Mindconnection eNL, 2016-01-24

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Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

Item 1. A swallowable camera pill is the first to use fluorescent light to help detect cancer in the human throat or gut. This is hugely better than having a tube run down your throat. Read the full story here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biomedical/imaging/flourescent-camera-pill-can-hunt-for-cancer-in-your-guts

Item 2. In an unsurprising move, our malevolent dictator vetoed the desperately needed UCA Repeal Bill that Congress sent for his signature. He really should be signing out an orange jumpsuit. How is it good news that he committed yet another malevolent act against America? If he had done the right thing, "voters" who pick D vs R might have forgotten about this horrendous mislegislation in the fake elections coming up this fall.

But as long as the pain inflicted by the Unaffordable Care Act persists, the D wing of The Party is going to take the blame in these fake elections. The Obama Pain Stain will be their downfall. Maybe next time, they will deign to vet their candidates and at least not put an illegal alien with a strong anti-America record on the ballot. The Ds should have picked someone OTHER than Soetoro as their 2008 candidate, and they should have repealed the UCA.

The fallout from the big FAIL on both counts will, unless the stupidity epidemic is far worse than we thinking folks realize, haunt them for years to come. That could also mean a clean-up of the R wing, something else that's badly needed. Despite having stuck others with his debts through multiple bankruptcies, Donald Trump has less money than he started out with. And this is the most popular R candidate?

Just as Soetoro has boosted gun sales enormously, his big FAIL with the UCA may well boost people into thinking about how they vote--and realizing the D/R con job is a waste of their vote. And that would be very good news.

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Reality is often very different from official statements:
https://youtu.be/05h2hNi1S1g

(But you knew that already. This just confirms how smart you are!)

There's that language abuse thing again. What these people meant was their medical care insurance costs have, since the Unaffordable Care Act was illegally inflicted upon the nation, become predictably unaffordable. Personally, I dropped my medical insurance. To get anything even remotely affordable required a deductible that defeated the purpose of having insurance in the first place. Until the UCA is repealed, opting out is the only sensible choice facing many Americans.

The good news on that front is that about the time our last edition came out Congress actually passed a repeal bill. It was sent to the illegal alien who is illegally "serving" as President of the USA for his signature. Naturally, the narcissistic psychopath vetoed this urgently needed legislation. Doing anything good for America is just not something he will consider. It would go against his legacy of harm, harm, harm.

There is a very strong possibility that our dictator will step down a year from now. We have no guarantees of that, since it's merely a legal requirement and he does not abide by our laws. But assuming this happens, his replacement will almost surely sign a bill repealing this illegal and massively harmful mislegislation. So hold out another year if yo ucan.

I get it that readers want medical care coverage but thanks to the UCA can no longer afford it and thus are looking for a solution.

But the only thing I can think to offer while awaiting for the Arab in Chief to leave office is this. I strongly recommend that you reject our society's cultural bias against health care. Rather than be strongly against health care, as is normal, practice it very strictly. By practicing health care, you greatly reduce the likelihood you will ever need medical care. Yes, things can happen and you may still end up needing a doctor.

But let's say you break your leg skiing. If you're healthy, your risk of complications is greatly reduced and you will recover faster. Not only that, a healthy body is far more resistant to disease than a normal body. Hospitals are notoriously filthy places. About 780,000 Americans a year are reported to die of infections incurred at hospitals; that figure does not include "killed by hospital infection" people whose records were whitewashed with a different reason.

Tip: If you become hospitalized, do not eat the "food" they bring you. Have someone bring you food that is compatible with the human body, instead. This will speed up your recovery and lower your risk. You want plenty of raw greens (those provide important enzymes and other nutrients). You aren't going to get those in the hospital. Ask them how much raw spinach, kale, and bok choy they serve to each patient daily. Probably zilch. Another factor is they inexplicably put people on an unhealthy three meals a day plan. Really screws up your blood sugar levels and endocrine system, versus eating six small meals a day.

Practicing health care won't bring down your medical insurance costs, unless the insurer has some discount for sensible behavior built in. But usually, such a discount is small and it's for stuff like belonging to a gym (I don't belong to a gym, and most people who do are wasting their time because they don't know what they are doing) or subscribing to a "Wellness Program" where bad advice is often doled out.

What we really need to do is get insurers out of medical care entirely. That would require members of Congress to really step up to their responsibilities. It would also require them to amend the Constitution to give the federal government the power to get involved in the medical care business. Maybe it's time they did so, maybe it's not. But I don't see any other solutions to the "health care crisis" aka the medical care cost crisis.

I'm thinking of a national system, like the VA. This would make several things possible, such as:

• National database (vets enjoy this now).
• Cost control done sensibly.
• Health care as a first line of defense.
• Health care as a requirement for receiving expensive medical care.
• Standardized procedures and training.
• Financial types are out of running the medical care business, meaning no more assigning 30 patients to one overworked nurse.
• No more hassle with mindless insurance folks who promise payment but then deny it on the flimsiest of excuses while your premiums go nowhere but up.

Cost transparency also needs to be added. What's the real cost of eating refined flour products? Wheat, corn, and soy products? Or something clearly insane like eating hydrogenated oil (which is in most baked goods)?

If the federal govt must pay for acts of nutritional suicide driven my relentless lie-through-their-teeth advertising, would it not have an incentive to force Crisco to show a picture of colon cancer its cans of poison and also provide a typical price tag? Or maybe it can shut Crisco down for inflicting so much cancer or force the company to provide free eggplant to those who consume its colon cancer causing product? No, those things aren't going to happen. They just aren't politically feasible.

But letting people know that their food choices have a direct financial impact is something the govt can do. If tax dollars are paying for these decisions, then taxpayers need to know how much those decisions cost. That can be implemented, and in a way that is politically feasible.

I'm not sure that we can make a big difference immediately, but what if each of us serves as a voice of reason against all the lying advertising? When you're checking out at the grocery store, make a comment about your bok choy so that the soda drinker in line behind you at least gets some good information instead of the usual disinformation. I do this regularly, and am personally responsible for sales of bok choy going from near zero to being rather brisk (at this one store).

You might also consider rolling your cart up and down the soda aisle a few times while chanting "Osteoporosis in a can." Note that people who put this stuff in their bodies are at FAR higher risk of broken bones than people who abstain from this poison. Why not make the self-poisoners aware of what they are doing to their own bodies? Better yet, make up some labels and stick them on the bottles and cans of poison. If we had meaningful consumer protection laws, such labels would be on these poison containers already.

Another great label thing is to put "Number one cause of male impotence" on cancer stick cartons. That's no longer possible because cancer sticks are kept behind the counter these days. But you can simply state this when walking by a person who reeks of tobacco and the point will be sharply made.

If enough of us do the "educate the populace" thing and lead by highly visible example, the net effect can greatly reduce at least a major input into medical care costs. Give it your best shot!

This can pose a particularly bad hazard for anyone who gives out their mobile number to any employee of the terrorist group known as the Institute of Reprobates and Sociopaths. Never give your mobile number to these folks. If you have done so in the past, change your number now.

But what if that's your only phone and you receive a letter inviting you to a tax audit? The letter wants you to provide your phone number. The solution is easy. Get a "throwaway" phone just for them.

Are you skeptical about the enormous danger of giving the Reprobates your smartphone number? Here are some of the things these lawless predators can do (based on actual cases) with that information:

• Track your destinations and identify people you deal with. They then threaten these people into giving information about you. You will find your friends and business contacts tending to disappear from your life.
• Track your actual mileage and compare it against what you reported. Then make use any minor discrepancy as an excuse to go back five years and audit you for each of those years (the excuse is you gave wrong information, even if you overstated or understated the total mileage by only 1 mile).
• Learn your habits. This will allow them to conduct other forms of surveillance undetected, thus digging up more they can twist around and use against you.
• Find out what's important to you, and put pain on you there.

And that's just from the GPS aspect. Additionally, they can:

• Get your phone records without a court order. Then mine those for ways to abuse you.
• Access anything that's on your phone.
• Access anything that's on anything you connect your phone to. You like to synchronize with Outlook on your desktop? You've just given them unfettered access to your PC long after the phone is no longer connected to it.
• Use the camera on your phone to spy on you. Same for the microphone. They can look and listen at any time.
• Use the camera on your laptop (if you ever connected your phone to it) to spy on you.
• And more--use your imagination.

If you did give the Reprobates your cell number and later connect that phone to your computer, the only solution is to format your OS/Programs drive and reinstall Windows (or Mac OS as the case may be).

A new training fad has hit, and it's based on a gross misunderstanding of muscle composition.

Muscles contain "fast twitch" and "slow twitch" fibers. There is a proven way to train these (more on that, in a moment).

The new fad assumes that slow twitch fibers need slow training and fast twitch fibers need fast training. This is flawed.

First, how do the fibers differ?

• Slow twitch fibers are more efficient than their counterparts are at using oxygen. This means they can fire longer before fatiguing. These are what give you endurance.

• Fast twitch fibers burn fuel anaerobically (no oxygen) and so they can generate short bursts of power more quickly than slow-twitch can. But you use up their fuel stores more quickly, too.

The fad-mongers assume fast twitch means those muscles are worked only with fast motions, but that is not at all the case.

The new fad has victims doing momentum movements, which don't work the muscle much at all but put tremendous strain on the connective tissues and joints while also producing serious risk of debilitating injuries. The result is soreness and pain, but not any stimulus for growth.

The training method violates basic bodybuilding principles.

So how do you train fast twitch fibers?

The fast twitch fibers are the larger fibers of the two. They are also the ones that get hit first during normal training. Generally, when you are training for strength you are working the fast twitch fibers and not doing a whole lot for the slow twitch fibers. This exercise physiology fact is the opposite of what the "fast training" people mistakenly believe.

Instead of throwing the weights, you want to lift slowly. This is how you burn the fuel out of fast twitch fibers. Once they are (pretty much) out of the picture, your body needs to recruit the slow twitch fibers for you to keep lifting. Really, this should happen at some point during each set. When you pull those slow twitch fibers into the game, you're now no longer training for strength but training for size. Training for strength will make you bigger by growing fast twitch fibers, but training for size means you grow the slow twitch fibers also.

Casey Viator did one-rep sets that challenged both types of fiber and he was truly massive. Very few people can train they way Viator did, but the point illustrated by that extreme example is you train both types of fibers the same way. You overload them to stimulate the adaptive response. The trick is to tax those fast twitch fibers first, so that you can get to the slow twitch fibers.

You may have noticed a change in strength during sets. If you are training correctly (for intensity), the first couple of reps are difficult but you are doing them with your maximum strength. As your fibers get taxed, additional reps become very difficult to complete.

In the sets that follow, you're not quite as strong. That's because you've worked your "power fibers" (the fast twitch, which can produce power more quickly) already. As you keep going, your fast twitch fibers will start recovering so you need to avoid momentum (which rests fibers and stresses joints) and keep short rests between sets so that you can work the slow twitch fibers. The avoiding of momentum is (again) the opposite of what the "fast training" people mistakenly believe.

You maximize the adaptive response by exercising with intensity, which is (by definition) more work in less time. That does not mean doing faster reps (something that actually rests individual fibers).

One way to achieve intensity is to use slow reps. I like to do a super slow first set. When you're lifting slowly through the range you're working (more on that, in a moment), a given fiber is going to fire repeatedly because the load is still on that fiber. With the faddish "fast training," that same fiber might not fire even once much less enough to stimulate the adaptive response that builds muscle.

One set of flyes down in super slow motion will exhaust the fast twitch fibers in your pecs. One set. Super slow. I like to do 3 to 4 reps using 55lb dumbbells, taking at least a full minute to lower the weight (maybe 30 seconds to raise it). That is all it takes to burn the fuel in those fast twitch fibers. Of course, they are going to recover as you rest between sets so if you want to work those slow twitch fibers you need to keep a fairly short time between sets.

Remember fast or slow twitch really has to do with the rate of fuel burn. The faster the burn rate, the sooner you run out.

On my next set, I'm starting with fast twitch fibers that are low on fuel and burn out quickly. So guess what kind of fiber I'm really starting to hit hard? Yep, the slow twitch. But they don't have the power that the fast twitch ones have, so I can't maintain the super slow lift with that much weight. I have to let the weights down faster than the full minute I took burning up the fast twitch fibers. There just isn't the power to go slower (each fiber is burning fuel less slowly, so producing less power). Maybe I'll try to go a full 30 seconds, but under no circumstances will I "go fast" with the weight.

Even after a couple more sets, the slow twitch fibers still have fuel (and the fast twitch keep recovering). I'll do several more sets, each with fairly low (and always slow) reps, because I want to make sure those slow twitch fibers really get taxed. It's important to not take long breaks between sets; doing so recharges those fibers and you lose the intensity factor.

What was that about "through the range you're working"?

Because your weights are pulled straight down by the earth but your limbs rotate around your joints, every muscle group is best worked in three ranges so that maximum tension is applied not just at one point. Remember, the weight is always being pulled straight down regardless of your limb extension or position.

So we break the motion into three parts:

• Full extension.
• Mid-range.
• Full contraction.

This is really a matter of geometry. Most folks who do biceps curls work only the mid-range. That's why they don't have peaks (get these by lifting with arm parallel to your chest) why their insertion points don't get big (grow these with seated decline curl). They need to work in three ranges of motion to get the proper development and proportions.

If you are curling 40lb in a traditional standing curl, you don't have anywhere near 40lbs of force working against the biceps when your arm is near the top of the motion. The force decreases as the weight moves in an arc because gravity isn't pulling in that same arc.

A common question that arises when people are introduced to this is, "How can you work the chest in three ranges of motion?" They are thinking you have two exercises, bench press and flyes. So it doesn't add up. But it's not always that you do a different exercise. For chest, you can hit all three ranges with the bench press or the flyes, though full extension is normally done with flyes and full contraction is normally done the bench press.

OK, smarty pants. But you can't do that with squats! Au contraire.

• Full extension. Front squats.
• Mid-range. Front squats (yep, they get both full and mid).
• Full contraction. Sissy squats (do these last).

Doing ab work? Same thing. Crunches don't get it, so don't bother with those.

Start off with hanging leg raises (mid-range), and DO keep your legs nearly straight); slow down as you come to the halfway-up point, and squeeze your abs to get full contraction. When working abs, it's the torso that has to extend (don't get confused by the fact you extend your legs here, they aren't what's being worked). To get full extension, use a Roman Chair. You can't get full extension with hanging leg raises, because your legs and abs are perpendicular to the ground at that point in the motion and the tension is zero. The RC puts your abs parallel to the ground, and when you lean back below vertical you take your abs to their full extension.

And remember that you don't train muscles with fast movement. I mention here that another myth is train fast for speed or power, train slow for strength. This contradicts basic physics, and it should be dismissed out of hand. If you want speed, you train your muscles to get stronger. You can't train them to get "faster" but you can make them stronger so they can contract harder and thus give you more speed.

You can train your nervous system with fast movement, but it takes slow motion to overload those muscle fibers. Go fast, and the fibers simply don't use up their fuel because they are only momentarily engaged before resting. The fast motion carries the load past the fiber instead of leaving it on the fiber.

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

Scientists say the higher your I.Q., the more you dream. From this, we could extrapolate that members of CONgress don't dream at all.

Why is it we have animals neutered and spayed, but not members of Congress?