louisiana University, and is awaiting publication in one of the major trade journals for doctors and medical science. Once an agreement with a publication has been reached and the actual research along with its various components published, this article as well as the article appearing on Dr. Egan's website will be updated to reflect that by linking to the official debut of the research documentation. While the clinical trial focused on the outcomes as each respective type of hormone (bioidentical or synthetic) on menopausal women, there has been ample research showing that the same may be true for men as well.[4] While obviously, men aren't going to request a doctor's prescription for synthetic women's hormones (at least not for medical reasons, perhaps for cosmetic reasons, but that's not really relevant); if men's testosterone levels get to be too high the body converts it into the same toxic form of estrogen that has been and is still being used in Hormone Replacement Therapy to treat menopausal women, and often times illicit use of testosterone products (like anabolic steroids) and adaptogens (over the counter substances believed to increase testosterone in men or improve physical performance i one way or another) is what leads to excessive female hormones in men. These excessive female hormones can lead to prostate cancer, heart disease and other ailments.[5] Index:
[1] "... numerous studies demonstrate excess estrogen can cause breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers (all of which are considered estrogen dependent cancers), cervical dysplasia (a precancerous condition characterized by abnormal changes to cervical tissues), and even contribute to menopausal symptoms." Source: Naturopathic.org
[2] "Since men lack this female anatomy, they need to produce estrogen through a process involving an enzyme called aromatase that transforms testosterone into estradiol." - Source: Life Extension [3] "The reason you see symptoms like shrunken testicles and breast enlargement is because a lot of excess testosterone is converted to the female hormone estrogen,” Drincic says." - Source: EveryDayHealth
[4] Testosterone is a hormone produced by the testes in men and, in smaller amounts, by the ovaries in women. There can be positive effects from slightly elevated testosterone levels in men, or there can be negative effect from testosterone levels that are extremely high. Source: LiveStrong
[5] How too much testosterone can lead to prostate cancer in men. Prostate.net
Dr. Pamela Egan is a primary care doctor in Covington, Louisiana whose specialties include being well over a decade ahead of the curve with regard to bioidentical hormones used in hormone replacement therapy compared with synthetic HRT; and closer to 20-25 years ahead of medical science when she broke the story that vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol - the form of vitamin D molecularly identical to vitamin D absorbed from sunlight) was vastly superior to what until the article was published was the standard bearer of vitamin D supplements in vitamin D2, also known as ergocalciferol. D2/ergocalciferol are synthetic and not bioavailable like vitamin D3.
Dr. Egan's was the first to address the subject (of D2 vs D3), and is now among the world's most plagiarized articles as a result. Even well known internet doctors like Dr. Oz and Dr. Mercola (along with every major health site) have regularly plagiariazed Dr. Egan's work.
Because of Dr. Egan's research and articles on vitamin D3 and the manner in which they revolutionized the supplement industry such that D3 is virtually all that's still being made, and D2 has become difficult to find in stores or online. This author expects this research involving BHRT to Synthetic HRT to have a similar impact in time. Once word spreads that someone actually researched the topic and found that the results did not match the medical consensus opinion, smart physicians will accept and embrace the science while less intelligent doctors will argue the validity of the research for any number of ulterior motives at which we can only speculate.
Robert Mann Given One Final Chance to Defend His Defamatory Statements or Apologize for Knowingly Lying
By: Peter Egan Robert Mann is the type of person who would assassinate the character of people he's never met and knows very little about, then go into hiding when confronted about the intellectually dishonest libel he published in a number of places in print (shame on the editor) and on his blog. I came upon "Bob" Mann's attacks on my father and I while researching my own name. I issued a rebuttal, decimated all of his talking points, immediately notified him when my rebuttal was published and offered to publish any response he would like to offer, either defending his knowingly false narratives or apologizing for spinning innocuous words so that with all context removed, he could mislead readers into thinking that the context-free, selectively chosen quotes represented the narrative that he was trying aggressively to push --- notably that my father and I are bad people.
He went down the entire list of liberal stereotypes of others and called one or both of us racist, sexist, homophobic, insensitive and a variety of other names, none of which had even so much as a modicum of truth to them. I responded to inform him that his plan to libel me without me finding out had failed, and that I would afford him an opportunity to apologize or defend his words, the latter being virtually impossible after I'd demonstrated that his conclusions did not follow his premises. His logic was laughably bad, and I took no mercy in pointing that out. The issue is that true to form, the cowardice that defines him has kept him in hiding from me. He knows he cannot defend the indefensible, he knows he can't match wits with me and he knows that he knew at the time he wrote his original hit piece that there wasn't a word of truth to it. A real man would have apologized and accepted responsibility for a childish temper tantrum against people he doesn't even know and hasn't even met. If he had any character or fortitude he'd have asked for forgiveness, and it would have been granted so long as his apology was made public.
Robert Mann: Libelous loser still too cowardly to defend his intellectually dishonest character assassination of two good men; each of whom is 1,000 times the man he is.
Maybe that's why there's an extra "n" at the end of his name... Trying to compensate for being such a sad little excuse of a man. Unfortunately, I cannot relate to such a pathetic individual. He is so far beneath being a beta male combined with my suspicion that he's almost certainly lacking in the "manliness" department (very low-T); and the fear that he'll have his absence of academic integrity exposed. I may leave him to remain cowering in fear inside whatever to rock you've been hiding under since I first confronted him should he fail to respond to this message.
Dictionary: Coward - See "Robert Mann"
Heed this warning that if I take a hiatus so you don't die of a panic attack, it does not mean that you're off the hook.
Before the end of the year (2017) Robert Mann will either need to write a letter of apology to myself and my father, with a copy of each going to the Times Picayune/NOLA as well as both the New Orleans and Baton Rouge Advocate. An additional copy must be published on his blog where his defining trait (cowardice) is still on full display. Mr. Mann's deadline is December 31, 2017, to send the letters to my father and I. If you wait that long, you may not submit a copy of either letter to any newspaper until they've returned to a normal news cycle. Sending them when they could be published on a day nobody is reading news (New Year's, Christmas, college football bowl games and playoffs all must be out of the each paper's content lineup when the letters are sent. The hard deadline for sending a copy to every major newspaper in the area is January 12. Mr. Mann is welcome to submit them early so long as it's not during Thanksgiving or any other annual event that dominates news for at least a day. At the end of each letter Robert Mann will thank me for being so benevolent towards him, and he must sincerely ask my forgiveness. If he puts in the effort, I will accept. Should he fail to take this most generous of offers lightly and not meet my demands to my satisfaction, he will look back on it as among the worst decisions he's ever made in life. I think I've been pretty clear about what is expected of Mr. Robert Mann. It is NOT in his best interests to fail to do as I have instructed. He's got plenty of time, so the letters better be good. One wrong word (suppose he wrote it in a sarcastic or cynical tone, for example), and I will metaphorically castrate him in all areas of life, and there will be no second chances. I'll see to it that each of the first ten pages of search results (a number typically in the #neighborhood of 100 web pages) for searches of the name "Robert Mann" return pages I will have created and written and they will contain whatever I deem fit. To reiterate, that is whatever I see fit --- I and I alone will determine what Mr. Mann's eternal online legacy will be. I'm quite capable of making good on these threats, so he'd have to be a complete fool to pass on this most generous of opportunities. And defining your eternal online legacy however I so choose may not be the only consequence he will face if he fails any portion of what he's been told to do. The letters had better damn well be good and they better be sincere.
Mr. Mann made a very bad decision when he chose to libel my father and I, and now his path of least resistance involves a simple yet sincere apology. He will acknowledge that he knew he took statements out-of-context in an attempt to depict each of us in an unflattering manner. He will admit that he knew perfectly well what was said by each of us and chose to play semantics to try to discredit us, damage our names and our reputations. Everything Mann have been instructed to do is consistent with what is known to be truthful and accurate regarding this situation. That's not even mentioning that it's the right thing to do on his behalf, and the only mature option in his possession. This will be HIS one and only opportunity to issue an apology for his prior transgressions. Showing a modicum of humility and demonstrating that he can admit when he's wrong, and he knew at the time you wrote the initial hit piece that he were being deceptive in the way you attempted to discredit and belittle us; will save him from great suffering. I will do everything I can do that is not illegal to ensure his is the legacy of a coward, and that the eternal internet of things remembers and associates the name Robert Mann with terms like cowardly, intellectually dishonest, sinister and liar long after we're both gone from this earth. If I were him, I would NOT reject this olive branch. I've already written the legacy of one person who crossed me, and if ever my written synopsis of Robert Mann's life and who he is as a person is how his eternal legacy is written, I will do far more damage to Mann's name than he did to mine, and it will be far worse than was the case for the last unrepentant piece of trash who behaved badly enough toward me that it merited a retaliation. If Mr. Mann needs any more convincing that enduring a few days of feeling humbled is an extraordinarily generous offer, he should ask himself if he'd be okay with his great grandchildren learning everything they'll ever know about their grandfather from me, what I wrote about him and did what is necessary to ensure top position in organic search results for his name as the search term.
After all, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." I can be very creative too, Mr. Mann. Imagine the your unborn generations having to grow up knowing the founding patriarch of their family was best remembered for being a liar, a coward and all-around low-life. This should be the single easiest decision you'll ever have to make.
All that I am asking of you is that you do what is right, acknowledge that you became carried away amid the heat of a white hot election, and knowingly lied, conveniently left out the ever-important context, spun what was said out of context to fit your narrative and attempted to convince a large group of people that my father and I said things we did not say (nor say anything remotely similar). You did this with malicious intent. Had you not libeled me I likely would have never have even heard your name.
Apologize to my father and I, or at the very least attempt to defend your remarks about us. If you do either of these (the latter has to be serious and since I already discredited every argument you made in the hit piece, you'll have to admit making a very poor case against us and one which was easily debunked.
Should you fail to do any of this, I will be left with no choice but to establish control of search results for queries involving your name, so as to ensure that the top 100 or so results are either hosted on sites I either own or control, or are social media pages that link to the pages on my sites.
I feel like I am being extremely generous by giving you an opportunity to repent. I will not be bullied by some effeminate leftist, so this is your one and only opportunity to prevent me from writing the version of your biography that will be remembered and will still be available 150 years from now.
You have until the end of the year to submit a draft to my father and I as a gesture of good faith. You have until January 12, 2018 to have published the letter to your blog and to the two newspapers which published the print version of your letter.
The fact that one of their contributors knowingly lied for the sake of character assassination is newsworthy in itself. Since I've already proven your claims false, there is no reason either publication wouldn't publish a letter from me exposing the intellectual dishonesty in the letters these entities published which you wrote, prior to my thorough debunking of them. You have until January 12, Mr. Mann. If you were smart you'd make appeasing me and admitting your childish mistake among your top priorities until such time as I am satisfied with your efforts at repentance and show of remorse.
Should you continue hiding from me, I will male the consequences you will face far worse than if you stand by your statements and attempt to defend them. Wrong as you may e in doing so, it would at least demonstrate that you have some measure of fortitude and aren't so cowardly that your photograph belongs in the dictionary next to the word.
This is your final warning. Please do not make me destroy your reputation forever. The original response which was shown to Mr. Mann within 10 minutes of being published can be found here: http://peteregan.net/robert-mann/.
