Happy Up Here...
50 of the greatest guitar albums...
Turtle rapes a shoe...
Crocodile cloud...and a fish cloud...
Slick Rick the flight attendant...
If you liked the Watchmen...some comics to follow...
Introducing comic artist Lucy Knisley...
An invisible cloak made in China...
Stunning examples of long exposure photography...
Sad state of houses in Detroit...
How movie stars get paid...
Palindromic video...
22 of the most sensational midgets ever...
Chicken lays bowling pin shaped egg...
Spongebob likes big square butts...
Unique storage preserves golden age of TV...
100 women flash dance to Beyonce...
Art made from cassette tapes...
Burger grease art...
Don't like vaccines?...bring this form on the next doctor visit...
Speaking of vaccines...a real conspiracy here...
Beat the highway cops at their own game...
A tribute to Castlevania...
The only purse a woman ever needs...
Super Mario crochet blanket...
The return of Wonder Woman...
Cancer...and how it is killing us...
Mmmm...breakfast...
Mmmm...homemade bacon...
Awesome wine cellar...
And featuring the Kit Kat Jesus...
Unbelievable X-Rays...
Starbuck...the future dollar?
Beware the Death Star!
Cantina Band from Star Wars...on harp! (props to Boris)
Real life Pacman...
A book worth reading...as history repeats itself...
The real reason to keep the borders closed...
Now that is how you yo-yo yo!
The future of pinball is awesome...
Running shoes are a waste of money...go barefoot!
The many uses of vodka...
Cold wet pussy(cat)...
A 'true' shot glass...
How is your willpower?...read more here...
Fast food...advertisement vs. reality...
I love charts...
Fernando Vicente and his human art...
Food fight!
Muppet madness...
It may not be easy, but with the proper training and experience you can achieve results that seem nearly impossible.
No matter what success means to you, make sure you go for it with gusto. It has been my observation that nearly all of us set our expectations too low, usually because of fear or self-limiting beliefs.
Achieving your dreams really can be as simple as taking action, and taking good and appropriate action takes skills … most of which can be learned with a bit of time, patience and perseverance.
"Life Isn't About Keeping Score"
Life isn't about keeping score. It's not about how many friends you have. Or how many people call you. Or how accepted or unaccepted you are. Not about if you have plans this weekend. Or if you're alone. It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have. Or what kind of car you drive. Or where you're sent to school.
It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark.
It's not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everyone else thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy/girl likes you. . It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will "accept the written you".
But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It's about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It's about keeping or betraying trust. It's about friendship, used as sanctity, or as a weapon. It's about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It's about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to...
But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way that could never occurred alone. Only you choose the way these hearts are affected and those choices are what life is all about.
This is Kristos, reminding you to choose to help not to hurt, to love, not to hate
by Jim Rohn
One day Mr. Shoaff said, "Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job."
Since that time I've been working on my own personal development. And I must admit that this has been the most challenging assignment of all. This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.
You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, "What am I getting?" Instead, you should ask, "What am I becoming?" Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: What you become directly influences what you get. Think of it this way: Most of what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.
I've also found that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle.
If someone hands you a million dollars, you'd better hurry up and become a millionaire. A very rich man once said, "If you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was before."
It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development
So here's the great axiom of life:
--To Have More Than You’ve Got, Become More Than You Are--
This is where you should focus most of your attention. Otherwise, you just might have to contend with the axiom of not changing, which is:
--Unless You Change How You Are, You’ll Always Have What You’ve Got--
Audi 3.0 TDI Clean Diesel
| Audi's Günter Schiele elaborates on the 3.0 TDI's downstream exhaust emission control system, which reduces emissions by up to 90 percent. The system uses AdBlue, a biologically degradable, waterborne additive that is injected in small amounts upstream of the DeNOx catalytic converter. In addition to the catalytic converter, the exhaust emission control system comprises the metering module, the AdBlue tank and heated lines, as well as an extensive system of sensors. The additional oxidizing catalytic converter and the highly efficient, regulated diesel particulate filter round off the comprehensive emission control system. |
BBC Science and Nature: Space
The BBC has put together this comprehensive site on Space. The highlights include 'The Sky at Night' hosted by Sir Patrick Moore who has been your sky guide since 1957, 'Twinkle twinkle' where you can find out why the little star ditty is really true, 'Mars Travel Guide' where you can see some of the spectacular scenery on the Red Planet and 'Mission timelines' that will enable you to research the various space missions. There are also 'Games,' information on 'Life' and how life starts, 'Deep space' with a section on Black holes, Wormholes and Dark matter. Science and Nature definitely has something for everyone when it comes to the heavens!
LitLinks
"After reading a great story, poem, play, essay, or critical article, you may want to know more. The Internet provides all kinds of information to aid your research, so we've compiled LitLinks — annotated to show you what kinds of information about a work, its author, or period you'll find on each site" is the opening to this featured site. Now you have access to the resources you'll need for your in-depth literary research. The material is organized by authors within genres; as the introduction instructs, "Click on any category and enjoy the ride!" There is one note of caution: "It's important to keep in mind that using the Web is not the same as using the library; anyone with time, inclination, and a message to share can publish online, "so be sure to use this site in conjunction with the published resources." If instructions are followed, your ride will definitely be an informative one!
A widespread and silent killer that’s worse for your health than alcohol, nicotine and many drugs is likely lurking in your kitchen cabinets right now.[1] “It” is monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavor enhancer that’s known widely as an addition to Chinese food, but that’s actually added to thousands of the foods you and your family regularly eat, especially if you are like most Americans and eat the majority of your food as processed foods or in restaurants.
MSG is one of the worst food additives on the market and is used in canned soups, crackers, meats, salad dressings, frozen dinners and much more. It’s found in your local supermarket and restaurants, in your child’s school cafeteria and, amazingly, even in baby food and infant formula.
MSG is more than just a seasoning like salt and pepper, it actually enhances the flavor of foods, making processed meats and frozen dinners taste fresher and smell better, salad dressings more tasty, and canned foods less tinny.
While MSG’s benefits to the food industry are quite clear, this food additive could be slowly and silently doing major damage to your health.
What Exactly is MSG?
You may remember when the MSG powder called “Accent” first hit the U.S. market. Well, it was many decades prior to this, in 1908, that monosodium glutamate was invented. The inventor was Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese man who identified the natural flavor enhancing substance of seaweed.
Taking a hint from this substance, they were able to create the man-made additive MSG, and he and a partner went on to form Ajinomoto, which is now the world’s largest producer of MSG (and interestingly also a drug manufacturer).[2]
Chemically speaking, MSG is approximately 78 percent free glutamic acid, 21 percent sodium, and up to 1 percent contaminants.[3]
It’s a misconception that MSG is a flavor or “meat tenderizer.” In reality, MSG has very little taste at all, yet when you eat MSG, you think the food you’re eating has more protein and tastes better. It does this by tricking your tongue, using a little-known fifth basic taste: umami.
Umami is the taste of glutamate, which is a savory flavor found in many Japanese foods, bacon and also in the toxic food additive MSG. It is because of umami that foods with MSG taste heartier, more robust and generally better to a lot of people than foods without it.
The ingredient didn’t become widespread in the United States until after World War II, when the U.S. military realized Japanese rations were much tastier than the U.S. versions because of MSG.
In 1959, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration labeled MSG as “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS), and it has remained that way ever since. Yet, it was a telling sign when just 10 years later a condition known as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” entered the medical literature, describing the numerous side effects, from numbness to heart palpitations, that people experienced after eating MSG.
Today that syndrome is more appropriately called “MSG Symptom Complex,” which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) identifies as "short-term reactions" to MSG. More on those “reactions” to come.
Why MSG is so Dangerous
One of the best overviews of the very real dangers of MSG comes from Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon and author of “Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills.” In it he explains that MSG is an excitotoxin, which means it overexcites your cells to the point of damage or death, causing brain damage to varying degrees -- and potentially even triggering or worsening learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease and more.
Part of the problem also is that free glutamic acid is the same neurotransmitter that your brain, nervous system, eyes, pancreas and other organs use to initiate certain processes in your body.[4] Even the FDA states:
“Studies have shown that the body uses glutamate, an amino acid, as a nerve impulse transmitter in the brain and that there are glutamate-responsive tissues in other parts of the body, as well.
Abnormal function of glutamate receptors has been linked with certain neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's chorea. Injections of glutamate in laboratory animals have resulted in damage to nerve cells in the brain.”[5]
Although the FDA continues to claim that consuming MSG in food does not cause these ill effects, many other experts say otherwise.
According to Dr. Blaylock, numerous glutamate receptors have been found both within your heart's electrical conduction system and the heart muscle itself. This can be damaging to your heart, and may even explain the sudden deaths sometimes seen among young athletes.
He says:
“When an excess of food-borne excitotoxins, such as MSG, hydrolyzed protein soy protein isolate and concentrate, natural flavoring, sodium caseinate and aspartate from aspartame, are consumed, these glutamate receptors are over-stimulated, producing cardiac arrhythmias.
When magnesium stores are low, as we see in athletes, the glutamate receptors are so sensitive that even low levels of these excitotoxins can result in cardiac arrhythmias and death.”[6]
Many other adverse effects have also been linked to regular consumption of MSG, including:
- Obesity
- Eye damage
- Headaches
- Fatigue and disorientation
- Depression
Further, even the FDA admits that “short-term reactions” known as MSG Symptom Complex can occur in certain groups of people, namely those who have eaten “large doses” of MSG or those who have asthma.[7]
According to the FDA, MSG Symptom Complex can involve symptoms such as:
- Numbness
- Burning sensation
- Tingling
- Facial pressure or tightness
- Chest pain or difficulty breathing
- Headache
- Nausea
- Rapid heartbeat
- Drowsiness
- Weakness
No one knows for sure just how many people may be “sensitive” to MSG, but studies from the 1970s suggested that 25 percent to 30 percent of the U.S. population was intolerant of MSG -- at levels then found in food. Since the use of MSG has expanded dramatically since that time, it’s been estimated that up to 40 percent of the population may be impacted.[8]
How to Determine if MSG is in Your Food
Food manufacturers are not stupid, and they’ve caught on to the fact that people like you want to avoid eating this nasty food additive. As a result, do you think they responded by removing MSG from their products? Well, a few may have, but most of them just tried to “clean” their labels. In other words, they tried to hide the fact that MSG is an ingredient.
How do they do this? By using names that you would never associate with MSG.
You see, it’s required by the FDA that food manufacturers list the ingredient “monosodium glutamate” on food labels, but they do not have to label ingredients that contain free glutamic acid, even though it’s the main component of MSG.
There are over 40 labeled ingredients that contain glutamic acid,[9] but you’d never know it just from their names alone. Further, in some foods glutamic acid is formed during processing and, again, food labels give you no way of knowing for sure.
Tips for Keeping MSG Out of Your Diet
In general, if a food is processed you can assume it contains MSG (or one of its pseudo-ingredients). So if you stick to a whole, fresh foods diet, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll avoid this toxin.
The other place where you’ll need to watch out for MSG is in restaurants. You can ask your server which menu items are MSG-free, and request that no MSG be added to your meal, but of course the only place where you can be entirely sure of what’s added to your food is in your own kitchen.
To be on the safe side, you should also know what ingredients to watch out for on packaged foods. Here is a list of ingredients that ALWAYS contain MSG:
| Autolyzed Yeast | Calcium Caseinate | Gelatin |
| Glutamate | Glutamic Acid | Hydrolyzed Protein |
| Monopotassium Glutamate | Monosodium Glutamate | Sodium Caseinate |
| Textured Protein | Yeast Extract | Yeast Food |
| Yeast Nutrient |
These ingredients OFTEN contain MSG or create MSG during processing:[10]
| Flavors and Flavorings | Seasonings | Natural Flavors and Flavorings | Natural Pork Flavoring | Natural Beef Flavoring |
| Natural Chicken Flavoring | Soy Sauce | Soy Protein Isolate | Soy Protein | Bouillon |
| Stock | Broth | Malt Extract | Malt Flavoring | Barley Malt |
| Whey Protein | Carrageenan | Maltodextrin | Pectin | Enzymes |
| Protease | Corn Starch | Citric Acid | Powdered Milk | Anything Protein Fortified |
| Anything Enzyme Modified | Anything Ultra-Pasteurized |
So if you do eat processed foods, please remember to be on the lookout for these many hidden names for MSG.
Choosing to be MSG-Free
Making a decision to avoid MSG in your diet as much as possible is a wise choice for nearly everyone. Admittedly, it does take a bit more planning and time in the kitchen to prepare food at home, using fresh, locally grown ingredients. But knowing that your food is pure and free of toxic additives like MSG will make it well worth it.
Plus, choosing whole foods will ultimately give you better flavor and more health value than any MSG-laden processed food you could buy at your supermarket.
TOOLS FOR CHANGE
[W]e are changed by what we read. Close that book, and you are not the same person anymore. Because of what you just read, your worldview--your understanding, your compassion for others, your ability to engage intelligently with others--has expanded a little. Books help us grow….
Pat Williams
No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
Tom Schulman
Dead Poets Society
FREEDOM
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chief Joseph
Freedom is the right to choose the habits that bind you.
Renate Rubinstein
BELIEF
"So great has been the endurance, so incredible the achievement, that, as long as the sun keeps a set course in heaven, it would be foolish to despair of the human race." -- Ernest L. Woodward
"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right." -- Henry Ford
"It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action." -- Lin Yutang
"Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory." -- Norman Vincent Peale
"To be known and loved is a transforming experience. It calls us from skepticism to belief, from caution to action, from despair to hope." -- Larry J. Peacock
TRUST
"Only trust thyself and another shall not betray thee." -- William Penn
"Trust your hunches… Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level." -- Dr. Joyce Brothers
"Those who trust us educate us." -- T.S. Eliot
"No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power." -- Charles Caleb Cotton
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." -- George MacDonald
Today's Quotes
Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence.
When you fall in a river, you're no longer a fisherman; you're a swimmer.
Gene Hill
Writer and editor
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
Educator
LIFE LESSONS
You can get all A's and still flunk life.
Walker Percy
Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
James Baldwin
I've always admired Matt Taibbi's writing and I've followed his byline from his hilarious early efforts at The eXile, a Moscow-based free paper for ex-pat Americans to his stint at The NY Press, and now at Rolling Stone, where he's been published for some time. Jann Wenner's smart patronage of a fine writer like Taibbi is ample proof of Rolling Stone's continuing relevance in a world of 24/7 news cycles and instant internet publishing. This article is Taibbi at his best. It takes no prisoners! The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses). So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream."The Big Takeover: A Must-Read from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi
It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.
by Samantha Buker
April 21, 2009
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.
Why Tea Time Won’t Work This Time
Not only was this populist tea fest diffuse, it was also as much a same-old “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” game. Everyone was attacking Obama either explicitly or implicitly, when the whole boondoggle — and the thing you’re paying $42k for — and seeing 25-cent returns on the dollar for — started way before he ever took that oath to the Constitution. We’ve really got to grow up, get smart, and dig ourselves out of the manure heaped on us. Seeing Network last weekend made me wonder, did we ever even begin to get away from the Carter-era slump? Or did we just get buried under a pageant of free-market falsity, global asset bubbles, and great showmanship? (We went on to elect an actor in 1980, after all.)
Is it just a simple matter of “voting all the bums out” — as a few signs advocated?
I don’t believe in man qua corporation as having a soul — and that’s a sticky snaggle for libertarian conversions in my book. We’ve got these corporations on our hands. Lots of them. And we’re saving them right now. Of course, we don’t wanna, because in the world according to Darwin, they don’t deserve it. And that’s what a couple of signs said.
Yet other than taxes, what pitchfork have we with which to attack this capital gains-loving Marie Antoinette of Manhattan? If one were to write Revelations today, one could send the Whore of Babylon with Roman corruption and kings at her breast into early retirement. The Whore of Manhattan, we’d make, with Blankfein and Vikram, sucking away.
Examine this pseudo-biblical snatch from Network and its corporate demon, Arthur Jensen:
“Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx?…We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that...perfect world...in which there’s no war or famine, oppression, or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will h old a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”
You see, tea baggers, We the People are not the Geneva-loving Rousseau’s Corsica or Poland, starting with a new constitution afresh. We have no democracy. We have only the media, chattel of the corporations that are hoping to eek one last ounce of profit from the old dead horses called newspaper and broadcast TV. Why do you think we see so much of Obama on our late night and Geithner on our sacred Sunday mornings?
How do I know that Mr. Jensen’s speech is not what pure libertarianism would look like if thrust atop this ugly, brutish state? Would I be happy there? Would I be tranquilized?
I’m thinking the best you and I can do, dear reader, is defect…make nice paper-dollar profits on the IBMs and Dows and their tiny brethren…and depart after turning it into gold. Go somewhere with cheap land…and buy cattle, sheep, goats.
After all, who among us really has the nads, the arms, or sufficient belief in mankind to rewrite the social contract of these United States?
(Hush, Texans like Rick Perry, we hear your clamor…but do we believe it?)
How the Rest of the World Sees Tea Baggers
Always ask: What do our fellow nation-states make of all this? After all, what is diplomacy but a massive PR campaign? And how will we know which country will harbor us gold-bearing exiles the best?
Here’s a headline courtesy of Agence France-Presse: “Anti-Barack Obama ‘Tea Party’ Protests Mark U.S. Tax Day.” The article juxtaposed the words “modest crowds” with “several thousands.” It admitted the protest had a “catchy theme,” but questioned the strength of the “mostly Republican forces” whose party has “been in disarray since Sen. John McCain lost the White House” — a party whose senior figures “appear lukewarm” to the tea parties.
Maybe that’s just because they have issues with verbal jokes that mix them up with “tea bagging” — the sex act — which we all laughed about the morning after. Strategically, there’s no reason for the Republicans to ignore the voice of the Ron Paul fringe, which is getting louder…they’re still doing worse than Obama in Gallup polls, and they’re up for re-election first.
We all know it’s good to ride the faux-populist express… Just look at who ran it straight up to the door of the White House last year.
I know die-hard Dems who voted Reagan into office his first year…for fiscal conservatism, and fiscal conservatism alone. Look how well that turned out! Running from one platform and party to the other is as dizzying as a dog chasing its own tail.
Americans need to stop being twits first and foremost. Posthaste, Patriot…keep your brain for yourself!
Regards,
Samantha Buker
P.S.: An unfortunate slip of dyslexia had us write “324” crates of tea were bashed up by the Sons of Liberty. So as not to offend history stalwarts, we amend that number: it’s 342. [My fault—ed.] If you want the amount of tea in tonnage...know that we’re talking about 45 tons of tea the colonists refused to drink.
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