Watching Dr Phil's House of Hatred a few months back made us feel like we were witnessing a modern day satire of the Rise and fall of the Roman Empire. We thought it was worth doing this re-run.

He was fat

Picture one of those fat grotesque lumps slumbering on their reinforced beds between doughnut feasts. You know, those 700lb whales, and 1000lb frankensteins of the food chain, the symbol of all that is human weakness. The Dr Phil guest was a prime example of the obesity on the rampage in the Western worldwide. He was there to solve his issues. After viewing his tears and lazy boy approach, I suggest that lazy minds lie at the root of this out-of-control weighty issue. Get your head in gear and the pounds will fall away.

The Japanese are now getting fat

The Japanese once had the healthiest diet in the world. The American Indians were quite fit as well, in their day. There was also a time when the average American immigrant weighed the same as his Polish or German ancestor languishing back home in misery. And according to a major 1990's survey, even though the British were leaner in the second world war than in modern times, they had in fact become considerably more healthy overall. None of this applies any more!

No red herrings here, please!

Please don't get diverted by the high and mighty fat lobby claiming the half-ton lardies on Dr Phil are predisposed to enormity. The hell they are. Just count the calories and the lack of will to say no! 12000 calories a day and no exercise - therein lies the reason for vast girths and umpteen rolls of fat hanging by the hundred weight over underused genitals.

A beached whale

The huge lad featured on Doctor Phil was consuming 12000 calories per day. If you have no concept of what that means in real money, the average trim and active male tucks away 2500 calories on a good day and stays at a stable weight.

Going up a notch or two, imagine Sir Ranulph Fiennes, that crazy polar explorer. He is a big athletic guy, and in the height of his efforts to drag a huge sled across snowy Antarctic wastelands, he was tucking into 5000 calories of food per day. Despite that huge food intake, he came home looking skeletal! And here we have a dormant inactive supine dollop munching his way through 2 and a half times more food than the loony explorer, and he says it is his metabolism. Come on, do the math!

Unhealthy body, unhealthy mind

Of course, these jabbas wallow on the extreme tip of the flabby iceberg, but they are illustrative of a growing global mindset among millions of inactive people who do neither the math nor the right thing. They don't say, "No, I have had enough today, mother, put that 12-pack of jam rolly poly puddings on hold." Instead they feign surprise at why they can't get into the suit they were married in - a week earlier!

Mega consumers of all things fattening are shocked to their roots that they can no longer see their dicks. Women are mortified that their asses are bigger than their huge bellies. And the big eaters are amazed that the fire service has to take a wall down and winch them from their beds so they can go for a piss. And what do they do in their stupor? They keep on eating.

SAPiens eateritus

These poor people are a mess because of their mind, not because of a "predisposition to putting on weight". I mean poor in the emotional sense, not the financial sense. Dr Phil tries hard to show lower income fatties that it is cheaper to eat healthily rather than sloppily. A lettuce and tomato salad washed down with water is far cheaper and healthier than a pack of doritos and a gallon of coke. The problem is, though, watery salad isn't very comforting, whereas 2000 calories of junk makes depressed people (both rich and poor) feel good - for a few minutes.

It's the economy, stupid

The pace of life and growing pressure to maintain the economy on an upward curve lies at the root of obesity, I believe. It is a pattern, a seductive pattern that at the top end of the scale and at the bottom, the system is taking no prisoners with fat overload.

For example, when you overextend yourself financially, you are required to overwork and/or over-stress, to pay bills and keep up or get ahead. Under pressure, people are prone to not do the right thing. The first or easiest thing to neglect is yourself! An early casualty is the diet. Pile on the pounds.

Then there are less well-off folks who have fallen behind the rat race pace and have given up. They have no hope, apart from solace in doritos and coke. That is the excuse, whether you buy it as a justifiable one is up for debate. I am just saying, it looks like a pattern.

Most of us have the choice to be fit

The gargantuan folks waddling around started life slim and potentially active. All that fresh air and exercise is there on their doorstep for the taking - free to rich and poor alike. In addition to open spaces, the better-off have access to space-age facilities, and opportunities aplenty to get fit. In theory there is no reason for any of us to get down and slothful. No justification for not taking the world by the lapels and giving it a good healthy shake. Hell, we can detox, de-MacDonald, de-caffenate everything now. But the lifestyle gets in the way and the weight piles on and health care goes up.

And this fat ass pattern is being repeated all over the world.

Flying fish tonight

The Japs were big on fish, now they are turning to chips, and their diet is turning to shit. You can imagine the last 30 years of affluence has been like a closely matched wrestling match between the old guard, and the new. (Samurai v Big mama san). Fish and rice v fish and chips. The old regime of health has finally given way to the new, and not surprisingly, the waistlines of weaker minded and driven Japanese are burgeoning accordingly.

Molly coddle and chips

The Brits are about 5 years behind the US, like an obedient bitch rolling over for its master, willing to give in whenever the master feels like it. MacDonalds got popular in the UK when something like the 5 billionth burger had been sold in the US. And now Blair's boys have been studying kids in America, and he has blanched at the findings. He compared them to the waistlines in the UK today - and found he already had a few hundred thousand fat gits on his own doorstep.

Society there has been going to pot ever since Thatcher set Tony Blair's wheels in motion in the 80's, so the minds of Brits have been getting weaker and weaker over time. The invasion of the fatty snackers is on its way.

No reservations here

And of course there are no fit American Indians any more. The few remaining braves are gambling magnates with huge bellies and triple burger chins. Like Guam islanders whose diet increased to 5000 calories a day, for "no apparent reason", the same pattern is there for all to see. Times get good, then those good times become normal for a few and then life gets steadily harder and harder for the masses dragged into the race to sustain the good times. People start to lose focus under pressure and eat and eat and eat that crap processed food that has become a symbol of good times.

Right, it is time for breakfast. Care to subscribe to our blog? it is free and suitable for dummies!.

I like this guy's photo work. So here it is again. Also he is heavily featured in our nifty satirical photo section.

This canvas, painted by a now forgotten student of Leonardo da Vinci in 1508, was recently unearthed from the basement of an ancient convent in Florence, Italy. It offers a tantalizing suggestion that the relationship between the titan of the Renaissance and the enigmatic woman was more than just painter and subject. Giorgio Vasari, the near contemporary biographer, also offers some justification for da Vinci's paternity, writing that da Vinci "immortalized her eyes in paint and flesh." (translation by E. Gromaldi)

Text and photo originally uploaded by master photoshopping satirist Cliff Michaels

Conspiracy theories abound on the Alex Jones videos site.

Do you really think people in caves can destroy WTC 7 like the video clips show?

No we don't, but simply because of logistics. How does a caveman on $200 a year get to America from Afghanistan? From a practical point of view though, a caveman is perfectly intelligent enough to accomplish the task - just look at the caveman on the Geiko.com adverts.

Continue reading