Mindconnection eNL, 2019-10-06

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

Item 1. The radicals who took over the Democratic Party pushed the Self Destruct button last month. While the impeachment, if it goes forward, will be rough on the nation it should result in a realigning of power within the Democratic Party. Pelosi was originally against this ill-fated adventure, but she gave in to the pressure.

Senator Jerry Moran had this to say, "Speaker Pelosi’s actions are a rush to judgment and were made before most of the facts were known. Absent concrete evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, Congress should not use impeachment proceedings to overturn the results of an election. Since President Trump’s election, Democrats have been trying to delegitimize his presidency, and unfounded impeachment of President Trump would only further fracture our already divided country."

Item 2. The impeachment could lead to investigations into Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton for actual crimes. The evidence in those cases is far from flimsy. Such blowback would be very good news, indeed.

Item 3. Our President does not appear to be guilty of any crimes, but he is certainly guilty of ignorance in the area of economics. The tariffs are clearly a bad move, and the good news is he's made some concession on that front a few times. So good news there. We are just waiting for him to check his ego at the White House door and admit he made a mistake. A case could be made that this is the real issue behind the impeachment; bad economic policy isn't illegal, so they are going after him for something else (even if they have to make it up).

Item 4. Heat pump sales have increased dramatically in recent years, and that is definitely good news. Read the full story here:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/heat-pumps-could-shrink-the-carbon-footprint-of-buildings

XPOWER A-2 Airrow Pro Multi-Use Electric Computer Duster, Canned Air Replacement

• By using the A-2 Airrow Pro, you will feel confident about not only eliminating the cost of canned air dusters, but freeing your home or office of toxic inhalants as well.
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Buy yours now.

• A. Yes.
• B. No.
• C. Need more information.

Select the correct response from above, and hold that thought. Now, you are probably thinking the answer is obvious and wondering why I would ask such a silly question. If you answered yes, then we are all liars. If you answered no, you jumped to a conclusion. Why are either of those statements true? For the same reason that C is the correct answer.

All of us lie for hours each day. The reason many people don't realize this is they use the wrong word to describe this particular act. They say "lay" instead of "lie" as in "I'm going to lay down". But they don't say what they are going to lay down. Lay down your arms, soldiers? What they mean to say is, "I'm going to lie down." All of us lie down for hours each day. All of us lie in our beds. But that does not make us liars.

Many people have heard "lay" misused in place of "lie" so much they don't distinguish between the two. Note that I used the future tense, earlier. Things get confusing with this word issue when we use the past tense, because "lay" is the past tense of "lie". But not the dishonest kind of lie. "Richie lay to me about that, he's so deceitful" (past tense here would be "lied") isn't correct. But this is: "I lay down last night and will lie down tonight, too".

English itself is flawed, and that doesn't help matters. Good command of vocabulary is important. Using a word that does not fit the thought you are expressing means you are thinking with the wrong word(s) and therefore your thinking is flawed. But what difference can it possibly make if you use lay or lie incorrectly? People know what you mean, can't they just be synonyms? Perhaps, but:

• It's still sloppy, and sloppy isn't good.
• Precise use of language leads to precise thinking, and ditto for imprecise. Choose words precisely when thinking, and you think better.
• This particular word issue is a shibboleth. Misusing lay/lie will differentiate you in a negative way. It's like wearing old, ratty clothes to a wedding.

I used this lay/lie confusion as an example, only. The takeaway here is you make yourself smarter by paying attention to your word choices. You won't just sound smarter, you will actually be smarter.

How can you improve your ability in this area? I used to advise people to read as a means of learning correct word usage. Unfortunately, the days of competent editorial staff for books and articles are long behind us. Vernacular or "street language" now dominates most of what people read. Think about the implications of that, for a moment. Today, we must be more selective about what we read since so much of it is expressed with wrong word choices. And much of what's written today is written by liars. I don't mean people who lie in bed each night, either.

I grew up at a time when most parents were instilling the Great Depression and war time shortage mentality into their children. Here are some essentials that save you money:

• JB Weld and Gorilla Glue. With JB Weld I've repaired some pretty big high-stress items, such as the center bar of a tumbler composter. Many people don't know how to epoxy and/or glue parts together. There is a technique, and the three most important factors are surface preparation, clamping/holding method, and being sure to exceed the cure time by a significant margin.
• Basic sewing kit. Re-attach buttons, repair hems, close small tears. So you rip a hole in an old pair of blue jeans. Rather than toss them for a new pair, sew on a patch and use those patched jeans for working on the car or doing other things that might soil your clothes.
• Adequate hand tool collection. If you don't have many tools, take the plunge here. Buy a rolling tool box that is pre-stocked.
• Basic power tools. Cordless drill, cordless screwdriver, cordless jigsaw. Maybe a rotary saw, also.
• Work lights. A head lamp, trouble light, and area light are all helpful.
• Ladder. A telescoping/folding ladder is multifunctional and will save you storage space.

Any time something breaks, research how to fix it. If you don't have the tools or materials, buy them. Sure, buying tools will set you back. But you'll recoup the money after only a few repair projects. Always make sure you understand the correct method for doing the repair, so that you don't end up calling a pro to fix your botched repair job or end up tossing the item after much frustration when you could have repaired it.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/identity-theft

Photo taken a couple of weeks after my 59th birthday.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

The traditional method is to sharply restrict calories and do lots of cardio. The "modern traditional" method also adds taking "fat burner" supplements. I'll explain the flaws in these methods, then share with you methods that achieve better results with less downside.

Traditional method

• Calorie restriction (sharp). Makes you hungry, saps your energy, saps your strength, risks putting you into "starvation mode", causes loss of muscle.
• Traditional cardio. For example, 45 minutes on a treadmill. This does nothing to improve your cardiovascular system. Its main effect is to train your body to conserve fuel.
• Fat burner concoctions. Most of these contain excessive caffeine and an illogical list of ingredients. They burn our your adrenals and  burn a hole in your wallet.

Modern traditional method

• Calorie reduction. Causes your body to stop storing fat and start using it. You may feel occasional hunger and you may lose some vigor for training. You may even experience a small reduction in muscle (but a much larger corresponding reduction in fat).
• Modified cardio. The goal here is just to burn some extra calories. So, for example, 20 minutes at moderate intensity on a treadmill is not going to train your body to conserve fuel. Especially if that time is punctuated by bursts of intense effort.
• Basic fat burners. Drinking 2 or 3 cups of coffee gives you the benefits of that caffeine without overdoing it. L-carnitine is the "night time fatburner" so take it periodically during the day and for sure before going to bed. Green coffee bean extract is a powerful fat burner with a low level of caffeine. Garcinia also helps burn fat. Various foods and herbs help, also. Any kind of pepper is good, but cayenne and black are noted for their thermogenic effects. Whole eggs are also good for fat loss, though a common myth is that you need to toss the yolks and eat only the whites (this wastes the best part of the egg and doesn't really help you get leaner).

Advanced method

• Calorie reduction with adjustments. A way to modify the downside is to reduce calories only on certain days, for example not on leg day or back day. You'd consume your normal calories on those days. On rest days, you would dip a little bit more, for example by skipping those mixed nuts or eating only half a sweet potato.
• HIIT. Like modified cardio, it won't train your body to conserve fuel. But unlike modified cardio, it really zaps that fat. The problem with High Intensity Interval Training is that it is high intensity, and that means you can't do it more than once or twice a week and keep up your other training.
• Basic fat burners, same as modern traditional.

Old school training method

Adding volume is a sure-fire way to lean down. For example, you can reduce your weight to add more reps per set. Or you can do more sets. Suppose you normally do four sets of an exercise, and try to crank out 12 reps per set. Add a fifth set, in which you use less weight and try to do 25 reps in good form. That's a lot of extra volume.

Arnold recently gave an interview in which he discussed how he and his contemporaries stimulated fat loss. One method was to stack their sets. So, for example, they would work biceps and triceps on the same day. The biceps pull, the triceps push. They would do their first set of a biceps exercise then immediately do the first set of their triceps exercise. This means two sets in a row. They would often do four sets in a row. So the rest period between two exercises is eliminated but the muscles being trained do get to rest.

Below is an example of how I modified my shoulder workout to make it more fat-burning. It's worth noting which exercises are combined into sets pairs and how the order has changed.

Normal

• Cable warm-ups
• Towel warm-ups
• Standing lateral partial raises, use heavy weight. High reps. 1 set.
• Seated lateral raises
• Overhead presses
• Rear delts, bands; low, medium, high (delt cable fly)
• Combo lateral, overhead
• Rear delts, bentover rows
• Upright rows
• Rear delts, lying on side
• Front raises

Fat-burning, volume stacked set version

• Cable warm-ups
• Towel warm-ups
• Standing lateral partial raises, use heavy weight. 2 sets.
• Seated lateral raises / Front raises
• Rear delts, lying on side
• Overhead presses
• Rear delts, bands; low, medium, high (delt cable fly)
• Combo lateral, overhead
• Rear delts, bentover rows / Upright rows

I need to comment on the partial raises. You can't exercise a muscle in only part of its range and expect good results. These partial reps are a way to work the delts harder at the bottom of the normal motion, so they can't coast on diminishing gravity. I do this before doing my normal lateral  raises, in which I go all the way up and all the way down on each rep. The partial reps before the real delt work "pre-exhausts" the delts in the extreme range where I might not otherwise work them hard enough. This practice also helps my mind tune in to my delts so that I am squeezing them rather than merely letting them respond to the weight.

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

Bonaparte Napoleon wasn't short. He was actually a bit above average height for his time.

When it comes to socializing, do you try to be interesting or interested? How do you feel when another person is interested in you? Answer that question, and you know which of these two ways works vastly better and making a positive impression.