Mindconnection eNL, 2017-12-17

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

Item 1. On the 6th of September, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a legislative package that included H.R. 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, and H.R. 4477, the Fix NICS Act of 2017. This is very bad news for violent criminals, but very good news for law-abiding citizens (including single mothers, who have often been the target of criminal protection policies such as those in New Jersey).

Item 2. Modular power blocks help with rural electrification. Read the full story here:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/modular-power-blocks-snap-together-to-scale-up-energy-needs-in-remote-areas

The C-Pen Reader pen scanner is major technological breakthrough for anyone learning English and is a life-saver for those who suffer from reading difficulties such as dyslexia. The C-Pen Reader is a totally portable, pocket-sized device that reads text out aloud with an English human-like digital voice.

Main features:

• Hear words and lines of text read aloud.
• Completely self-contained, no computer required to use reading function.
• Collins 10th Edition Dictionary onboard; look up scanned words.
• Optionally scan, store, and transfer to PC or Mac (1GB of storage, download to computer via USB with no additional software required).
• Optionally scan directly into a PC or Mac application (inserts text where the cursor is).
• Includes a voice recorder onboard.
• Includes rechargeable battery, which recharges when you plug the pen into a USB source (micro USB on pen).
• Sleek design.

Available now, in our Amazon store.

Just to be clear, I am talking about the clock change known as:

• Daylight Carnage time due to the spike in traffic fatalities and industrial injuries.
• Daylight Wasting Time due to the loss of an hour of sunlight in the morning.
• Daylight Stupidity Time due to the elevated levels of stupidity for weeks after the clock change.
• Daylight Savings Time by people who believe in the Easter Bunny or never read Orwell.

The sleep loss of this morally depraved ritual results in a massive drop in IQ that lasts for several weeks until the body can readjust to the new time. Take an IQ test three months into it when you've finally adjusted and are rested, and then again the day after the clock change and you'll see. Or just notice how fuzzy your mind is for weeks after you make the mistake of going along with this foolishness.

There are two ways to prevent this voluntary mental retardation:

1. Do not change your clocks, and keep your routine the same. This poses problems if, for example, you must clock in at work at a specific time. It also creates schedule coordination problems with other people unless you always express time in UTC and insist they do the same. It's hard enough to get people to express time in the 24 hour clock format, so the UTC thing is a rather hopeless cause.
2. Change your clocks, but adjust your routine by one hour. This puts you in synch with the lying about what time it is, but allows you to not subject your brain to the retardation process

I've been using a mix of these two solutions, migrating to the new time very gradually. But I am starting to think implementing the second is really the way to go. How does it work, exactly?

Let's say you normally get up at 0600 during standard time and the spring clock change makes that 0500. If you simply change your clock so that you get up an hour earlier in actual time (e.g., based on the sun's position not the clock's position) you will experience daily mental retardation until your circadian rhythm aligns with the new routine. This could take weeks, with occasional relapses for the next several months.

But let's say you keep one clock on "actual time" (it doesn't matter if this is standard or DWT time, the clock stays consistent) and change all your other clocks so they are lying about the time during DWT. You engage in your routine based on the real time clock.

An hour is a big chunk of time, so if you have to be at work at a given time where does that hour go? Don't you waste an hour during either DWT or standard time?

Not if you adjust your routine. Get up at the same actual time, either way. The DWT schedule will have to determine what time you get to work, because of the "hour ahead" thing so your actual time will have to synch with that as far as when to go to bed and when to get up.

During standard time, you are getting up "an hour early." That doesn't mean you leave for work at the same 0630 that you leave at during DWT. You change your routine to take some things you normally do in the evening such that you do them during this "extra time" in the morning. Then when you lose that morning hour during DWT, you shift those things back to the evening.

That is how you accommodate the government-mandated clock change when you have fixed appointment times to keep. It's a simple, elegant solution that requires minimal thought and planning.

There's no reason to volunteer for mental retardation. We already have an oversupply of retards, a fact you have surely noticed. Keep yourself sharp by adjusting your routine around the "lie about what time it is" ritual. Doing this will also improve your immunity to disease, especially those like Alzheimer's that are increasingly  being tied to chronic sleep deprivation.

Also, do not use an alarm clock to determine when to get up. Go to bed with sufficient allowance for proper sleep and you will wake up at the proper, determined time. Alarm clock use guarantees a significant drop in IQ.

www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-what-is-the-average-us-income/

Contrary to the lies you may have been hearing, the Tax Reform Bill recently passed by the House provides significant tax relief to the typical American wage earner (TAWE). Yes, many deductions are done away with, but because miscellaneous deductions must equal 2% of AGI relatively few TAWEs can ever itemize and use those deductions. Those who do itemize trigger an audit red flag.

The core of this TRB is it (almost) doubles the Standard Deduction to $12,000. That's an extra $6,000 reduction in your AGI. Your AGI is the sum of your income from all sources minus any adjustments or deductions.

Let's say you made the median wage. You take the standard deduction of $6300 and now you are taxed on $20,395. Basically, you make $6300 tax-free. With the new plan, you would take the standard deduction of $1200 so you are now taxed on $14,695. Basically, you make $12,000 tax-free. You pay 1040 taxes only on that $14,695.

Look at the proportions, there. $12,000 tax-free is huge for a person making barely more than twice that amount. For Warren Buffet and other very rich people, it's a rounding error. This bill is aimed squarely at tax relief for the poor and middle class. It doesn't do much for the wealthy.

People who made $12,000 a year had to pay 1040 taxes on $5,700. Now they will pay zero. Again, huge tax relief for the poor. The same benefit barely makes a dent in the tax calculations of the very wealthy.

Not only does every tax payer get a break financially (with the relative value of the break being enormous for the poor and middle class), the simplification of the 1040 means much less risk of an IRS attack. It takes millions of people out of that risk pool.

Regular waitresses, long a favorite target of IRS attacks because they can't fight back, will be automatically excluded because of the Standard Deduction. Same for retired people working part-time; no longer can IRS seize their entire life-savings because they choose to work for an extra grand a month part-time. Now with the Standard Deduction, those earnings are tax-free and thus provide no opening for a destruction campaign.

Please, going forward, do not listen to the whackos who are disparaging this badly needed and very beneficial reform. They are lying, and the only reason they are against it is because it's not an Obama plan or in some other way did not arise from the far left. Facts and logic did not enter into the formation of their view at any point.

Now, you can argue about the people at the margins. You can argue that you personally are losing some deduction (in reality, you are not--you get ALL the deductions automatically to a total of $12,000). But keep in mind the focus cannot be on outliers, it must be on those in the center of the distribution curve.

Another flippant argument is this bill will reduce federal revenue. That's gross ignorance talking. By reducing the footprint of IRS, compliance costs are reduced dramatically. That's waste that goes back into the economy instead. Several good studies have shown that simply eliminating the 1040 tax and IRS would cause a net rise in federal receipts. The reason is mostly the staggering compliance costs (up to 15X what the 1040 brings in). Those costs are paid with capital that would otherwise be used for productive purposes.

The USA badly needs reform of the 1040 system. Increasing the standard deduction has long been advocated as a simple and effective way to simplify the tax code, reduce the IRS footprint on the economy, and provide some tax relief to working class Americans. That's the heart of this bill, and the obstructionists offer nothing but empty arguments and outright lies.

This bill falls short of abolishing the IRS and the 1040 system outright, but it does much to alleviate the pointless financial damage caused by both.

Theresa Castro is an aggressive IRS agent with absolutely no moral compass.

In the early 1980s, she decided to latch onto a retired couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bales. The Bales case ended up in federal court, where the Bales won on all counts (I think there were 18 counts, but I forget). Yes, I am using her real name despite the risk to me personally in doing so. She belongs in prison, and perhaps some federal prosecutor will read this account and put her there. Thus, I am taking this bold step.

Even with some pro bono legal help, the cost of going to court was very high for the Bales. They were forced to sell their home (which I recall they owned free and clear) and move into a trailer. They also lost their retirement assets.

So they won, but they lost. IRS was not forced to compensate them for their huge legal bills resulting from a facetious case against them.

Theresa Castro, however, was not satisfied. She began hounding the Bales with phone calls and nasty letters. This, despite the fact a federal court had just ruled against IRS in favor of the Bales. Castro engaged in illegal collection activities, which I recall included running up every credit card the Bales had. She got the credit card information off the bank statements from the bank acct Bales had used to pay their 1040 taxes.

This action from Theresa Castro was hugely stressful for these two old people. And she kept it up despite receiving a letter from Mr. Bales' physician that he was showing signs of severe stress, his blood pressure was extremely high, and the likelihood of a fatal heart attack was consequently high.

Theresa Castro kept up the pressure and, predictably, Mr. Bales had a fatal heart attack.

This still did not satisfy Theresa Castro. Now that she had murdered Mr. Bales, she fixed her sights on his 83 year old widow. Mrs. Bales had an old car that she used to deliver Meals on Wheels. Even though IRS cannot seize a taxpayer's only vehicle, Theresa Castro visited Mrs. Bales at her trailer, beat her nearly unconscious, and stole Mrs. Bales' car.

Theresa Castro never went to prison for her crimes. Not the murder, not the grand theft auto, not the assault and battery. None of those or the other felonies she committed. In fact, she was never even indicted.

As far as I know, she still is employed by the IRS today. She was actually promoted for her "fine work" in collecting against the Bales even though that collection was blatantly illegal and her methods were blatantly immoral.

This is one case. There are many others. And don't forget the Hoyt Fiasco, in which 4300 innocent Americans were subjected to illegal seizures while IRS employee Kevin Brown and his cronies managed to make $103 million "disappear." I'm sure you can guess where it went. If not, just ask Kevin.

It is paramount that you have your checking acct(s) at a bank(s) other than one on which you have a checking acct from which you have written a check to "US Treasury." Else your assets, including your entire retirement nest egg, could disappear in a flash. And you have no recourse. It's not something you are likely to survive; IRS will not only steal all of your assets, but cause you to lose your job and be unemployable. And that's just for starters.

And don't forget that the IRS shelters psychopaths like Theresa Castro from prosecution. It actually rewards them for behavior that earns a non-IRS criminal life in prison.

Theresa Castro can steal your car and put you in the hospital, and she won't even be arrested for it much less indicted.

Let me close by underlining how immune from prosecution a psychopath can be just by dint of being employed by the IRS. In Michigan in 1984, a daycare center was falsely accused of owing additional 1040 taxes. While the case was in dispute legally, a gang of armed IRS agents descended upon the daycare center. They held the preschoolers at gunpoint, and insisted their parents pay for their release. In other words, it was an armed kidnapping. Of four year olds.

The local police chief ordered the criminals out. They refused. He called the county Sheriff, who was similarly rebuffed. The Sheriff called the governor, who sent in the National Guard. The National Guard forced the IRS kidnappers to surrender, cuffed them, and brought them in for arraignment. The kidnappers were released without being charged, after an IRS attorney informed the judge they didn't know kidnapping was a crime.

This story was released in the local news, and thereafter suppressed. Neither the parents nor the daycare center had any legal recourse for the trauma those kids were put through.

What is the solution to this IRS psychopath problem? Keep pressure on Congress to cut the IRS budget deeply. Eventually, we can remove this scourge from our society. In the meantime, protect your ass(ets) by not telling the IRS where your assets are. Make them get a court order, that's what our Constitution is there for.

I don't mean just the bodybuilders who compete in physique contests. I also mean athletes who train for sports performance and solid general conditioning.

Being vascular has its benefits. My vascularity gives me an automatic "no tour needed" and even sometimes no payment required when I visit a gym while out of town. I have instant recognition as a serious athlete and as someone who is going to help the gym's image just by being there.

I did not do any "pumping" prior to either photo that accompanies this article, but those veins are clearly visible and clearly big.

According to a recent survey of women, a big vein running down the biceps is one of the top things that women find attractive in a man. Speaking as a man, I find this attractive in a woman. I just don't see it much outside the climbing gym and since I weight train at home I don't see it in weight gyms except when I am traveling and use one. In public outside of these places, I rarely see it.

Not long after I took a job here (KS) in 1996, I was walking to the pool area at the company-provided apartment where I was staying when I saw a shapely woman approaching. What really caught my eye was she had large veins in down her biceps. Larger than mine.

So I struck up a conversation with her. It turned out she was a personal trainer. I signed on with her (mostly because I was so impressed with her looks--including that vein).

She is the one who started me on the split routine method of training, and I found it so much better I never went back to the circuit training I had always done previously. That change also led to significant improvements in my own vascularity.

Many people believe pronounced vascularity comes from "doing a lot of cardio." That conclusion, though wrong, makes sense because with cardio you are pushing a lot of blood and it would seem that would swell up your veins.

But it is not actually from cardio. In fact, cardio works against pronounced vascularity. For one thing, cardio is low-intensity, high-duration exercise. It trains your body to store fuel rather than burn it, another way of saying cardio makes you fat.

Covering your veins in fat makes them less visible, not more visible. So avoid cardio, tip number one.

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

But you still need the veins to have some size to them. Having small ones that are visible isn't quite the same thing.  You need to train your body to increase their size.

The physical training part is fairly straightforward. The key is intensity, not duration. Your body adapts to the stresses placed on it. If you hit it with 110% demand, it's going to run short of enough blood to meet that demand. The bigger the demand for instant flow is, the bigger must be the pipes to serve that demand. This is where vascular size comes from.

So you want to maximize the intensity of each set. That doesn't mean doing 20 reps (endurance), it's more like 3 or 4 really hard reps. This is the classic training style for strength training. Short and brutal. You can add in volume training for the last set or two, thereby flooding the muscles with blood. But remember that volume training does not mean easy reps either.

Let's say you do six sets for biceps in the mid-range position (you will need two other exercises, one at full extension and one at full contraction, to complete your biceps training). Let's say that instead of holding the dumbbell in front of you, you rotate at the elbows so your lower arms are at about 45 degrees to the side (upper arms still in the same traditional position). There's a "carry angle" for everyone, and for most folks in this exercise it's about 45 degrees. This angle makes this exercise much harder, which means you can use less weight. I like this approach, because it means I don't have to punish my tendons by using 55lb dumbbells for curls.

Now let's say you do set 1 with 35 lbs and you do each rep slowly. You get four good reps. A short rest, and the next set you crank out three good reps. You take a slightly longer rest, and get three good reps on the third set but it is very difficult. You pick up 30s and crank out four reps, each one feeling harder than the last.

Now your biceps have been stimulated, but not annihilated, for the adaptive response. You pick up a pair of 20s and perform medium-speed reps, trying to hit 15. You don't make it, but that's OK. You rest half a minute and try again. Maybe you speed up a bit because your arms are just out of steam. Hoisting those 20 pounders is not easy during these last two sets, your volume training "finishing" sets. But you are pumping blood and still stimulating an adaptive response.

Part of the adaptive response is going to be to increase the size (and perhaps quantity) of your muscle cells due to the mechanical exertion. But because you have also pushed these muscles into rapidly depleting their oxygen supply, your body will adapt with larger veins and arteries. Also you have all that waste you are pumping out during the volume training part and that is also going to stimulate some size improvement in those veins. Volume training does one thing that strength training does not, and that is it stimulates the development of capillaries within the muscle tissue; that is what gives competitive bodybuilders so much of their hypertrophy.

if you do anything other than high intensity training, you will fail to stimulate the increase in blood vessel size. There's no need for bigger pipes, because the existing ones deliver all the short-term demand blood supply that's called for.

One problem with high-intensity training is it's really hard work. Most people avoid it, but not for this reason. They avoid it because they don't understand what it is. Even some so-called gurus online talk about their "intense" workouts that last two hours. By definition, an intense workout is short. The mid-range biceps workout just described takes maybe 10 minutes. And anyone doing it the way I described is going to be breathing hard. You breathe hard because the body is trying to deliver enough oxygen but it can't. Thus the increase blood vessel size in response.

So eat right and train intensely. You'll have outstanding vascularity as a result. If you already eat right and train intensely, you're living proof of what it takes to be really vascular--congratulations!

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

IRS routinely spends10:1 or more to collect taxes that are not even owed.