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Mindconnection eNL, 2017-04-23

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

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1. Good News

Item 1. Solar cell efficiency hit a new and significant record in March of this year. Read the full story here:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/efficiency-of-solar-cells-continues-to-climb

Item 2. The nation's second major political party (after the Demopublicans) is calling for a 100% repeal of the 1040 system. So the idea of ending this barbarism is now mainstream.

As I have pointed out previously, this system actually costs the federal government more money than it takes in. The point of it is not to raise revenue for the (pseudo) government, but to have a (very) thinly veiled mechanism to subjugate the population through systematic abuse and terrorism. The fact that The Party continues to abide this illegal and immoral terrorist group tells you all you need to know about whether to non-choose between Demopublicans or Republocrats. Vote liberty, vote Libertarian.

I contacted my Congressman's office about this issue, and the first thing the Aid said to me was, "Why don't you call Paul Ryan and tell him these things?" It turns out that my (Republican) Congressman, who has extensive experience in appropriations committee work actually did the math and brought this very subject up to Ryan. He was slammed down for it. So for practicality's sake, all we can aim for at this time is shrinking the footprint of the 1040 system.

For a seated Demopublican Congressman to also be advocating for ending this stupidity is quite noteworthy. And it's very good news.

Item 3. Almost beyond doubt, the end of Barry Soetoro's 8 year attack on America was the best news for this country in living memory. Adding to the good news is that President Trump's policies are already working. Even better than expected, too!

As reported even in the left-wing, reality-challenged, "The Week," the economy added 235,000 new jobs during Trump's first full month in office (February). Most of the jobs were in the private sector; 58,000 new construction jobs and 28,000 manufacturing jobs. Other sources reported the same number, it's just surprising that "The Week" decided not to lie about it.

Now if only President Trump would re-do his proposed budget so that it shows a surplus, that would really be good news. Unfortunately, it's got the same deficit figure as Soetoro's last "Make America Fail" budget.

Item 4. While Barry Soetoro still remains at large (bad news), the good news is his vicious attacks on America appear to be in hiatus. This could be the calm before the storm, but let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Item 5. A concerned citizen (guess who) sent a postcard to President Trump with this message: "If you're going to build The Wall, build it around Monsanto in St Louis. They put 30 million Mexican farmers out of work."

 

2. Product Highlight

ReadingPen TS Premium Reading Assistive Pen, WizCom

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Mobile, completely self-contained. Reading function requires no computer.

Helps with reading fluency and comprehension by providing immediate definitions from the American Heritage Children's Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Heritage College Dictionary, and Roget's II Thesaurus.

Watch the video!

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3. Brainpower tip

This article helps explain various forms of willful ignorance:
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/march/information-avoidance.html

Here's an extract:
We live in an unprecedented "age of information," but we use very little of it. Dieters prefer not to look at the calories in their tasty dessert, people at high risk for disease avoid screenings and people choose the news source that aligns with their political ideology.

The article doesn't explain libtardism, because that's a mental disease that involves several cognitive failures such as irrationality, non-sequitor analysis, and reading incomprehension in addition to gross and willful ignorance.

So don't take it as insight into how to help libtards become intelligence-enabled. Take it as insight into why non-diseased people can often be so close-minded and misinformed without meaning to. And as insight into helping non-diseased people have that little light bulb come on.

The broad definition of "willful ignorance" doesn't include intent to be ignorant, but instead is based on lack of intent to not be ignorant. This is where the non-diseased, but ignorant, often are. They are usually amenable to correcting this when it is pointed out in a civil and respectful manner.

Pointing it out indirectly is often the most effective means. You can do this by asking questions. So, for example, someone always votes Republican because of the abominable spending record that Democrats, in the aggregate, have. They don't want to look at individual spending records, and don't consider an alternative to the "lesser of two evils" non-choice. Rather than argue, you can get that person to consider new information by asking, "Why has federal spending increased no matter which 'party' was in control over the past 100 years?"


4. Finance tip

When he left office three months ago, Barry Soetoro left behind him an America devastated by his unrelenting attacks on the economy, civil liberties, and trusted institutions. And, of course, his job-destroying, cost-increasing train wreck of illegal legislation called Obummercare. This is much worse than farting just before getting off the elevator. Much, much worse.

At least his various "Czars" are now gone.

What is not gone is the $20 trillion debt that is dragging our economy down. Over half of this was incurred while Soetoro beat his spending drum for 8 years. This debt is toxic in many ways (and President Trump's proposed budget just adds more to it!), but let's look at one aspect. That would be the cost of the interest on the debt.

Let's say the Federal Government (FG) can borrow money at 1%. Remember, 1% is 1/100th. What is 1% of 20 trillion? It's $200 billion. In March (just last month) the Prime Rate was 4%. I don't know if this is what the FG pays, but if it is then we are paying $800 billion per year just on the interest on the debt.

The school lunch program costs less than $10 billion a year. So the interest on the debt is equal to more than eight years of school lunch programs. Think on that for a moment.

Now let's try to get a handle on this staggering amount another way. I did a quick check and found the median wage in the USA is about $50,000. Divide $800 billion by $50,000 and you find that 16 million people would turn over their entire salaries. Just to pay the interest on the debt. That's more than four times the entire population of Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the USA.

Here's a way to look at this large quantity:

  • $800 billion = $800,000 x 1,000,000.
  • $800 billion =$100,000 x 8,000,000.
  • $800 billion = $50,000 x 16,000,000.

By any measure, we are in deep doo-doo. On top of this, the various stock exchanges (collectively, "the stock market") are showing stock prices not supported by the underlying value of the companies. The stocks are "overvalued," or in English, "overpriced." A correction is due. A big one.

Not only that, what pretends to be a federal government did NOTHING about the factors that caused the 2008 derivatives fiasco, and the same morally bankrupt people are playing the same games today. The lisping libtard named Barney Frank helped inflict the Dodd-Frank Act, a travesty that does nothing except increase overhead on the part of financial services providers, which in turn increase costs to the consumers of financial services.

Why neither Frank nor Dodd went to jail is a mystery. They, like their derivatives gambling counterparts, are still at large. And still able to inflict legislation that takes stupidity to new extremes.

If you are feeling uncomfortable about your financial security at this point, good. That means you aren't pretending all is well, as so many people are dangerously doing.

What can you do to help protect yourself? Here are some tips:

  • Have you been getting phone calls from various "investment" brokers, commodity houses, etc.? If so and you've been hanging up on them, keep doing that. Do not listen to these sales pitches; they are designed only to separate you from your money.
  • Pay down credit card balances. Ideally, you will pay them off every month. Don't wait for a paper statement to arrive; sign up for e-notifications and pay off the statement balance as soon as you're notified.
  • If you make a large purchase, pay off the card within a few days. Yes, that does treat the card like cash and that is the point. This is not a time to rack up debt.
  • If you are contacted by the terrorist group known as the Institute of Reprobates and Sociopaths, refuse to deal directly with them. Contact your tax attorney.
  • What, you don't have a tax attorney with a Power of Attorney (POA) signed and on file? Don't wait until you get a 10-day notice from the Reprobates. Get that done this week, even if you have to take off work to do it.
  • Review your records, especially your tax records. Do you have everything you need to defend against an attack from the Reprobates, and is it all in electronic format for fast transmittal to your attorney? And do you have a backup on a removable drive and an offsite backup service?
  • Layoff-proof yourself. What you want to do is make yourself less of a lay-off target. Ask your boss how you might add value in some new way. Maybe there's a special project that needs doing or your boss has tasks he'd love to unload on someone else. Talk with your customers; is there something your company could do that would improve their experience? Now you have an idea for a project that can make you a star.
  • Get rid of junk and clutter. The less of this you have, the less likely you are to waste money by accumulating more. It also helps you keep a clear mind when your environment is clear. If you must move to take a new job, it'll be far easier without clutter to comb through.
  • Think. While you can't fix stupid, you don't have to be stupid. Stand out from the masses by deliberately using your brain.
  • Have a positive attitude. This has a slew of good effects. For one thing, it empowers you. For another, it draws good people toward you.
  • Network. Make those social connections, and not just in your industry as a job lead kind of thing. Try to expand your base of friends, real friends, by interacting with people who try to matter. The more robust your network, the more opportunities you will have for all kinds of things besides just job searches. Fun, for example. When networking, don't look for people who are like you. Look for people who differ from you and whose skills, outlook, and interests can fill in the voids left by your own. And vice-versa, you can be of service to others. In fact, the best way to network is to look for ways to be of service.


5. Security tip

A government unto itself.

The single greatest threat faced by the typical American today is a terrorist organization that pretends to be a government agency but is in fact a government unto itself.

If your "normal" government violates any of your enumerated Constitutional rights, you have a viable court case. But if this terrorist group does the same thing, not only are those rights completely waived but any mention of them gets you branded as a "tax protestor."

This terrorist group makes up its own laws, has its own "you lose, suckah" courts, and is not subject to the laws to which federal agencies or private citizens are subject.

The concept of "due process" to these people means if they process paperwork showing an absurdly high "debt," then it is due immediately.

How do you protect yourself? The same way you protect yourself from a laser-guided missile once it is launched. Yes, it really is that bad.

But you can sometimes thwart the launch. If you do not now have a tax attorney, don't wait until you are under attack before finding one. Typically, there's not enough time once the launch codes are entered.

Establish a relationship with a tax attorney now, before you get marked for abuse. One big advantage is that when you are going to that attorney for the first time, you are not going as "a criminal" but as a prudent person who doesn't have any problems and hasn't done anything wrong.

Some other tips:

  1. Keep good records. Back them up offsite (seriously, the terrorists can sieze your records and then use the fact you don't have them as evidence against you).
  2. When filing, mail in a paper version via Certified Mail. This way, they have to sign for it. If you file electronically, there's no proof they got it. So 20 years from now, you wake up to the sound of your door being kicked in and it's armed agents there to arrest you for failing to file 20 years ago.
  3. Don't play tax cheat games. IRS assumes everyone is guilty even after proven innocent, so once they lock onto you they will dig until they find something. Anything. Then they will blow it all out of proportion, and you stand no chance of defending yourself because, look, you're a liar and a tax cheat.
  4. Frequently remind your legislators of the need to defund and disband this terrorist group. This is very important, as it helps protect everyone.
  5. Never associate with any employee of this terrorist organization. Yes, some good people do work in it. But you want to reduce your exposure to attack. Don't risk making an innocent remark that gets repeated and then twisted into the very noose that goes around your neck.
  6. Never mention the "C" word when dealing with this terrorist group. That is, the Constitution. Since this terrorist group is a government unto itself, you must forget that you are (presumably) an American citizen and focus on the fact that you are--first and foremost--subject to the laws of this separate government. You have only the rights they give you. Just make sure you know what those are, and use them fully to your advantage. That's where a good tax attorney comes in.

6. Health tip/Fitness tips

A question many people have, especially about this time of year, is "What's the best way to lose weight?"

This question reveals a way of thinking about excess body fat that leads to unsustainable "solutions."

It's why, for example, people try one crazy diet after another. Even if they see short-term success, most people eventually fall off the diet and get the "rebound" effect. They may fall off due to how monotonous the diet is, how much hassle, the lack of good nutrition, or negative health effects that take a while to become apparent.

Many of these diets seem to work (at first) because people are actually eating less or because they are foregoing a few bad foods. But these diets do not solve the underlying problem, and they do create more problems.

People on these diets are trying to fix the fat with a "solution" to the wrong problem. The bulges of fat are not the real issue, the malnutrition that caused them is. Fix the malnutrition, and the body sheds that fat and it keeps it off.

Don't ask how to "lose weight." Ask how to make food choices that actually nourish your body. When you make the right choices, you'll lower your ratio of fat to lean mass.

Don't view a ripped physique as the goal of a nourishing diet, view it as a measure of one.

In a moment, I'll tell you how to avoid "diets" completely and how, instead, to eat in a way that is sustainable, enjoyable, affordable, and nourishing.

I want to touch on exercise for a moment. One "solution" fat people try is putting in treadmill time. Or maybe they take up jogging. If a lean body is your goal, these are (beyond a certain point) counterproductive pursuits.

Here is the core concept to understand: You are working with a chemistry set. It's called your endocrine system. The hormone levels controlled by that system determine whether your body catabolizes (eats) muscle and stores fat (this is what joggers get as a reward for their efforts) or whether it builds muscle, stores calcium in the bones, and burns fat.

There are two major ways to influence the endocrine system to control hormones at the levels that produce the healthy body you want to see in the mirror:

  • What and when you eat.
  • Muscle-loading to stimulate the adaptive response.
     

Let me quickly go over the muscle-loading, as that is a short discussion from a concept level.

Lose weight, be strong, burn fat, gain muscle

Lose weight, be strong, burn fat, gain muscle


Top photo taken 16SEP2016, just days before 56th birthday; bottom photo taken 3 days after 56th birthday

   
When I say "muscle-loading," I am talking about systematically putting enough workload on your skeletal muscles every day (except one or two rest days per week) to frequently trigger the adaptive response.

Your body always adapts to the stresses placed on it. The body wants to optimize itself for efficiency (meaning, usually, less muscle), but also must support the stresses it encounters (with proper training: more muscle, stronger ligaments, and denser bones).

So if you run half Marathons, what kind of stress are you putting on your body? It's a continued low-level, cortisol producing stress. Running slowly doesn't take much muscle, so to be able to run per the demand you're placing on your body this way--the body is going to catabolize muscle so there's enough to do the job but no more. It is going to need fat stores, since this is an endurance exercise.

Take a look at any world-class sprinter, and you see a totally different physique from that of a distance runner. Remember this example if you can't decide between spending long sessions at the gym or doing an intense (short and hard) workout. Yes, if your fat percentage is excessively high, the "long and fairly easy" kind of exercise will burn calories and bring it down. But it can't possibly bring it down into the healthy range. Meanwhile, you're banging up your joints (say hello to arthritis).

But wait. What about competitive bodybuilders who go for hypertrophy? They do long workouts. Yes, but you have to understand the type of workout when they are focusing on getting the pump for hypertrophy. They aren't obliterating the muscles, they are stimulating capillarization. They know how to do this without depressing testosterone or jacking up their cortisol.

These same people also do high-intensity sessions to build the strength needed for the hypertrophy workouts. And they aren't haphazardly jumping around "working out" randomly-selected muscle groups. They are strategic, working to a plan. They are systematic about it, which is why all bodybuilders use split-routines and most consistently train five or more days per week.

Don't confuse hypertrophy training methods with the cortisol-inducing kind. You want to stimulate your body to produce testosterone, not cortisol.

And that brings us to diet. Many people think "diet" is about calorie restriction. For lean body purposes that's not the case, except that you can't just massively consume calories. What really matters is what your body does with those calories. And that is controlled by your endocrine system. The more insulin this system is stimulated to produce, the fatter you will be (all else being equal).

Also, calorie restriction can trigger the starvation response. You definitely do not want that.

The typical American diet is very insulin-stimulating. Insulin depresses testosterone. The villains in this game are wheat, corn, and soy. And any products made with them such as the many corn-based sweeteners. I have totally eliminated these grains (and products made from them) from my diet and suggest you do the same.

Have you noticed I have not said to go low-fat, low-carb, or high-protein? None of that fits the science.

So you eliminate the insulin-spikers from your diet. Great. But you need carbohydrates, and you can still get an undesirable insulin response by eating too many at once. What body builders do is eat six small meals a day. This spreads the nutrients out, giving you better absorption and less stuff pushing your guts out while eliminating an undesirable insulin response.

But what foods "can" you eat? My definition of "food" does not include processed foods. Eliminate those from consideration. What is left? A massive array of nutrient-dense, delicious foods (plus maybe some not so great). With all the fantastic choices, the real question is what foods do you WANT to eat?

If you do a little research on foods with cancer-fighting properties and compile a list, you will come up with basically a list of what I eat. I found this out long after deciding what foods I need to eat  to have a lean, healthy body. It turns out, for example, the raw eggplant I eat every day also attacks colon cancer cells by three different mechanisms. The broccoli that helps increase my testosterone is a member of the brassica family; again, powerfully anti-carcinogenic.

Do you notice I am not talking about a restrictive diet? Go into the produce aisles and get whatever you want. Just make sure to get many different items, and the more colors the better (but a lot of green is good). Most of my food is from that area of the store. I refer to it as my health plan.

Outside that area, you will find other good foods. These include beans, rice, eggs, nuts, and various spices. What about beverages? Coffee and tea are good, for several reasons. Soda is so antagonistic to bone health that it should be banned, but it's not banned. Make sure you ban it from your home.

So you see, it's not complicated. It's a lifestyle change for those presently suffering under the typical American diet. Once you've made the change, you will never want to go back. I say that, because it would mean going back to being fat, getting sick, feeling tired, becoming progressively weaker as you age, and having really stinky stools.

Never again think about "losing weight." Think about having a healthy endocrine system. The results you want will follow.

 

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:
  • The best workouts are short and intense.
  • A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

7. Factoid

Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid (by hundreds of years). That gives you some idea about how long "civilization" has been around.

8. Thought for the Day

People who use dishonesty as their guiding principle have delusions of adequacy.

 

Please forward this eNL to others.

Authorship

The views expressed in this e-newsletter are generally not shared by criminals, zombies, or brainwashed individuals.

Except where noted, this e-newsletter is entirely the work of Mark Lamendola. Anything presented as fact can be independently verified. Often, sources are given; but where not given, they are readily available to anyone who makes the effort.

Mark provides information from either research or his own areas of established expertise. Sometimes, what appears to be a personal opinion is the only possibility when applying sound logic--reason it out before judging! (That said, some personal opinions do appear on occasion).

The purpose of this publication is to inform and empower its readers (and save you money!).

Personal note from Mark: I value each and every one of you, and I hope that shows in the diligent effort I put into writing this e-newsletter. Thank you for being a faithful reader. Please pass this newsletter along to others.


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