Mindconnection eNL, 2016-09-18

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

Item 1. Sometimes, members of Congress actually care about lawful government. Just over two weeks ago, pro civil liberties members of Congress responded to the Soetoro crime cartel's attempt at backdoor firearms prohibition (aka, Firearms for Criminals Only) through the U.S. State Department (DOS) with strongly worded letters demanding corrective action. That is really good news.

Item 2. Some outlets of the state-run media occasionally defy the criminals who run things. "The primary newspaper of record for the state of Virginia, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, announced its endorsement of Libertarian Gary Johnson for U.S. President. Richmond is also the hometown of Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine. The editorial board gave a robust and enthusiastic endorsement." That quote is pulled from the LP News, the newsletter of the nation's second major political party. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/article_b79cc2b6-8ed5-532c-92eb-4a37e779c433.html

Item 3. MIT Technology Review reported on 07SEP that Costa Rica hasn't burned any fossil fuels for electricity in two months. It's amazing what's possible when a country's legislators are not on the payroll of Big Coal and Big Oil. So it will almost certainly never happen in the USA, but it did happen in Costa Rica. Read the whole story, here: http://mashable.com/2016/09/06/costa-rica-100-percent-renewable/

Item 4. MIT Technology Review also reported on 07SEP that a carbon nanotube transistor outperformed its silicon counterpart. Read the whole story here:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/carbon-nanotube-transistors-finally-outperform-silicon

Item 5. As far as I know, this newsletter doesn't have any violent career criminals as subscribers. But in case such a person is reading, there is good news for you! Barry Soetoro continues to abuse his executive power not only to try disarming law-abiding citizens so that you can attack us more safely, but he's also abusing his executive power to grant clemency to some violent career criminals. If you were properly tried and sentenced and are just now starting to serve a very long sentence, your pal Barry could have you out on the street very soon.

Item 6. When even a newspaper refuses to pass along the lies about our Obama-devastated economy, the bad news is things are so bad even they can't pretend it's not a catastrophe. Read the piece here:

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-false-economy/89706/

The good news is that, though the state runs our media they don't have a 100% lock on things. That's because real people, brainwashed though they are, work for these propaganda outlets. Even though these people are generally in brain off mode, some lies don't take an IQ greater than a single digit one to see through. This doesn't mean a free is a possibility in our lifetime, but that the state-run press will carry the absurdities only so far.

Item 7. Graphene, again! This time, it eliminates the need for a magnet in a speaker. Read the whole story here:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/consumer-electronics/gadgets/graphene-enables-flat-speakers-for-mobile-audio-systems
 

Item 8. The amount of new solar capacity added in the USA during the first quarter of 2016 was triple that of natural gas, coal, and nuclear combined.

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• Primary.
• Secondary.
• Inferential.
• By Definition.
• A Priori.
• Tertiary.
• Opinion.
• Propaganda.

Let's look at each of these a bit closer. First, I want to note that propaganda is by far where most people in the USA get their "information." Hold that thought, we'll come back to it.

Primary sources include original research and original material. An example of original research is a report submitted by the team that conducted a particular double-blind experiment. An example of original material is a personal letter in a South Carolina museum; it's under glass and was written by a soldier in the War Between the States. Grant's memoirs, in which he never once referred to that war as a "civil war" are also original material. Expert opinion isn't opinion in the normal sense; these sources are inherently objective. An expert testifying outside his area of expertise, however, is simply rendering a personal opinion. A medical doctor, for example, telling you about nutrition.

Secondary sources are rewrites and repackaging of primary sources, done by subject matter experts. Many primary sources are in language (jargon) that in inaccessible to the layperson and/or contain references the layperson cannot be expected to understand. When done well, secondary sources are the link between primary sources and "common language" rendering.

College textbooks are generally considered secondary sources, while K-12 textbooks are generally considered tertiary sources.

Ostensibly, secondary sources are objective rather than subjective. Look for subjectivity; if you see it, you're not looking at a true secondary source. Ask a carpenter how to miter a 45 degree angle on a board, and you'll get an objective expert opinion. Ask this same carpenter which color looks best in a kitchen, and you'll get a subjective opinion. Can you see the difference?

Inferential sources aren't sources in the same sense primary and secondary are, but they are important sources. Astronomers get most of their information inferentially. For example, they measure the red shift to infer the distance, rather than measure the distance directly. The direct measurement isn't possible, but the inference is known to be accurate by various means so it is used instead.

By definition. Some things are true just because of what words mean. It's not a value judgment (good or bad) to state that breaking the law is a criminal act or a crime. That is a matter of definition. We know that Barry Soetoro is a criminal even though no court has convicted him because criminals by definition engage regularly in crime.

A Priori. This, and similar conditions such as being obvious, are all the proof you need. One does not need a peer reviewed citation to state conclusively that a red, 8-sided traffic sign with white lettering is a STOP sign. Nor does one need some "proof" that gravity exists, water is in the ocean, and so on.

People who spew views conflicting with these proofs are willfully ignorant and essentially making "gravity does not exist" arguments. A problem with these types of proofs is the boundaries are often unclear to people. Skilled logicians can easily administer a test of the proof. For example, is any 8-sided traffic sign with white lettering ever anything but a STOP sign? No, therefore it is a priori that such a sign is a STOP sign.

The Unaffordable Care Act is a priori illegal, for multiple reasons, including:

• It violates the 10th Amendment.
• It contains new taxes, but originated in the Senate (all taxation bills must originate in the House, which represents those being taxed).

Tertiary sources are similar to secondary sources, except they are done by someone who is not a subject matter expert and they may draw from secondary rather than (or in addition to) primary sources. The aforementioned sources are inherently trustworthy. From tertiary on down, that erodes.

Tertiary sources are typically serving an agenda. In some cases, that's benign. For example, a fundraising group writes a flyer explaining some disease. Their explanation will be "dumbed down" with perhaps some fuzziness in its accuracy. The intention is to lower the educational or literacy barriers to understanding.

In other cases, the effort is malignant; the agenda is self-serving and manipulative. Always look for the angle before accepting the source. And treat tertiary sources as "general information, big picture" providers. If you really want to understand the topic, consult with higher-level sources.

Most people who argue about things never even rise to the tertiary level with their sources. Generally, they trade unfounded opinion or conclusions drawn from the propaganda that is their mental diet. The reason is they make arguing a hobby and to do so requires remaining disinformed and ignorant. If you know what you're talking about, arguing isn't necessary nor is it worth your time.

Opinion. It is said that opinions are like belly buttons, everybody has one. A problem with this philosophy is people who don't research primary and secondary sources habitually mischaracterize facts they didn't know as merely the "opinion" of the knowledgeable person who told them those facts.

People who trade opinions aren't interested in knowing about a topic before talking about it, else they would have facts rather than opinion to work with. If you ask an opinion holder to explain why s/he holds a particular opinion, you are likely to get the deer in the headlights look.

Having opinions such as "I like green more than blue" is fine. Or an opinion such as "I don't like crime" is fine. But when someone says something contrary to fact such as (and I've actually been told this by libtards) "The Constitution does not govern the government" that is not fine. A libtard will spew that as fact, though of course it is impossible to prove that opinion correct because it is so contradictory to reality.

Propaganda. Mark Twain quipped, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." Newspapers, television, Internet news, and consumer-level magazines are all propaganda sources. Many are state-run, and their agenda is blatantly obvious.

Making these part of your mental diet and expecting to be well-informed is like putting sugar in your gas tank and expecting your car to run better. You get the opposite of the expectation, in either case. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people make this and opinion their only sources and consequently know less than nothing about a topic. What they believe they know is actually wrong.

You need to spot propaganda. It can hide behind a veneer. Suppose you come across an interesting-looking book on a particular topic. How do you know if it's worth reading? Look in the bibliography. If you see disinformation sources such as the New York Times, the author does not vet his information and the book is not worth reading. Some people, observing the extreme use of fiction in the NYT, have claimed the paper doesn't have fact checkers. Clearly, they do; and if those folks find a fact they get rid of it fast!

I hope this summary of information sources helps you do a good job of being informed rather than disinformed.

One of the central components of ObamaCare is the individual mandate. You are legally required, under the law, to purchase health care insurance. If you don't, you're subject to a fine by the IRS, which averages $969 in 2016.

You'd think that a law that requires people to purchase insurance would at least succeed in meeting it's enrollment goals. But you would be wrong. From Guy Benson at Townhall.com:

In January, we reported that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had downgraded its forecast for Obamacare enrollments by eight million people, with many consumers deciding that the 'Affordable' Care Act was just too costly. The official protections were slashed by another million in March. Among the millions of Americans who have signed up for the law since 2013, a large percentage of them were covered before the law evicted them from their existing plans, in contravention of a central presidential promise.

By one important measure, Obamacare's overall enrollment performance has undershot initial actuarial forecasts by 24 million people. And as taxpayers shell out $2 trillion to pay for a failing, unpopular law, CBO has also determined that the number of uninsured Americans is expected to rise from 26 million to 28 million between 2017 and 2026.

And for all the people looking for an ObamaCare plan for next year, they are likely to find fewer options to choose from at even higher costs.

What can you do about this problem? Basically, nothing. The Unaffordable Care Act is illegal on several counts. This tells you that powerful criminals are behind it, else this travesty would have been struck down by any of several legal challenges to it. And it is the namesake of a psychopath employed by George Soros.

We know that if another of Soros' employees, a pant-suit wearing whacko whose name I won't mention, replaces Soetoro as dictator this lunacy will not end for another eight years.

This hugely unpopular scam is becoming more unpopular as it drags on. But the thing is, it was never popular to begin with. It was overwhelmingly opposed by the peasantry from Day One. So simply telling your misrepresentative and senators that you want this particular crime spree ended does not send a message they haven't already been swamped with.

A bill to repeal the UCA was passed by both Chambers, but Soetoro refused to sign it. What you can do is research which legislators didn't vote for repeal; those are the ones who prevented Congress from having veto over-ride.

Please send me the names of the miscreants, and I will publish those names in a future edition. I did ask my Congressman for the names but have not heard back yet. He's opposed the UCA all along since it undermines any effort at health care and it also makes medical care no longer available to many people who once had access.

• Phone.
• e-mail (number is in the body of the e-mail).
• Internet (e.g., through a Website).
• In person, card always in your possession.

Most people would rank them this way:

• In person, card always in your possession.
• Phone.
• e-mail.
• Internet (e.g., through a Website).

Credit card companies rank them this way:

• In person, card always in your possession.
• Phone.
• Internet (e.g., through a Website).
• e-mail.

They even have a special name for when a card is used via a Website, "card not present."

The correct answers are:

• Internet (e.g., through a Website). This is by far the most secure. First, note that ALL credit card transactions involve sending your card data over the Internet. So you cannot get away from the Internet if you use your card at all. The key is to use a secure browser session and always go to the site yourself rather than click on an e-mail link. The data are encrypted to a level that is almost ridiculous.
   
• e-mail. The credit card companies prohibit merchants from accepting a card number sent this way. Their theory is the e-mail can be passed along from the destination or intercepted along the way. Very unlikely, unless you've made the mistake of using your ISP's domain as your e-mail domain. But this method is off-limits so don't use it.
   
• In person, card always in your possession. Anyone can take a photo of your card and get the data. That is not so if you are at home in front of your computer with no stranger looking over your shoulder.
   
• Phone. This is the least secure, of the ones listed. The data are totally unencrypted. Use only as a last resort. If you do give your card number over the phone, check that account daily for unusual activity.

The least secure way to use your card period is handing it to someone else. In restaurants, however, it is common practice to hand the card to the waiter, who then comes back with your receipt. To protect yourself, have one card that has a $300 limit (ask your card issuer for this specific card) and use only THAT card at any restaurant. If $300 won't cut it for you, then make the limit high enough to do the job (but no higher).

Also, have specific cards...

• ...that never leave your house and use only those for auto bill payment. Ideally, you'd have no more than two cards for this purpose.
• ...for other specific purposes. In addition to increasing your total available credit and thus your FICO score, this practice allows you to compartmentalize any damage without leaving you cardless while waiting for a new card to arrive.

Here are some eating and training myths.

• You should cook food on high heat to kill any pathogens. Actually, this kills the nutritional value (and taste) of the food. And it can render the food toxic. Searing meat, for example, loads it up with carcinogens.
   
• Only raw food is good. Some amazing foods, like sweet potatoes, must be cooked. My opinion here is that a significant portion of your diet should be raw. But leaving out cooked foods is a mistake.
   
• Carbs make you fat. No, carbs give you energy. This and the "fat is bad" thing contradict what bodybuilders and other athletes have proven about nutrition for decades now.
   
• Protein will make you lose weight. Not so. Just adding protein to what you already eat means you are taking in more calories. As I approach a photoshoot date, I actually reduce protein.

Photos taken 16SEP2016,just days before 56th birthday

• Don't eat fruit if you want to be cut, ripped, or shredded. Many competition bodybuilders eat fruit right up to showtime. I eat fruit every day, do I look fat to you?
   
• You can't build muscle without meat. Meat is not the only source of protein, and some very muscular people are vegetarians.

• Don't eat nuts, they are too fatty. I've been eating mixed nuts, a handful at a time three times a day for the past two months and am currently at 4% body fat as I write this. It's important to get enough quality fat in your diet.

• Eggs are bad because of the cholesterol. In fact, the cholesterol in egg yolks is one very good reason to eat whole eggs. Your stomach acid breaks it down into precursors of important hormones such as testosterone. Egg yolks are also loaded with vitamin D.
   
• You need to drink milk for the calcium. No, you don't. Bok choy is one of many foods that is a superior source (to milk) of calcium. Note that you need over twice the RDA of vitamin D for your vitamin D intake to be adequate. When it is adequate, your body uses calcium far more efficiently and you'll probably need only 30% as much.

To avoid making this too long, I just picked what may be the top three:

• You should always get the full range of motion when exercising with weights. You cannot get the full range of motion in a given exercise without sacrificing the adaptive response. Basic mechanical physics will show you this. Watch those lever arms and angles....
   
• Cardio is the best way to lose weight. Well, OK, maybe it is effective for losing weight because it is catabolic to lean tissue. But for losing fat, it is not a good approach. I am talking about cardio as normally practiced, not interval training or HITT.
   
• Muscles grow only when you exercise to failure. Actually, that just makes you tired and overtrained. Countless experts and title holders rely on the physiology instead of this harmful myth. You need to train hard to stimulate your body to replace the damaged muscle fibers, presumably with more and maybe bigger ones. Not that he would know anything about growing muscle, but 8-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney says you want to stimulate, not annihilate, muscles. Your body has only so much capacity for recovery. And who wants to be sore and tired all the time, anyhow?

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

As a child Barrack Hussein Obama was adopted by his mother's husband Lolo Soetoro. This legally gave him the name Barry Soetoro. There is no record that Barry ever had his name legally changed back to his birthname. Nor is there any record that Indonesian citizen Barry Soetoro ever applied for US Citizenship before relocating to the USA. Had he done so and been accepted, his poor grades would have precluded his attendance at Ivy League schools (the only way possible for him was the foreign exchange program).

Some people are so stupid, it's as if stupidity is like The Force in the Star Wars movie and they are Jedi Morons.