by Dave Hodges, The Common Sense Show: Peace is war-Love is hate-Up is down-Treason is patriotic-Patriotism is treason… Introduction This is not an article designed to entertain yo as you get daily 5 minutes of coffee and news. If one really wants to understand what is truly happening to our country, it will require some […]
The post Treasonous Deep State Actors Identified-Most Are Democratic Party Leaders appeared first on SGT Report.
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(Natural News) Good news for coffee drinkers: U.S. researchers have found two compounds in coffee — caffeine and EHT — work together to prevent Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia. Recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings suggest that these compounds may potentially be used as a natural way… |
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(Natural News) A new investigation into the certification standards of coffee plantations all around the world has revealed that, despite prominently and proudly claiming to support “fair trade,” many of the bean suppliers for major corporations like Starbucks are still engaging in slave labor practices behind the scenes. At the Córrego das Almas farm in… |
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(Natural News) Food waste is a huge problem in the global food supply chain, but it remains overlooked. A possible reason for food waste is that it’s easier than the alternative: Discarding food lost in the production process is much more convenient than dealing with them in an eco-friendly way. But it’s also partly because there just… |
I recently received an insightful email from a reader who had come across my archives of free-lance articles and essays on home and urban design. I wrote dozens of articles for S.F. Bay Area newspapers from 1988 to 2006, and a handful are listed here.
The one the reader is responding to is Best Remodel Might Be None At All (2006). Here are the reader’s comments:
“I thoroughly enjoyed the articles you penned for the SF Examiner that you’ve linked to on your website, these being written close to two decades ago.
Especially noteworthy was your response to the homeowner inquiring about a kitchen remodel where you recommended that the best course of action might be no course of action. This was an wonderful response and it caught my attention because it belies the common sales oriented suggestions generally offered by those writing about remodeling, and especially about kitchens. Usually you see writers busy extolling the gutting and replacement of a kitchen with wild zeal talking about how wonderful it will be to pour coffee or to butter toast once the kitchen area has been refurbished… and how in the sheer pleasure of a new kitchen you might even choose to drink two cups of coffee just for the fun of it!
In the old craftsman style house or bungalow it would mean new plumbing and upgrading the electrical wiring to go with new appliances and new cabinetry. In the era when that house was constructed the cabinets were typically built on site, matching the cabinetry to the design and work flow of the kitchen.
Kitchen cabinetry today is highly decorative with expensive hardware and finishes, but hardly as suitable as kitchen cabinets were once intended; that being to provide an unobtrusive and utilitarian storage and work area for the laborious processes involved in the preparation of food. Areas for preparing food were never intended to be decorative with expensive countertops and as a show-off space for the espresso machine, it was rather the equivalent of a laundry room or a home workshop, a place to do work on surfaces that were large and solid enough to take some abuse and that could be easily cleaned.
Instead of suggesting a complete remodel you appealed to the homeowners aesthetic appreciation for the unique design elements in maintaining the symmetry of the older house that would be destroyed with a new fashioned kitchen. That is the best advice I have ever read offered to someone that was apparently under the thralls of the renderings of the soulless antiseptic modern kitchen most of which are only suitable for microwave cookery or a place to unpack the delivery of fast food. Hopefully this individual took your advice to heart.”
Thank you, Dear Reader, for the high compliment. It seems to me that this advice–appreciate what is, and leave it as it is rather than seek a frenzied make-over as a “solution”–can be applied to far more of life than remodeling.
As the reader so eloquently observes, mindless herd-like pursuit of the fashion of the day drives out practicality as well as destroying the integrity and aesthetics of the structure.
Ours is a commerce-and-credit society and economy. In an economy whose lifeblood is borrowing money to squander on consumerist pursuits of status, the tropism is always to rip out and demolish the old in favor of a faddish make-over.
We must distinguish between the oft-lauded creative destruction of what is obsolete and destruction in pursuit of fleeting fashion: how much of irreplaceable value has been demolished in favor of low-quality, brazenly superficial and instantly dated “new designs”?
The default “solution” in America now is to 1) borrow immense sums of money and 2) squander it heedlessly on self-serving cliches and false assumptions.Corporations, governments and entire populaces hurry after a chimera of “transformation” that transforms nothing of importance or value, but that generates vast revenues for lenders, profiteering shucksters and the government that depends on a frenzied pursuit of commerce-based status for its revenues and power.
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print): Read the first section for free in PDF format.
My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format.
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Source:
Michael Avenatti agreed Wednesday to give up financial control of his law firm to settle a dispute with a former partner who claimed the celebrity lawyer hid millions in order to fund his lavish lifestyle and avoid having to pay a $10 million judgment.
Jason Frank, a former partner at Eagan Avenatti, accused Avenatti in a court filing of spending extravagantly: $13,000 in rent for his Los Angeles apartment; a $3,640 payment on his Ferrari; $150,000 for his coffee company; $53,600 on his ex-wife; and $232,875 for his auto racing team, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Frank also claimed that Avenatti hid millions in legal fees from creditors during bankruptcy proceedings and asked the court to appoint a receiver to take possession of the firm’s bank accounts, computers and other assets.
Friends, fellow inhabitants of planet Earth, I’m not breaking up with you. I just think maybe we ought to see other species for a while. You like dogs, right?
I’ve spent so many years trying to talk with you, and you haven’t heard anything. So, we have the same conversation over and over and over. Let’s just take a little amicable break, OK?
What do I mean? Well, you say you’re mad at some scandal or party or personality, or you’re upset at something that costs millions of dollars. I say you could get tens of thousands of times that by cutting a few percent out of the criminal, destructive, unaudited military bonanza, or out of corporations that pay negative taxes, or out of the billionaires who tell you what to think. You say but without any military, an evil crazy group would “get you.” I say, how about cutting the U.S. military back to no more than four times the next most expensive one. You say, but think of the jobs. I say, there’d be more jobs, not fewer, but I wasn’t thinking of them because I’m not a sociopath. You say, so Hitler should have killed all the Jews? I say the United States government refused to accept them and gave not a single flying fuck who Hitler killed except that it very much wanted him to kill more Russians. You exhibit no ability to hear that remark and go back to the millions of dollars or some other bullshit.
I don’t mind this. Of course you don’t allow me to say it on U.S. television anymore, only foreign-owned networks. But I say it to large gatherings. And people claim they’ve heard it. I write books to give people a basic understanding, as far as I’m able, of war and peace and the lies that are told about them, so that each new lie can be rejected. And people claim they’ve read the books. And sometimes it seems that people are catching on. Other times, well . . .
Lately, it’s gotten much worse. Smart, courageous, educated people tell me that Donald Trump’s every move is ordered by Vladimir Putin, including things that have not actually happened, such as the U.S. withdrawal from NATO that people tell me occurred some time back, and including things Russia adamantly opposes, such as a coup in Venezuela, ripping up the INF Treaty, leaving the Iran agreement, sending weapons into Ukraine, sending troops and missiles into Eastern Europe, staging war rehearsals in Scandinavia, imposing sanctions on Russia, expanding NATO, demanding that NATO members buy more weapons, fighting several wars at once and building more bases, refusing to ban weapons in space, refusing to ban cyber attacks, building more nukes, etc.
People tell me that a pristine U.S. election system only slightly flawed by its total lack of verifiability, a communications system rotten to the core, bribery legalized, ballot and debate access severely restricted, blatantly racist removal of voters from the rolls, open intimidation of voters by a victorious presidential candidate, an electoral college that gives victories to losers, grotesque gerrymandering, enormous incumbent advantages, etc., has been sullied by some weird unrelated Facebook ads from a foreign nation whose former ruler Boris Yeltsin was properly installed for the good of humanity by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Do they believe it? I’m afraid they struggle to believe their own horse manure, that they may in fact need a war in order to properly do so, and that we may not survive that war. If I believed that Vladimir Putin had secretly made Trump president, and that the Democratic Party screwing its strongest candidate out of the nomination was just a lucky coincidence for the Evil Master Mind in the Kremlin, I’d be protesting at the Russian Embassy every day. I’d go to Moscow and protest there. What are Russiagate believers doing? They’re waiting for the U.S. government to investigate itself. How many times has that worked?
But, then, when do you, humanity, ever act on your supposed beliefs? If I believed that life was infinitesimally short and meaningless in comparison with an infinite and joyful magical life after death, I’d damn well be signing up to clear land mines, while demanding that governments lay more of them. What are you doing? You’re strategizing to add minutes to your actual life through a diet of any sort of food, no matter how revolting.
Would you believe your beliefs if yet another war accompanied them? Quite possibly. Do you think so many of you have clung to Iraq war lies or Libya war lies or any other war lies just because you have found them so convincing? Of course not. It’s because without them, your beloved government, which you despise except when it’s waging war, would have committed mass murder for no good reason.
Does anyone really currently believe that secret cells of Hezbollah in Venezuela are plotting to overthrow the U.S. government and restrict your freedoms? Or that the U.S. government is trying to provide aid to Venezuela while simultaneously imposing brutal sanctions on Venezuela? Or that when John Bolton blurts out that it’s all about oil, he’s just being sarcastic to make fun of all those marginalized commentators who harbor a twisted obsession with actual facts? Yet, once a war comes, you know that yall will do your best to believe all this garbage and more.
Your problem, if I may be so bold, is part nationalism, part partisanship, part militarism, and part just plain simplemindedness. This doesn’t mean that I’m some sort of genius who never has to correct his blunders. It just means that I notice in you, humanity, a fanatical devotion to oversimplifying anything you can. If I say a bad word about Russiagate, I’m supposed to deny that Trump has attempted to make corrupt financial deals in every corner of the globe including Russia. If I say a bad word against Trump, I’m supposed to love NATO and the wars on Syria and Afghanistan. If I say a good word about Trump, I’m supposed to love fascist demagoguery and border walls.
Life is complicated, people. It’s more complicated than I grasp, I’ll readily admit. But I don’t devote my energies to actively trying to pretend the world is as simple as a cartoon or a Fox News broadcast for fucksake. Sometimes you have to recognize that something is only partly true. Sometimes you have to agree with lunatics. “You can’t help people being right for the wrong reasons,” said Arthur Koestler. “This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity. It is an expression of a lack of self confidence.” Let’s work on our confidence, humanity. Let’s meet for coffee in a year or ten, if we’re still here, and if coffee is still here. I do love you.
Starbucks has instructed its employees on how to handle political questions about CEO Emeritus Howard Schultz, who has all but announced his intent to run as an independent in the 2020 US election – a move immediately criticized by Democrats who fear he will split the left’s vote and hand Donald Trump the election.
The coffee chain known for its progressive corporate culture offered suggestions in its “Barista Need-To-Know” weekly newsletter on how to “diffuse the situation” if anyone “shares aggressive political opinions” in the store.
“Employees may be asked questions by customers or hear media speculation about Howard’s potential political intentions,” reads the notice clearly written by lawyers. Employees should know that “we respect everyone’s opinion. Our goal is simply to create a warm and welcoming space where we can all gather, as a community, over great coffee.”
If asked specifically about Schultz, employees are advised to say: “Howard’s future plans are up to him.”
A Starbucks employee told the Huffington Post on Thursday that her store’s management took things one step further in a way that bothered her.
“We were told not to talk to customers about it,” said the employee, who added “if we are asked about his political goals or our opinions on it that we’re to say he was a great CEO to work for but that’s where our opinions end.”
The rephrased instructions irked the employee, who saw them as part of a pattern of stifling employees’ opinions. The shift supervisor felt similarly about the written instructions, finding it frustrating that Schultz was able to publicly discuss his politics when he worked at Starbucks while they were not.
“[I wish] we would be given the same opportunity to express our beliefs,” the supervisor said. –Huffington Post
Schultz has faced intense criticism from the left after he said he was weighing a 2020 run as an independent. His detractors include David Axelrod, HBO host Bill Maher, The View’s Joy Behar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, called for a Starbucks boycott if Schultz enters the race, tweeting: “Vanity projects that help destroy democracy are disgusting. If he enters the race, I will start a Starbucks boycott because I’m not giving a penny that will end up in the election coffers of a guy who will help Trump win.”
In fact, the criticism has been so vociferous, it has left some Democrats believing that Schultz, who is currently on a book tour, won’t end up running for the White House.
“Democrats will not have to pressure Schultz to drop out of the race,” said Robert Zimmerman, a prominent Democratic donor. “When his books move to the $1 discount bin at bookstores, he will get the message.”
Erin McPike, a spokeswoman for Schultz, said all the blowback this week “shows he is resonating.” –The Hill
During an interview at a New York Barnes & Noble this week, a protester shouted at Schultz “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire asshole.”
Here’s the video. A heckler shouts at Howard Schultz during an event in New York: “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire asshole.” Via CNN pic.twitter.com/oabwfNnsmp
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 29, 2019
He’s clearly resonating…
Lifestyles and Load Sheets is our next topic as we roll through a complete (in advance) book that should help you plan for a “better Depression” if there can be such a thing…
Next to food and water, nothing is more important to human existence that some form of energy which can then be transformed into light or heat.
Thing is – trivial as this may see – even those most-basic of human needs became hard to supply in the 1930’s. Toss in extreme cold (such as we’ve had this week in the Midwest) and maybe a side of “grid-hacking” by foreign actors and the purpose of all this “planning and contingency work” should be immediately apparent.
Apparent, that is, after some key headlines, a glance at our market chart series, and then more coffee. …
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The post Power in the Second Depression (Ch. 3) appeared first on UrbanSurvival.
You never know when disaster will strike. I mean, most days you will only need to really think at work for a few minutes a day. The rest of the time, you’ll be in the process mode. That’s when you do the “same old thing” over and over and (is it quitting time, yet?)…
Without exception, though, the people who are likely to be best prepared to survive at all times, seem (logically) to be those who have a wide range of skills and are constantly keeping themselves mentally sharp.
This “sharpness” can be measured and it’s not hard to do. Google some online IQ tests and you’ll find a bunch. Once you have a few you’re happy with, you can begin to measure yourself. Like in any experiment, try to vary the testing by one variable at a time. If you vary more than one, you won’t be sure which elementary change caused the result.
Here’s some of my personal research into the matter – but remember, your results are bound to be different.
1. Sleep and IQ
Let’s begin with sleep spindles – which you have most likely never heard of before. Easily overcome with a read of this article at Cambridge Brain Sciences. The source article in the Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences is also worth reading.
Also worth pondering are some studies that link sleep deprivation with under-performance (no surprise!) and other which head in the direction of too much sleep being detrimental.
My personal hack (if that’s not too much of a stretch) is to set the alarm for the same time every day, regardless of time zone we happen to be in, for example. My sense is that all the body rhythms will, over enough repetitions, get synced up if down time and up time are routine.
2. Caffeine and IQ
In a 2010 Psychology Today article, Dr. Gary Wenk asks whether that 5th cup of coffee really does you any good when comes to raising your IQ. Admittedly a cup, or two is good, but isn’t it a declining return?
“Most of us can push the processing speed a little without risk. Unfortunately, the neural processing speed in our brains is already just a few extra action potentials per second away from a full-blown seizure.”
Other drug compounds, similar to the caffeine in coffee, may be found in teas and in some chocolates.
There may be additional anti-cancer properties to coffee, too, so it’s useful stuff. If TSHTF might be useful to toss a half-dozen Instant Coffee bags into the grad and go along with some quick sugar sources. Elaine’s been known to grab a PayDay candy bar. Allergic to peanuts, I roll with the apple Nature Valley Granola bars.
3. Fasting and IQ
No question about it, there’s a case that “Fasting diets such as 5:2 could make people smarter, finds study” reported the UK Independent last in 2017.
One of the problems I’ve run into fasting (especially with coffee even in sight) has been my blood sugar drops and I get shaky (OK, and weirder, too!). The way I solved that lil bugger was to begin taking a small daily dose of chromium picolinate. I’ll refer you over to WebMD for additional details, but it’s cheap and you can find it many places including Amazon.
4. Meat is Bad – Or Is It?
Not to offend our vegan readers, but a 2010 piece on NPR is worth considering as “Food for Thought: Eating Meat Made Us Smarter.”
While it is true, in some studies, that vegans scored higher in certain IQ tests, we need to be cautious in drawing too many conclusions. That’s because we may not have sufficient insight into what vegans are eating. For example, partial vegan diets that include eggs and buts, along with pineapples and such can increase the serum levels of serotonin.
For me, the personal research question is open: Is the meat consumption bad, OR is it possible that the vegan uptake of something beneficial is what’s at work? Moreover, we don’t know with certainty if all types of intelligence rise on a vegan/semi-vegan diet.
This is because not all aspects of brain function are typically measured in studies.. Rather than get funding “to go find the essence of Truth” researchers writing grant applications are usually limited to testing one notion at a time. The multiplicity of variables to ponder (like blood chemistry across a blood panel, for example) is harder to fund. We live in a “buy the drill-down” world.
5. Beer and Pork are Good?
At the risk of offending, again, I have found that in certain mental aspects, both beer and pork may be consumed and result in higher IQ. We move back into the blood chemistry realm because our focus here is on serum uric acid levels.
Ever see one of those Dutch masters’ painting with the burgermeister sucking down a beer with his leg propped-up on the table? Likely, says science, acute gout – a kind of arthritis – and resulting from deposition of uric acid crystals in uncomfortable places. Knee, great toe, elbow, and so forth.
Go read the paper “Study of Serum Uric Acid and its Correlation with
Intelligence Quotient and Other Parameters in Normal Healthy Adults” and pay special attention to the mean serum level bar chart (blue bars) on page 2 of the PDF.
There are plenty of foods that can push your uric acid levels around, but there’s some risk. In my own case, I manage it closely because I have had gout and it’s a real pain. On the other hand, when my uric acid levels are low (read{ normal) I don’t get into the “buss” or “zone mode” as easily. Check with your doctor and ask about some colchicine if you are at risk of gout.
Pork? Shellfish? Beer? Oysters? Yum oh yum!
6. Huperzine-A
I feel (and it’s subjective because I don’t spend all my time “lab ratting”) huperzine-A seems to help and it may have some anti-Alzheimer’s effects, as well.
All this said, the effects of any nootropic will likely vary on your own DNA, ancestry, and any ore-existing tendencies. An article over at Vice didn’t find any help from huperzine, among five nootropics tested.
7. Light Crown Use?
My use of a near-infrared light emitting diode (LED) array worn as a headband, illuminating the center of the forehead and both temples (trigeminal nerve packs) seems to add a bit after 2-5 days of use. However, the “super-charging” seems to wear off after a few days.
Is that real or placebo effect? I promise to lab rat this one as time allows. But do keep reading the latest on photobiomodulation. A 2010 article from MIT Technology Review “The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain” from 2010 is a good entry point.
Is I “the Light?” Don’t know, but the most recent article (as of Saturday) on PubMed included:
…all scream to be read.
8. Quantum Potentiation
Theory time! Come on over to the workbench…want to show you something:
That gorgeous blue-masking tape-wrapped coil is 1,550 turns of #30 enameled wire on an 8-inch form which, when there’s 400 uf across it should resonate in the vicinity of 9.5 Hz which is one of the frequencies seen in brain studies when dreams (particularly lucid ones) are rolling by.
The theory of quantum potentiation (he said, stepping up to a whiteboard and taking a mighty huff of the pen) is theory only. BUT there are two obvious modes to test.’
In one mode, I’ll just click a small audio generator onto the resonant circuit and go take a nap. If there’s any tendency toward entrainment then it may become evident.
Less apparent, however, is the matter of a mode which would arise just as a tuned circuit approaches the point of oscillation – which is what I was showing you in the Friday article in the “looking Ahead” section where I was showing you how Q-multipliers work.
Except, of course, we will be using a convenient brain (volunteers?) as we rework a Q-multiplier and excite it just to the edge of oscillation, but not quite…which is when potentiation begins to appear. The closer to actually breaking into oscillation, the greater the potentiation, but the narrow the band of frequencies involved.
They you have it! *(that PCB left of the coil is the metal detector (Surf PI 1.2) board, BTW) Eight ways ranging from simple to theoretical on how to bump up the quality of thinking between your ears.
There are other methods, too. Moderate to heavy workouts to keep the blood flow going, for example…deep breathing…so many more…
If we could only get paid on the basis of knowledge and heart directly, wouldn’t it be a grand world?
Write when you get rich,
The post Prepping: My Personal Brain Hacks appeared first on UrbanSurvival.
You never know when disaster will strike. I mean, most days you will only need to really think at work for a few minutes a day. The rest of the time, you’ll be in the process mode. That’s when you do the “same old thing” over and over and (is it quitting time, yet?)…
Without exception, though, the people who are likely to be best prepared to survive at all times, seem (logically) to be those who have a wide range of skills and are constantly keeping themselves mentally sharp.
This “sharpness” can be measured and it’s not hard to do. Google some online IQ tests and you’ll find a bunch. Once you have a few you’re happy with, you can begin to measure yourself. Like in any experiment, try to vary the testing by one variable at a time. If you vary more than one, you won’t be sure which elementary change caused the result.
Here’s some of my personal research into the matter – but remember, your results are bound to be different.
1. Sleep and IQ
Let’s begin with sleep spindles – which you have most likely never heard of before. Easily overcome with a read of this article at Cambridge Brain Sciences. The source article in the Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences is also worth reading.
Also worth pondering are some studies that link sleep deprivation with under-performance (no surprise!) and other which head in the direction of too much sleep being detrimental.
My personal hack (if that’s not too much of a stretch) is to set the alarm for the same time every day, regardless of time zone we happen to be in, for example. My sense is that all the body rhythms will, over enough repetitions, get synced up if down time and up time are routine.
2. Caffeine and IQ
In a 2010 Psychology Today article, Dr. Gary Wenk asks whether that 5th cup of coffee really does you any good when comes to raising your IQ. Admittedly a cup, or two is good, but isn’t it a declining return?
“Most of us can push the processing speed a little without risk. Unfortunately, the neural processing speed in our brains is already just a few extra action potentials per second away from a full-blown seizure.”
Other drug compounds, similar to the caffeine in coffee, may be found in teas and in some chocolates.
There may be additional anti-cancer properties to coffee, too, so it’s useful stuff. If TSHTF might be useful to toss a half-dozen Instant Coffee bags into the grad and go along with some quick sugar sources. Elaine’s been known to grab a PayDay candy bar. Allergic to peanuts, I roll with the apple Nature Valley Granola bars.
3. Fasting and IQ
No question about it, there’s a case that “Fasting diets such as 5:2 could make people smarter, finds study” reported the UK Independent last in 2017.
One of the problems I’ve run into fasting (especially with coffee even in sight) has been my blood sugar drops and I get shaky (OK, and weirder, too!). The way I solved that lil bugger was to begin taking a small daily dose of chromium picolinate. I’ll refer you over to WebMD for additional details, but it’s cheap and you can find it many places including Amazon.
4. Meat is Bad – Or Is It?
Not to offend our vegan readers, but a 2010 piece on NPR is worth considering as “Food for Thought: Eating Meat Made Us Smarter.”
While it is true, in some studies, that vegans scored higher in certain IQ tests, we need to be cautious in drawing too many conclusions. That’s because we may not have sufficient insight into what vegans are eating. For example, partial vegan diets that include eggs and buts, along with pineapples and such can increase the serum levels of serotonin.
For me, the personal research question is open: Is the meat consumption bad, OR is it possible that the vegan uptake of something beneficial is what’s at work? Moreover, we don’t know with certainty if all types of intelligence rise on a vegan/semi-vegan diet.
This is because not all aspects of brain function are typically measured in studies.. Rather than get funding “to go find the essence of Truth” researchers writing grant applications are usually limited to testing one notion at a time. The multiplicity of variables to ponder (like blood chemistry across a blood panel, for example) is harder to fund. We live in a “buy the drill-down” world.
5. Beer and Pork are Good?
At the risk of offending, again, I have found that in certain mental aspects, both beer and pork may be consumed and result in higher IQ. We move back into the blood chemistry realm because our focus here is on serum uric acid levels.
Ever see one of those Dutch masters’ painting with the burgermeister sucking down a beer with his leg propped-up on the table? Likely, says science, acute gout – a kind of arthritis – and resulting from deposition of uric acid crystals in uncomfortable places. Knee, great toe, elbow, and so forth.
Go read the paper “Study of Serum Uric Acid and its Correlation with
Intelligence Quotient and Other Parameters in Normal Healthy Adults” and pay special attention to the mean serum level bar chart (blue bars) on page 2 of the PDF.
There are plenty of foods that can push your uric acid levels around, but there’s some risk. In my own case, I manage it closely because I have had gout and it’s a real pain. On the other hand, when my uric acid levels are low (read{ normal) I don’t get into the “buss” or “zone mode” as easily. Check with your doctor and ask about some colchicine if you are at risk of gout.
Pork? Shellfish? Beer? Oysters? Yum oh yum!
6. Huperzine-A
I feel (and it’s subjective because I don’t spend all my time “lab ratting”) huperzine-A seems to help and it may have some anti-Alzheimer’s effects, as well.
All this said, the effects of any nootropic will likely vary on your own DNA, ancestry, and any ore-existing tendencies. An article over at Vice didn’t find any help from huperzine, among five nootropics tested.
7. Light Crown Use?
My use of a near-infrared light emitting diode (LED) array worn as a headband, illuminating the center of the forehead and both temples (trigeminal nerve packs) seems to add a bit after 2-5 days of use. However, the “super-charging” seems to wear off after a few days.
Is that real or placebo effect? I promise to lab rat this one as time allows. But do keep reading the latest on photobiomodulation. A 2010 article from MIT Technology Review “The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain” from 2010 is a good entry point.
Is I “the Light?” Don’t know, but the most recent article (as of Saturday) on PubMed included:
…all scream to be read.
8. Quantum Potentiation
Theory time! Come on over to the workbench…want to show you something:
That gorgeous blue-masking tape-wrapped coil is 1,550 turns of #30 enameled wire on an 8-inch form which, when there’s 400 uf across it should resonate in the vicinity of 9.5 Hz which is one of the frequencies seen in brain studies when dreams (particularly lucid ones) are rolling by.
The theory of quantum potentiation (he said, stepping up to a whiteboard and taking a mighty huff of the pen) is theory only. BUT there are two obvious modes to test.’
In one mode, I’ll just click a small audio generator onto the resonant circuit and go take a nap. If there’s any tendency toward entrainment then it may become evident.
Less apparent, however, is the matter of a mode which would arise just as a tuned circuit approaches the point of oscillation – which is what I was showing you in the Friday article in the “looking Ahead” section where I was showing you how Q-multipliers work.
Except, of course, we will be using a convenient brain (volunteers?) as we rework a Q-multiplier and excite it just to the edge of oscillation, but not quite…which is when potentiation begins to appear. The closer to actually breaking into oscillation, the greater the potentiation, but the narrow the band of frequencies involved.
They you have it! *(that PCB left of the coil is the metal detector (Surf PI 1.2) board, BTW) Eight ways ranging from simple to theoretical on how to bump up the quality of thinking between your ears.
There are other methods, too. Moderate to heavy workouts to keep the blood flow going, for example…deep breathing…so many more…
If we could only get paid on the basis of knowledge and heart directly, wouldn’t it be a grand world?
Write when you get rich,
The post Prepping: My Personal Brain Hacks appeared first on UrbanSurvival.
Before getting pregnant with her first child, Instagram model-influencer Ruby Tuesday Matthews said she relied on a steady diet of “tapas, cigarettes, black coffee and cocaine” to maintain her svelte 120 lbs. figure, the Daily Mail reported.
Matthews, who hails from the Australian city of Byron Bay, where she runs a successful Instagram account that frequently features images of her two young sons, dished on the unhealthy lifestyle she lived to maintain her glamorous image.
While this might not sound like something that a functional human being could maintain for long, Matthews revealed in the interview that she isn’t alone: Most models and Instagram influencers take drugs to maintain their unrealistic weights.
“I need to be careful what I’m saying here, but in the influencer industry, everyone loves the baggie,” she said during a Q&A with her 200,000 Instagram followers. “This is how most physiques are maintained.”
The 25-year-old model said many of her followers were baffled by her ability to “eat and stay so thin.” But her secret was the fact that she hid her addiction well.
“People don’t realise how easy it is to hide something. Whether it’s addiction, depression, anxiety, it’s easy to hide those things.”
Matthews said she gave up cocaine after learning that she was pregnant. After partying hard the night before, she said she became concerned that her actions would hurt the baby.
“I was so thin and I was partying a lot and no one thought I would be able to fall pregnant,” she said.
The conversation took a dark turn when Matthews recounted how she became suicidal after having a miscarriage when she was 16. Her mother and the baby’s father were relieved when it happened, but she said she couldn’t get over the loss and was eventually sent to Cambodia by her parents to recover, where she “worked for a few years.”
The model said she hoped that talking about her demons would help others struggling with similar issues.
“I have battled with mental health demons on and off for most of my life. It is a topic I am going to be talking about a lot more this year,” she said.
Fortunately, she’s in a better place now and is focused on raising her two young children.
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(Natural News) No matter how much you love coffee or tea, you might want to avoid asking for it during flights. This is because an unnamed flight attendant for a major American airline claimed that the hot water used for coffee on flights may be unhealthy and unhygienic. “Don’t drink the coffee on airplanes. It’s… |
January 3, 2019
By Pei Li and Adam Jourdan
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese coffee startup Luckin is aiming to open 2,500 new stores this year and overtake Starbucks Corp <SBUX.O> as the largest coffee chain by number of outlets in the world’s second-biggest economy, it said on Thursday.
The firm, which only officially launched its business at the start of last year, has expanded at breakneck speed, propelled by a focus on technology, delivery, and heavy discounting even at the cost of mounting losses.
“What we want at the moment is scale and speed,” Luckin’s chief marketing officer, Yang Fei, told reporters on Thursday at a presentation in Beijing.
“There’s no point talking about profit,” he said, adding that subsidies to lure in more users would be an important part of the firm’s strategy for the next few years.
Luckin said it was targeting a total of more than 4,500 stores by the end of 2019, which would take it past Seattle-based Starbucks that has long dominated China’s coffee scene and has over 3,600 stores in the country.
Luckin’s caffeine-fuelled expansion is in stark contrast to Starbucks, which opened its first China store in 1999 and has spent two decades reaching its current store count.
The U.S. chain, which spearheaded the growth of a coffee culture in China, started to see competition rise from smaller peers over the last 18 months, though Luckin has stood out as the most aggressive competitor.
But Luckin’s rise has not come cheaply.
The firm recorded a loss of 800 million yuan ($116.34 million) last year, which its chief marketing officer said was in line with expectations as it pushed to expand.
Luckin, backed by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd and China International Capital Corp Ltd <3908.HK>, opened more than 2,000 locations in the last year, gaining a valuation of $2.2 billion after raising $200 million in a funding round last month.
The firm’s chief executive, Qian Zhiya, told Reuters last year that Luckin aimed to outnumber Starbucks in China.
Reuters previously reported that Luckin was also in early-stage talks with investment banks about an overseas initial public offering. The firm, however, declined to answer questions about IPO plans on Thursday.
(Reporting by Pei Li and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Himani Sarkar)
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(Natural News) Three cups of coffee a day might just keep prostate cancer away — but only if it’s prepared Italian style. A story on EurekAlert.org reports on a new study that has found that coffee prepared in the Italian way — no coffee filters and with very high temperatures and pressure — lowered the… |
Authored by Daniel Greenfield via Sultan Khish blog,
Venezuela, a failing socialist state, has gifted its people with the sixth minimum wage hike in one year. The 150% increase last week won’t help too much because inflation is up to 1.7 million percent.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Minimum wage hikes don’t help when your currency isn’t worth the cost of the paper it’s printed on. That’s literally true in Venezuela, which has tried switching to an even more worthless cryptocurrency.
Forget the #Fightfor15, in Venezuela it’s a fight to afford basic food supplies or even a cup of coffee.
The cost of a cup of coffee rose 285614% in a year and doubled in seven days. Under the new currency, you can grab a cup of the good stuff for 400 bolivars. Too bad that the minimum wage is 4,800 bolivars and 90% of the population is impoverished. It isn’t looking to buy a cup of coffee, but is starving because it can’t actually buy food. Alternatives have included eating zoo animals, pets and wild donkeys.
“Juntos: todo es possible”, the Obamaesque slogan of the regime declaring, “Together, anything is possible”, looms over a frightened starving population from billboards decorated with socialist icons.
The trouble is that anything really is possible. It’s possible to starve to death, to sit in the dark because there’s no power, to be unable to go to work because there’s no fuel, to be killed in food riots by government thugs, to have your savings wiped out, or to die of a treatable illness because there’s no medicine. Socialism has made “anything” possible in Venezuela. But all the possibilities are horrifying.
The regime’s other election slogan was, “Vamos Venezuela”. And Venezuelans are going.
10% of the population has fled Venezuela escaping through Simon Bolivar Airport, which has no water, no working toilets, no air conditioning and barely any power, where government thugs demand money and jewelry from passengers, or just marching on foot to escape the socialist mess any way they can.
Those Venezuelans who remain can’t find medicine, lack drinking water and can’t even afford to die.
The death rate in Venezuela is high. Between gang violence, outbreaks of disease and food riots, the corpses are piling up, and no one can afford to bury the dead.
Two years ago, a public cemetery charged 240,000 bolivars for a burial, while private cemeteries charged 400,000. The casket alone could cost 100,000 bolivars. Not that it matters because caskets have become hard to obtain due to shortages of wood and metal.
The number of zeroes may have changed with the new currency, but has become no more affordable.
Meanwhile, cemeteries, like every business, have seen employees vanish to wait on food lines or work in the black market, which means that not only can’t you bury the dead, but there’s no one to do the burying. Not only did socialism force Venezuelans to wait on line to buy food to live, they also had to wait on line after they were dead. Socialism is defined by the line. You are born into it and die on line.
After funerals became unaffordable, Venezuelans settled for cremating the dead. But the iron law of supply and demand quickly fell into place. As demand for cremation increased, so did the cost.
It wasn’t just the cost of a cup of coffee that doubled in a week: the cost of cremation rose 108%.
Major General Manuel Quevedo , the 2019 president of OPEC, is Venezuelan even as the country’s mourners can’t afford the cost of the gas with which to burn their dead.
Quevedo, a leftist Lenin-praising thug, was dispatched to take control of Venezuela’s collapsing oil industry, but instead dealt it a fatal blow. Protests were put down by force. Anyone who committed the crime of actually knowing anything about the industry was locked up and replaced by a regime loyalist.
The socialist thug ordered workers to denounce anyone who opposed the government. Instead, 25,000 workers out of 146,000 resigned last year. And it’s worse than the numbers make it look because many of those resigning are engineers and managers who can’t be replaced by hiring just anyone.
Under the socialist military regime, oil production fell 29% as drilling rigs lacked crews and fires broke out in refineries. Those workers that haven’t quit have been selling their uniforms in exchange for food.
Fuel shortages broke out in an OPEC nation as its former production of 2 million barrels of oil dropped to 1.2 million. The situation is now so bad that Venezuela will import 300,000 barrels.
Venezuela is so broken that one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters is now forced to import oil to be able to sell it at artificially subsidized low prices to its population and to repay Russia and China. The Maduro regime keeps touting Russian and Chinese deals as the answer, but the problem is that Venezuela only has one thing that Russia and China want, and it’s too socialist to even get at it.
With a worthless currency, Venezuela is paying America, Russia and China in crude and buying back barrels of oil because under military socialist control, its refineries are no longer functional.
It’s also trading natural gas for barrels of oil, and so Venezuela may have the eight largest gas reserves in the world, but the families of the dead can no longer manage to get natural gas to burn the bodies.
There’s no cooking gas, long lines at gas stations and no way to even cremate the dead.
In the final triumph of socialism, Venezuela’s energy industry has collapsed. There isn’t even enough gas left to burn the corpses left in the aftermath of the failed socialist experiment forcing loved ones to dump them in pits and mass graves.
You can’t live under socialism. You can die under it. But you can’t be buried under socialism.
Socialism killed Venezuela as it will kill any country given enough time. First, you run out of other people’s money. Then wage and price controls destroy the supply and demand of the marketplace. And when there’s nothing left in the stores, a government takeover will consolidate the destruction.
It happened in Venezuela. And it can happen here too.
Seven years ago, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an editorial, claiming that the, “American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger.”
“Who’s the banana republic now?” he asked.
It’s the socialist dictatorship with no food, no power, no water, no hope and true income equality.
Incomes are more equal in Venezuela. Everyone, except the regime and its loyalists, has nothing. Not even a grave in which to bury the dead. That’s not the American dream, that’s the socialist nightmare.
Hot coffee and fresh burritos are just minutes away by drone delivery in Canberra, the capital of Australia.
Coffee drinkers who worry about the jolt of java it takes to get them going in the morning might just as well relax and pour another cup.
That’s according to the largest-ever analysis of the link between coffee consumption and mortality, which suggests that latte lovers had a lower risk of death during the study period.
“I would say it offers some reassurance to coffee drinkers,” said Neal Freedman, a nutritional epidemiology researcher at the National Cancer Institute. “Other studies have suggested a higher risk of mortality with coffee drinking and we didn’t see that in our study.”
Elliot Fineman (left), CEO of the National Gun Victims Action Council (NGAC) announced last Monday that its members will boycott Starbucks starting on St. Valentine’s Day to protest the company’s resistance to demands that they cease serving customers who may be carrying weapons, open or concealed. Its purpose, according to Fineman, is “to eliminate the risk of guns in public places and ultimately to bring sane gun laws to the U.S.” Fineman claims that his group is “a network of 14 million gun victims” and that his boycott is being supported by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the United Church of Christ, the Fellowship of Reconciliation along with other secular groups that also support the anti-gun movement. Fineman said:
Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of their stores significantly increases everyone’s risk of being a victim of gun violence. Open and concealed carry are among the reasons there are 12,000 gun homicides each year in the U.S. If we had England’s gun laws we would expect 375 gun homicides each year—97% less than we have. England’s gun laws are based on protecting public safety, ours on maximizing sales for the gun industry…
Our boycott will reduce Starbucks’ stock price by an amount no rational company would allow.
It was two years ago that the Brady Campaign launched a similar boycott of Starbucks that “failed miserably” according to Dave Stockman, senior editor of Gun Week. Noted Stockman: “Starbucks made it plain in 2010…that it [would] abide by local and state laws and [would] not discriminate against a certain class of customers. Many open carry advocates began patronizing Starbucks…as a show of support.”
Stockman asked NGAC rhetorically just how many incidents have there been in the history of Starbucks, which opened its first coffee house in 1971, involving a legally-armed citizen that resulted in criminal violence? Answer: not a single one.
By John Haughey, Outdoorlife.com
A nationwide boycott of Starbucks stores and its products will be launched on Valentine’s Day to eliminate “the risk of guns in public places and ultimately to bring sane gun laws to the U.S.”
This boycott is being called by the National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC), a network of 14 million gun victims, and is targeting Starbucks because it allows guns and assault weapons to be openly carried in its stores in 43 states, and concealed and carried in its stores in 49 states.
“Starbucks has the legal right to ban guns but despite having been petitioned by thousands, asked at a shareholder meeting, and a direct appeal made to their Board, Starbucks clings to this policy that puts millions of Americans at risk every day and encourages the spread of guns being carried in public,” said NGAC CEO Elliot Fineman in a Jan. 23 press release circulated by the group.
Of course, such reasoning is sheer idiocy, said Seattle Guns Rights Examiner Dave Workman in a Jan. 23 Examiner.com column.
“Starbucks’ sin is that the coffee giant caters to everybody, including legally-armed citizens, whether they carry openly or concealed,” Workman wrote. “Starbucks made it plain in 2010 when the Brady Campaign, assisted locally by Washington CeaseFire, that it abides by local state laws and does not discriminate against a certain class of customers. Starbucks has the legal right to serve any customer it pleases, including someone exercising his or her right to bear arms. Fineman evidently doesn’t grasp that.”
To read more, visit: http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/gun-shots/2012/01/anti-gun-protestors-target-starbucks-allowing-guns
To understand the nature of Pringles and other stackable chips, forget the notion that they come from actual potatoes in any recognizable way.
The Pringles Company (in an effort to avoid taxes levied against “luxury foods” like chips in the UK) once even argued that the potato content of their chips was so low that they are technically not even potato chips.
So if they’re not made of potatoes, what are they exactly?
The process begins with a slurry of rice, wheat, corn, and potato flakes that are pressed into shape.
This dough-like substance is then rolled out into an ultra-thin sheet cut into chip-cookies by a machine.
“The chips move forward on a conveyor belt until they’re pressed onto molds, which give them the curve that makes them fit into one another.
Those molds move through boiling oil … Then they’re blown dry, sprayed with powdered flavors, and at last, flipped onto a slower-moving conveyor belt in a way that allows them to stack.
From then on, it’s into the cans … and off towards the innocent mouths of the consumers.”
I suspect nearly everyone reading this likely enjoys the taste of potato chips. However, they are clearly one of the most toxic processed foods you can eat—whether they’re made from actual potato shavings or not.
One of the most hazardous ingredients in potato chips is not intentionally added, but rather is a byproduct of the processing.
Acrylamide, a cancer-causing and potentially neurotoxic chemical, is created when carbohydrate-rich foods are cooked at high temperatures, whether baked, fried, roasted or toasted. Some of the worst offenders include potato chips and French fries, but many foods cooked or processed at temperatures above 212°F (100°C) may contain acrylamide. As a general rule, the chemical is formed when food is heated enough to produce a fairly dry and brown/yellow surface. Hence, it can be found in:
- Potatoes: chips, French fries and other roasted or fried potato foods
- Grains: bread crust, toast, crisp bread, roasted breakfast cereals and various processed snacks
- Coffee; roasted coffee beans and ground coffee powder. Surprisingly, coffee substitutes based on chicory actually contains 2-3 times MORE acrylamide than real coffee
At a cafe on 18th Street in San Francisco, David sipped coffee and talked about the regimen of daily HIV pills he recently started: Viread in July, and then last month, Isentress. He looked exhausted.
David does not have HIV. For 20 years he has endured a debilitating case of chronic fatigue syndrome, which has left him unable to work.
“All of a sudden my brain dies,” said David, who asked that only his first name be used for privacy reasons. “I have such a narrow range of concentration.” He hopes the medications will help.
Thirty years into the AIDS epidemic, the antiretroviral drugs that have provided lifesaving treatment for many of those infected with HIV — 1.1 million in the United States today — are now being used or considered for treating other ailments.
When medications have proved safe and effective for most patients, it is standard practice for pharmaceutical companies to see if the drugs have other applications. But with HIV drugs, the practice has been unusually contentious, fostering debates about questionable science, safety and profiteering, and concerns that thousands of Americans infected with HIV cannot get the medications.
