Tidbits From The Web #42

Amazing car fire rescue...
Does the news need a bailout?
The Ultimate Vending Machine challenge!
Easily depicting our current economic crisis...
More braaaiiiins...
Sith Lord timeline... (*editor's choice*)
A tribute to Obama and his administration...
Funny People...
Remember the states are not branches of the government...sovereignty!
Hot girl POV...
The perfect choice for Chun Li...
She's blunt and to the point...
All you need is love...
Soccer goalie sinks 90 foot goalllll...
Boy loves his almost 90 foot python...
Forgotten NYC streets...
The 4 stages of man...
How not to do a backflip...
Exceeding the power of almost 9000 stars exploding...
The dark universe exists...
A deer and a kitten...
Lego snowman...
Coolest business card ever...
A weird and evil Christmas commercial?
Ninja granny!
Best subway ad...
Guy loses job...wins $2 million dollar house...
The housing chart worth a 1000 words...
In celebration for the depression of our economy...
The Orion Nebula...
Looking back...Conan's most WTF?! moment...
And while we're at it...Conan's top 10 moments...
Things gamers wouldn't have believed could happen in 20 years...
The top 10 boss battles...
World's wackiest restaurants...
Ladies and gentlemen...it could get ugly soon...
Wait for it...wait for it...forklift accident!
Anti-drug program endorsement...
Legalizing MJ in NJ?
Hey man...nice shot!
Rihanna Garbage Kids FAIL!
Vader's got game...
You gonna light that pipe?
How not to sell Rock Band on eBay...
How not to jump over stairs...
Finally...it sucks being at the wrong place at the wrong time...





Anecdotage

Calling all anecdote junkies from around the world; Anecdotage has anecdotes from 'Gates to Yeats!' This site is the result of a frustrated anecdoter's Google search for a quote attributed to Winston Churchill. "According to Google, the preferred search engine among the blognoscenti, the search in question 'did not match any documents.' Come again? Google - a tool which might, for example, yield 150+ results for a search on "Fork in the eye" or "musical toilet seat" - returned no results!?" This explanation is indicative of the many anecdotes documented on this site. As the editor further states, "We are currently home to several thousand humorous and/or inspirational items covering everything from acrobats and acronyms to zippers and zoos. We aim to remain 'The World's Widest Web of Celebrity Anecdotes'!" However, be forewarned: "If the information glut can be likened to the danger of eating too much, anecdotage... is like scarfing down too many sweets: It is a short-cut to quick pleasure and short-term satisfaction, but ultimately it can be unfulfilling, and even dangerous - 'empty calories' that can disturb a nutritious regimen." Enter at your own risk; remember, no lawsuits allowed for you overeaters!


Dermasol Thermoplastic Elastomer

Dermasol is a new thermoplastic elastomer that feels remarkably like real human flesh. It can be made in any color (including clear), any shape and almost any durometer (hardness). It is especially useful for simulating tissue in organs and body structures for practicing operations and medical training. For over 20 years, California Medical Innovations has been formulating and compounding natural rubber latex, plastisols, and thermoplastic elastomers.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF


I've gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.

Joan Mills


To feel valued, to know, even if only once in a while, that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

Barbara Walters

THOUGHTS/THINKING

"Every now and then go away…for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"It’s not about what happens. It’s about perspective.
I may not be able to change what takes place, but
I can always choose to change my thinking." -- Michelle Sedas

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what is read ours." -- John Locke

"Thinking is not taught in schools!" -- Denis Waitley

"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
- Marilyn Manson

"To truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America."

-- President Barack Obama

I Wish...

A man walks up to the bar with an ostrich behind him, and as he sits, the bartender asks for their order.

The man says, "I'll have a beer" and turns to the ostrich. "What's yours?"

"I'll have a beer too" says the ostrich.

The bartender pours the beer and says "That will be $3.40 please," and the man reaches into his pocket and pays with the exact change for payment.

The next day, the man and the ostrich come again, and the man says "I'll have a beer,"

The ostrich says "I'll have the same."

Once again the man reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.

This became a routine until late one evening, the two enter again. "The usual?" asks the bartender.

"Well, it's close to last orders, so I'll have a large Scotch" says the man.

"Same for me" says the ostrich.

"That will be $7.20" says the bartender.

Once again the man pulls exact change out of his pocket and places it on the bar.

The bartender can't hold back his curiosity any longer. "Excuse me, sir. How do you manage to always come up with the exact change out of your pocket every time?"

"Well," says the man, "several years ago I was cleaning the attic and I found this old lamp. When I rubbed it a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes. My first wish was that if I ever needed to pay for anything, I just put my hand in my pocket and the right amount of money will be there."

"That's brilliant!" says the bartender. "Most people would wish for a million dollars or something, but you'll always be as rich as you want for as long as you live!"

"That's right! Whether it's a gallon of milk, or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there," says the man.

"That's fantastic!" says the bartender. "You are a genius! Oh, one other thing sir, what's with the ostrich?"

The man replies, "Oh, my second wish was for a chick with long legs."

Whiskey & Gunpowder
By Dan Denning
February 6, 2009
Melbourne, Australia

The Real Causes of Depression

Let’s dispense with the usual recap of bad news today and go straight to more important matters, like the weather.

“Is that rain?” asked a co-worker the other day.

“No. It’s the sound of leaves blowing down the street,” we speculated.

And it was.

Huge drifts of leaves have accumulated on the footpaths in the past week, swirled around by the wind and piling up in banks along the street. All the leaves on the plane trees that line Melbourne’s streets seem to have died at once during last week’s heat wave. Normally, in the autumn, the leaves fall at a statelier pace. The days get cooler and the seasons change at a more natural rhythm.

But not this year. They fell all at once. The whole natural cycle was condensed into just a few days, thanks to the heat wave that scorched the trees last week. And alongside huge piles of dead leaves burnt brown you’ll find the occasional dead brown possum.

We stumbled on three the other day, walking up St. Kilda Road. It’s a veritable banquet of organic matter for the flies. The poor little possums lay on the ground, their prehensile tales curled up in a tidy little spiral. By the looks of things, dead possums do not bounce.

The plane trees are not native to Australia (they were imported from Britain to Victorianise the place). The possums ARE native. But neither one is suited to the kind of extraordinary heat that set upon the city last week.

Sure, there are hotter places in the world. But if something is designed to live in one environment and finds itself in another, it probably won’t last long if it’s not adaptable. Tomorrow is expected to be another 43-degree day in Melbourne. Which brings us to the economy.

Recessions are perfectly natural in the business cycle. Human beings take risks with borrowed money during a growth phase. Some risks pay off. Some don’t. A recession is a reckoning up of the risks. The bad investments are liquidated, asset values readjust, and the next cycle begins.

You can only get a depression when the government and the monetary authorities take unusual steps-driven by political motives-to prevent the natural process of recession. This is why today’s policy moves are setting us up for a Depression. And it’s not the first time.

It’s widely believed that the Great Depression had its origins in the slow response of the Fed to the banking collapse that followed the stock market crash. That failure, so the theory goes, was followed by too little fiscal innovation and government spending by then U.S. President Herbert Hoover.

But all of that claptrap is exactly wrong, we humbly suggest. The Depression was a foregone conclusion the minute the business cycle was hijacked by manipulation of the credit cycle. A recession is natural. A Depression is always man-made.

That’s right; the origin of the Depression is in the credit boom that preceded it. The credit boom of the 1920s made it inevitable that the natural rhythm of the business cycle would be amplified and made more severe. The boom was boomier. The bust was...worse than it had to be.

It was made worse by government policies that put America into debt, allocated capital in the most inefficient hands possible while crowding out business investment, and locked in wages and prices higher than they ought to have been, further delaying the vigorous rebound in employment and wages you usually get in a recovery.

To repeat, recessions are a natural and unavoidable part of the business cycle. Depressions are the bill you pay for trying to avoid recessions with even looser monetary policy and more government spending to stimulate consumption. What you need is a cleansing break. What you get is a money-induced fever of pointless economic activity, full of noisy cash registers, signifying nothing.

So here we are on a Friday, waiting for the Depression. How seen we get one depends, in some small part, on what Timothy Geithner comes up with next week and world stock markets receive it. Geithner unveils his plan to rescue America’s banks and get the credit crisis behind us on Monday. It had better be a good plan.

What can you expect? Well, for one, we’d be really surprised if there wasn’t a suspension-at least for a period-of mark-to-market accounting. This would prevent the banks from having to realise losses on securities they don’t intend to sell, but are currently held on the books at values well below market value.

Another element will be buying “toxic” assets from the bank. At what price? You’ll find out soon enough. It probably won’t be fair value. But it won’t be so far below fair value that it forces the banks to realise huge losses and require even larger infusions of taxpayer capital.

Not to be a stick in the mud, but do you get the feeling that the Feds are already one or two steps behind in the game of “prop up the falling asset values”? Bloomberg reports that, “Moody’s Investors Service is reviewing the ratings of $302.6 billion in commercial mortgage-backed securities as real-estate values drop and property owners fall behind on payments.”

Yes. It all feels a bit like the chart below. It’s the dreaded “Black Swan Formation.” We have asked Swarm Trader Gabriel to take a look at it and will let you know next week what he has to say.

Finally, we have been dodging the question of how you deal the infinite growth in a system with finite resources. We’ve been dodging it mostly because it’s such an abstract and theoretical subject that we fear we will bore you to death, and it is not good to kill your present or future customers. But since we are fundamentally optimistic about the answer, let’s push on!

The answer is in the architecture of the system you’re talking about and the energy inputs it requires. We have a global economy that’s developed a great deal of complexity thanks, in part, to an abundance of credit. It’s a system of systems built on two key inputs: credit and energy.

The more important input to the current world order is cheap energy. It began when Colonel Edwin Drake drilled his first oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1858. The world has never been the same.

With the huge amounts of energy available from petroleum came the Industrial Revolution, the acceleration of the division of labour with mechanisation, dramatic increases in agricultural yields (allowing for a major structural shift in employment as fewer people were engaged in growing food and more in making things), the growth of large urban population centers (and later the exodus to the suburbs and the housing boom as the cities went bad), and all the many capital investments and institutions that are somehow related to the fact that energy has been cheep and abundant for the last one hundred fifty years.

So is all that really collapsing now because of the fundamental physical limits on the amount of energy we can get from oil? Can an economy that’s evolved around oil as the chief energy input survive when its rate of growth has been so artificially accelerated by easy credit and fractional reserve banking? See. We told you. It’s a pretty ambitious question.

John Robb posts an answer over at his Global Guerillas blog. Robb quotes from Joseph Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. “The method of collapse favored by Tainter as a tipping point is defined by a fundamental change (assumption level) in the underlying costs of running the society. He maintains that every great society is driven to the heights of its organizational potential by leveraging a ‘free’ (for all intents and purposes) energy input.

“Unlimited access to this energy resource allows them essentially ‘free’ problem solving and rapid recovery from mistakes. However, once that ‘free’ energy becomes erratically available or expensive, the cost/benefit equations of many (if not most) of that social system’s evolved solutions turn decidedly negative. Collapse, at that point, is inevitable. In our case, this ‘free’ energy input would be fossil fuels (the negligible cost of which underwrites all social solutions).”

In a closed system, the amount of energy available to you is finite. In an open system, it is not. The Earth is an open system. Energy rains down on the planet everyday in the form of solar radiation. We do not, however, have a global economy that’s scaled to live and produce off this kind of energy.

Your editor’s guess is that we are headed to a fundamental reorganisation of the world’s economy that will be driven by how we get and use energy. The current system of production is based on cheap energy for the production of goods which are consumed with the help of cheap credit.

A graph of the growth of Wal-Mart stores across the U.S. from 1965 to today (where Wal-Mart became the largest private employer in America) reminds us of that scene in War Games with Matthew Broderick.

Only in the Wal-Mart example you have little nuclear explosions of consumerism. They should probably be red though, instead of green, those “store strikes.” America bombing itself to debt by cheap Chinese goods imported on container ships (efficient transportation) and distributed via Wal-Mart’s warehouse network (cheap energy and good logistics).

Add to this whole system the historically cheap cost of labour inputs (mostly in the Far East), and you have a global system buckling under its own excess and complexity after an enormous but abnormal rate of growth and innovation. As Bill points out below, creative destruction is a normal part of the business cycle. It’s essential, in fact.

And while the Austrian theory of the credit cycle is becoming vogue now for its successful prediction that a boom in credit leads to a later bust, a lot of Austrian theory is also focused on entrepreneurship and human action and wealth creation. If you spend some time in that part of the Austrian textbook, you might actually be encouraged about the future. Why?

Entrepreneurs love recessions. Not only is it a chance for investors to buy assets at a discounted price, it’s a time of reorganisation of economic life. People still have everyday wants and needs. And in a recession, there is much less competition. Most people are inclined to be conservative and take fewer risks with their capital.

This is why the entrepreneur is the hero of Joseph Schumpeter’s capitalism. The capitalist provides surplus capital. But real business innovation and risk-taking comes from the entrepreneur. During a recession, he can form a long-lasting relationship with his customers. But what does that have to do with the current situation?

For the better part of one hundred years global trade has expanded, bringing more and more people into the world trade system. We suspect now that it must contract and eventually reorganise itself into smaller, more scalable systems. These smaller systems will produce and use energy more efficiently because they have to.

Of course no one is sure what it will look like yet. But it’s likely to be a lot different than what we’re used to. It will have to be, if we’re going to successfully adapt. We have an idea of what the characteristics of these smaller systems will be and will tell you about them next week.

But from an investment perspective, your Permanent Portfolio ought to maintain some small allocation of capital for aggressive growth stocks, especially in the energy space. They will be key to the success of any system which evolves out of the disintegration of the present one.

So yes. In a closed system without new energy inputs, there are inescapable limits on growth. We reckon the rate of growth is about to slow down dramatically (contract) as the complex systems and institutions supported by cheap credit and cheap energy collapse. But this does not mean we plan on finding a cave to hide in so we can curl up and die.

Far from it. There is only one way through a time like this. You have to have a plan. You have to use your own brain. And you have to have some idea of what’s coming so you can put yourself in a position to avoid the calamity and profit from the opportunity.

All easier said than done. But what else are you going to do? Wait for your government check? More on “The Plan” next week. And in the meantime, keep an eye on the efforts of the people who have the most at stake in the current system-the banksters and the Feds-to keep it alive. We reckon there is only one logical way for them to go.

Peace, love and happiness...until next time...

Tidbits From The Web #41

The HD Simpsons opening...
In remembrance of Heath...
Do you know your professional symbols?
What your voice says about you...
Transformers...more than meets the eye...
Early childhood stress lingers later in life...
Oo-de-lally...
There's a new face on the quarter...
A new mummy found in Egypt...
Cutting it a tad close aren't we?
Would you pay for your news?
Tech that changed the world...
Bill Gates unplugged...
A look at the new GTA...
Tumeric...the super spice...
The San Francisco Knights...
Introducing...the Borneo Monster...
When toddlers have hockey brawls...
Dr. Emmit Brown would be proud...
Chunk from the Goonies...all grown up...
Comet Lulin is leaving the building...
Cool skateboard art...
How to eat locally in the wintertime...
Leaving it all behind...
The dangers of Twittering...
Facebook is destroying kids' brains...
Schools are destroying creativity...
Oh my dear deer...
Weird MP3 players...
If you are looking for a job...10 resume fixes...
Align your chakras...
Sex as exercise...
First came the Sims...now there is SimAnimals...





National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in the summer of 2004 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since that time, over 900,000 folks have toured the exhibits and participated in the programs. The site offers sections on 'Underground Railroad,' 'Slavery Today,' 'Genealogy and Family Search' and an 'Expand Your Knowledge' area that defines 'Outreach Programs,' 'Educator Resources,' 'Public Programs' and 'Youth Development.' As one visitor explained "Freedom should be like the air that we breathe. Always there, but totally invisible." Tour this site so you'll be better able to formulate what freedom means to you!

Refining the heart model

An animated 3D CAD model of the human heart put together by a team of U.K. doctors is so realistic its four chambers beat in the same asymmetrical rhythm as a real heart. It's expected to improve doctor training.

Full Article




If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
-- Yiddish Proverb

Sometimes the best helping hand you can get is a good, firm push.
-- Joann Thomas



TIME MANAGEMENT

“To get all there is out of living, we must employ our time wisely, never being in too much of a hurry to stop and sip life, but never losing our sense of the enormous value of a minute.” -- Robert Updegraff

"This time like all times is a very good one if we but know what to do with it." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When you kill time, you kill your opportunities for success." -- Denis Waitley

"Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back." -- Harvey Mackay



"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door."

- Paul Beatty

	Today's Quote No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. -Francois Muriac

DIGNITY

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

Aristotle


True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honors are withdrawn.

Philip Massinger

The DesktopGaming web site has created hundreds of retro gaming wallpapers by ripping screenshots from emulated games—and then spicing them up with some photoshop goodness to fit today's giant monitor sizes.

Here I am sharing some favorite retro wallpapers from the DesktopGaming site—starting with this one from Super Mario Bros 3 All-Stars edition.

Donkey Kong Country makes for a nice wallpaper.

Some of the wallpapers are designed to fit across multiple monitors, like this one from Super Mario 2.

A little Earthworm Jim action for you?

Chrono Trigger is one of my all-time favorite games. How many endings did you beat?

Yoshi's Island, not my personal favorite but a nice wallpaper.

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! was difficult—could you beat it without a cheat code?

Final Fantasy 3 is another favorite.

Duck Hunt is about as classic as it gets. That dog was seriously annoying.

The DesktopGaming site has plenty of other freely downloadable wallpaper images to choose from, organized by game system and resolution—so you can look for your own nostalgic gaming wallpaper.

DesktopGaming

TechRepublic Geek Trivia

Geek Trivia: Shuffling the (flight) deck

In 2010, the Space Shuttle program will conduct its final spaceflight, finally retiring the three-decades-old spaceplane and clearing the decks for cutting-edge human spacecraft technology -- which is based on four-decades-old space tech. Welcome to Project Constellation, which is known colloquially as "Apollo on steroids" since it reverts NASA's manned spaceflight profile to the rocket-and-capsule paradigm that defined the agency before the Space Shuttle came along.

Don't take that to mean that Project Constellation will be using nothing but 1960s-era transistors and magnetic tape drives. While it's unlikely we'll ever see a return to the heady days of the Apollo Guidance Computer (which was arguably the most advanced portable computer ever built when it first went into space), it doesn't mean that Constellation won't be using some seriously modern tech.

The main crew vehicle for Constellation will be the Orion spacecraft, a manned crew capsule that will dock in orbit with other Constellation systems, including the proposed Altair landing vehicle, the latter of which is somewhat comparable to the Apollo Lunar Module. Orion, for its part, will be a vast improvement over Apollo capsules, not least because it will accommodate four to six crew members, rather than Apollo's three. As to specific technical advances in the Orion capsule:

• An automated docking system similar to those on the Russian and European unmanned cargo vehicles that resupply the International Space Station.
• A combination airbag/parachute landing system that will allow Orion to touch down over sea or land -- just as the Russian Soyuz capsules do -- rather than being limited to a sea landing, as was the case with previous American capsules.
• A mixed nitrogen/oxygen in-flight atmosphere to decrease the likelihood of fire.
• A zero-gravity "camping toilet" based on those aboard the ISS, eliminating the need for the infamous Apollo relief bags.

Of course, not every system improvement made between the Apollo and Orion capsules is based on that of other modern spacecraft. In fact, a critical component of both the Orion and the Altair vehicles is based on a conventional aircraft -- the avionics suite, which will allow astronauts to actually pilot these space vehicles.

WHAT CONVENTIONAL AIRCRAFT'S AVIONICS WILL BE THE BASIS FOR THOSE IN NASA'S NEW ORION SPACECRAFT?

To find out, check out the Geek Trivia answer on TechRepublic.

New Study of Splenda Reveals Shocking Information About Potential Harmful Effects

James Turner, the chairman of the national consumer education group Citizens for Health, has expressed shock and outrage after reading a new report from scientists outlining the dangers of the artificial sweetener Splenda (sucralose).

In animals examined for the study, Splenda reduced the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50 percent, increased the pH level in the intestines, contributed to increases in body weight and affected P-glycoprotein (P-gp) levels in such a way that crucial health-related drugs could be rejected.

The P-gp effect could result in medications used in chemotherapy, AIDS treatment and treatments for heart conditions being shunted back into the intestines, rather than being absorbed by the body.

According to Turner, "The report makes it clear that the artificial sweetener Splenda and its key component sucralose pose a threat to the people who consume the product. Hundreds of consumers have complained to us about side effects from using Splenda and this study ... confirms that the chemicals in the little yellow package should carry a big red warning label."

Sources:

Globe Newswire September 28, 2008
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Part A 2008;71(21):1415-29

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

It’s very important to realize that Splenda (sucralose) is actually NOT sugar, despite its marketing slogan “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar”. Rather it’s a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame and saccharin, and with detrimental health effects to match.

Splenda was approved by the FDA in 1998 as a tabletop sweetener and for use in products such as baked goods, nonalcoholic beverages, chewing gum, frozen dairy desserts, fruit juices, and gelatins. Sucralose is also permitted as a general-purpose sweetener for all processed foods.

The approval was given after the FDA supposedly reviewed more than 110 animal and human safety studies, but as you’ll soon find out, out of these 110 studies, only two were human studies, and the longest one was conducted for four days!

There’s overwhelming evidence that consuming artificial sweeteners will likely wreak havoc on your body. Previous news has centered mainly around artificial sweeteners’ ability to impair your appetite regulation and leading to weight gain.

For example, it’s been discovered that diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome and, ultimately, heart disease.

However, the study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found even further disturbing news besides weight gain. Splenda:

• reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent
• increases the pH level in your intestines, and
• affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you’re on certain medications

They also found unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims.

It’s truly disturbing that Splenda can destroy up to 50 percent of your healthy intestinal bacteria, as these bacteria help maintain your body's overall balance of friendly versus unfriendly micro-organisms, and support your general health. Many people are already deficient in healthy bacteria due to choosing highly processed foods. This is why a high quality probiotic is one of the very few supplements I highly recommend for nearly everyone.

The Diet Fallacy

The belief that consuming artificially sweetened foods and drinks will help you to lose or maintain weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for diet choices for this reason, please understand that you have been sorely misled.

In reality, these diet foods and drinks can cause serious distortions in your biochemistry and ruin your body's ability to control calories. As a matter of fact, it’s been shown that diet soft drinks can double your risk of obesity!

Nearly a decade ago, studies were already revealing that artificial sweeteners can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar.

Now, I am definitely not a fan of sugar, but if I had to choose between sugar and any artificial sweetener, I would choose sugar, hands down, without question. I strongly believe artificial sweeteners are even more dangerous to your health than an excess of sugar.

The Health Dangers of Splenda

According to James Turner, the chairman of the national consumer education group Citizens for Health:

"This report followed accepted policies and procedures and the results make clear the potential for disturbing side effects from the ingestion of Splenda.

It is like putting a pesticide in your body. And this is at levels of intake erroneously approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

A person eating two slices of cake and drinking two cups of coffee containing Splenda would ingest enough sucralose to affect the P-glycoprotein, while consuming just seven little Splenda packages reduces good bacteria."

The web site www.truthaboutsplenda.com lists a variety of consumer complaints from Splenda consumption, such as:

• Gastrointestinal problems
• Migraines
• Seizures
• Dizziness
• Blurred vision
• Allergic reactions
• Blood sugar increases
• Weight gain

My site also contains a long list of personal testimonials from readers who have suffered side effects from Splenda. In fact, we have more people on our site that have reported adverse reactions to Splenda than were formally studied in the research submitted for FDA approval!

The symptoms are so numerous I can’t include them all here, but the following are common symptoms, usually noticed within a 24-hour period following consumption of Splenda products:

• Skin -- Redness, itching, swelling, blistering, weeping, crusting, rash, eruptions, or hives (itchy bumps or welts). These are the most common allergic symptoms that people have.
• Lungs -- Wheezing, tightness, cough, or shortness of breath.
• Head -- Swelling of the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, or throat; headaches and migraines (severe headaches).
• Nose -- Stuffy nose, runny nose (clear, thin discharge), sneezing.
• Eyes -- Red (bloodshot), itchy, swollen, or watery.
• Stomach -- Bloating, gas, pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or bloody diarrhea.
• Heart -- Palpitations or fluttering.
• Joints -- Joint pains or aches.
• Neurological -- Anxiety, dizziness, spaced-out sensation, depression.

Beware – You Could be Consuming Splenda Without Your Knowledge

You also need to be aware of the fact that although the bulk of Splenda is sold to processed food manufacturers and soft drink bottlers, it could turn up in your medicine as well, as nearly 10 percent of all sucralose is sold to drug companies.

Many times sucralose (Splenda) will not be listed in the drug information, so there simply is no way you would know you are consuming a potentially dangerous artificial sweetener. However, if you experience any of the symptoms above even though you’re avoiding Splenda and other artificial sweeteners, then it may be worth investigating the ingredients of any medications you’re taking as well.

Splenda Has NEVER Been Proven Safe for Human Consumption

As of 2006, only six human trials have been published on Splenda. Of these six trials, only two of the trials were completed and published before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption, and the two published trials had a grand total of 36 total human subjects.

36 people sure doesn't sound like many, but wait, it gets worse: only 23 total were actually given sucralose for testing, and here is the real kicker -- The longest trial at this time had lasted only four days, and looked at sucralose in relation to tooth decay, not human tolerance.

Even more shocking, the absorption of Splenda into the human body was studied on a grand total of six men! Based on that one human study, the FDA allowed the findings to be generalized as being representative of the entire human population. Including women, children, the elderly, and those with any chronic illness -- none of whom were ever examined.

The FDA claims they reviewed over 100 studies conducted on Splenda. What they don't tell you is that most of the studies were on animals. And, those animal studies reveal plenty of problems, such as:

• Decreased red blood cells -- sign of anemia -- at levels above 1,500 mg/kg/day
• Increased male infertility by interfering with sperm production and vitality, as well as brain lesions at higher doses
• Enlarged and calcified kidneys (McNeil stated this is often seen with poorly absorbed substances and was of no toxicological significance. The FDA Final Rule agreed that these are findings that are common in aged female rats and are not significant.)
• Spontaneous abortions in nearly half the rabbit population given sucralose, compared to zero aborted pregnancies in the control group
• A 23 percent death rate in rabbits, compared to a 6 percent death rate in the control group

Chemically, Splenda is More Similar to DDT Than Sugar

Yes. Splenda bears more chemical similarity to DDT than it does to sugar.

Sucralose is in fact a synthetic chemical that was originally cooked up in a laboratory. It does start off as a sugar molecule. Then, in a five-step patented process of making sucralose, three chlorine molecules are added to a sucrose (sugar) molecule. The chemical process to make sucralose alters the chemical composition of the sugar so much that it is somehow converted to a fructo-galactose molecule.

This type of sugar molecule does not occur in nature, and therefore your body does not possess the ability to properly metabolize it. As a result of this "unique" biochemical make-up, McNeil Nutritionals makes its claim that Splenda is not digested or metabolized by the body, hence it has zero calories.

But, if you look at the research (which is primarily extrapolated form animal studies) you will see that in fact an average of 15 percent of sucralose IS absorbed into your digestive system, and according to this latest study, it is also absorbed into your fat cells.

Unfortunately, if you are healthy and your digestive system works well, you may be at HIGHER risk for breaking down this product in your stomach and intestines!

Your Healthiest Alternatives

If you have a craving for sweets, rather than trying to find "healthier" ways to continue indulging in them, it is in your best interest to learn ways to relieve your cravings.

The obvious one would be to stop eating any of the products to begin with. But sweets are powerfully addictive – sugar has even been shown to be more addictive than cocaine. Stevia is a preferable natural substitute, which can be used in making most dishes and drinks.

However, complete avoidance of sweets is often necessary to break your addictive cycle, as your hormones insulin and leptin likely play an important role in your cravings.

If you are unable to achieve abstinence from sweets, your emotional connection to cravings might be an important factor for you. One of the most profound methods I know of for diminishing the effects of food cravings is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is the psychological acupressure technique routinely used in my practice to help people reduce their cravings.

There is enough evidence showing the dangers of consuming artificial sweeteners to fill an entire book -- which is exactly why I wrote Sweet Deception. If you or your loved ones drink diet beverages or eat diet foods, this book will explain how you've been deceived about the truth behind artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose -- for greed, for profits ... and at the expense of your own health.

Peace, love and happiness...until next time...

Tidbits From The Web #40

Is our planet just a gigantic hard drive?
Joaquin is there but he isn't...
Just in time for the windy weather of spring...
An elephant and a dog...
The largest snake ever found...
Houston...we have a problem...
Zack Kim and his 2 guitars...
CHECK...your move...
Octane by Ed...
Are there aliens amongst our galaxy?
Another couple of reasons why you should stop drinking soda...
A geeky clock...
And some geeky graffiti...
Tron vs. Depeche Mode...
Lincoln would be proud...the penny is worth something...
Interesting DVD on the secrets of the dollar bill...
A new world order economy...
One religion to rule them all...
Things men wish women knew...
The best sounding car names...
How ancient Greeks founded their temples...
Craving some baseball...here are some pitches...
What you always wanted to happen to the weatherman...
Bacon man!
And Hoverboy!
What plastic is really doing to you...
She must look like a GILF to him...
Your home now has a heartbeat...
Living Well with Montel...
Sorry to burst your can...
How a 3 year old becomes cool... (props to Boris for this find!)
Indian matchboxes...
Introducing the sport of Chinlone...
Coming soon from Europe...the Bulge Zapper!
RIP Joe Ades...bought one of these from him back in my NYC days...






Churburg Castel Coira

Certainly the glamour and excitement of visiting a medieval castle beckons each of us. Northern Italy is just the place to explore Castel Coira. Your tour can be conducted in Italian, German, or English so please don't let the language barrier stop you. Johannes Jakob Graf Trapp, whose family has owned the castle for over 500 years, welcomes you by explaining, "The family tradition of possessing such a building is also an obligation. For this reason I do not see myself simply as an owner, but as a lifelong guardian of this house." Enjoy this interesting guardian's hospitality as he opens his doors and guides you through his home and countryside. The cyber-tour is well presented with images and panoramic views both inside the castle and of the surrounding area. Be sure to stop by the Armoury which houses the largest and one of the most important private collection of armour in the world, not to mention the oldest armour in existence! Step back in time and explore first-hand this fascinating landmark for your own private history lesson!

Web site Dynastree's surname map lays out how people with your last name are distributed across the US (along with Canada and Germany).

The search tool is a breeze to use. Just enter your last name, hit Search, and Dynastree returns a very simple heatmap displaying the distribution of your last name across the United States. The map defaults to a view of your surname's absolute distribution, but you can toggle the map to show relative distribution and get a better idea of the per capita distribution as well.

Dynastree's surname map is just a small feature of the service, which is actually a family tree webapp. The distribution map appears to be accurate and it's a great tool to help you understand the movements of your people.

Surname Map [Dynastree via CNET]

Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out.
-- Italian Proverb

If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you'll find you've done it.
-- Pam Shaw




THINKING BIG

"Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination." -- John Dewey

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." -- Les Brown

"I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big." -- Donald Trump

"We see a lot of business plans, and the biggest challenge is that people are not thinking big enough." -- Jamie Montgomery

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
- John Lennon

	Today's Quote Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. -George Bernard Shaw

LOVE

Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to be happy.
Ralph Connor

Love conquers all things: Let us too give in to Love.
Virgil
Eclogues





Whiskey & Gunpowder
By Francois Tremblay
February 11, 2009
Wenatchee, Washington, U.S.A.

What Is “The Economy”?

We routinely talk about “the economy” as if it were aself-evident concept. We say “the economy is growing” and “the economy is in bad shape,” without really discussing what it is exactly that we’re referring to. There are three measures we use more or less interchangeably when we discuss “the economy”: GDP, retail sales and employment.

The GDP includes, to generalize, everything produced and consumed within a country or exported to other countries. In this “everything in one pot” view, everything counts, regardless of its causes or its effects on society. You contract an illness and buy medical care, you’re in a wreck and pay for car repairs, you buy cigarettes or alcohol based on an addiction, factories are rebuilt after a war, shells and fighter planes are built to destroy those factories, a lumber company cuts down a forest down to the last tree, the government spends billions on a new boondoggle, a corporation charges you monopoly prices, there’s a gas discount and everyone’s filling up. Even though all these things are symptomatic of social problems, they are counted as part of “the economy.” The genocide in Iraq is a boon to “the economy” (although, in the long term, war spending has a persistent negative effect on GDP and employment, either through inflation, higher interest rates, or increased taxes). Mindless consumption is a boon to “the economy.”

“The money in the big pot could be going to cancer treatments or casinos, violent video games or usurious credit-card rates. It could go towards the $9 billion or so that Americans spend on gas they burn while they sit in traffic, or the billion plus that goes to such drugs as Ritalin and Prozac that schools are stuffing into kids to keep them quiet in class. The money could be the $20 billion or so that Americans spend on divorce lawyers each year, or the $41 billion on pets, or the $5 billion on identity theft, or the billions more spent to repair property damage caused by environmental pollution. The money in the pot could betoken social and environmental breakdown- misery and distress of all kinds. It makes no difference. You don’t ask. All you want to know is the total amount, which is the GDP. So long as it is growing then everything is fine.”

— Jonathan Rowe, co-director of West Marin Commons

One might reply that this is a misguided criticism, since the GDP is precisely meant as a “kitchen sink” metric for all production. But the GDP is also often criticized for omitting to count many vast areas of trade, including housekeeping, production for self-consumption, black markets and underground economies (which in some societies are bigger than the white market), crime, and barter. The only logical conclusion is that the subject most conducive to growth is a person who is perpetually just sick enough to need medical care but not enough to stop working, morbidly obese from constant eating, always drives everywhere, hires maids instead of cleaning his own house, and does not interact with anyone but Wal-Mart workers.

Retail sales is another metric that gets trotted out in the mainstream media, especially around Christmas. The assumption here is that the more money people spend during the year, the better off “the economy” is. But this is counter-intuitive, as spending can be motivated by all sorts of reasons, including inflation, short-term biases, and outright fraud. People are tricked into buying goods by marketing campaigns and a panoply of retail tricks and lies. Retail sales do not take into account the quality of products or what they may do to our quality of life, and under that point I could repeat a lot of the things I said above. They also do not include the consequences of depending on big retail corporations for our livelihood, or the consequences of globalization on the third world.

Saving money is actually a very positive thing for the well-being of the individual, and yet increased savings (as we are seeing right now) wreak havoc on “the economy.” Unfortunately, people generally under-save and get in debt too easily for their own good, partially due to human psychology and partially due to the centralized banking system which causes scarcity of credit.

Measuring employment suffers from the same general flaws, as it does not take into account the nature of the jobs in question: not only the quality of the work environment, the wage, or the work structure (especially how hierarchical it is), but also what the work itself entails. It’s easy to see what a CEO, a commodities trader or a monopoly banker contribute to the corporatist system, but very difficult to see their contribution to the well-being of society. Even though they are “employed,” it’s hard to say that a soldier, a policeman or a bureaucrat, on the whole, contribute anything positive to society. Employment statistics, therefore, are at best very incomplete, and at worst completely misleading.

If these three metrics do not measure general well-being, or even how well the economy fulfills our needs, what do they measure? The GDP measures how much is produced and consumed. Retail sales measure how much is consumed, and how much surplus is generated. Employment measures how many people are participating to production. It is not the nature of production or consumption that is examined, but the concept of production and consumption themselves. The only possible conclusion we can arrive at, is that these metrics measure the health of the corporatist system, not well-being or the fulfillment of needs.

The underlying premise behind the use of these metrics is shared by all parties and ideologies on the mainstream political spectrum: growth is inherently good. Not all of these ideologies support the idea that growth should be completely unlimited and unchecked (Greenies, for instance, believe that growth should be tempered with environmental considerations), but they all judge growth as a primary objective. Not only that, but they believe that growth alone can solve socio-economic problems, the good old tried-and-true statist technique of “if we project enough force and throw enough money at a problem, it will eventually disappear.” If “the economy” keeps growing, goes the argument, then we’ll have more money to pump into health care, we’ll have more money to pump into education, we’ll have more money to pump into social programs, and everything will correct itself. A shining example of this insanity, Mosler’s Law, states that “there is no financial crisis so deep that a sufficiently large increase in public spending cannot deal with it.”

This is the same kind of argument that statists use when talking about government and corporatism, of the “we just need to put good people in charge” type. Putting better people or more money in a broken system won’t fix it. Solely producing more goods cannot change the balance of power in a society and cannot correct inefficiencies and immoralities caused by the very fabric of the economy that produces them. On the contrary, one can only expect it to make the problems worse, because it maintains the viability of the current capital-democratic system.

We must therefore question our belief in economic growth as a solution, as a necessity, as an inherent good, as a progressive factor. If it’s only useful to measure the cost of goods that are made and sold, then it has little relation to human life.

The real question is not “how much stuff is traded” but rather “how stuff is traded.” In the corporatist system, labour is traded under a highly hierarchical, authoritarian, central-planning oriented structure. The people at the top of this fictional legal structure reap the surplus, which they steal from their inferiors through the latter’s “voluntary” surrender of their freedom of labour, which concentrates wealth and therefore economic power. These imaginary structures then sell the produced goods, generally to individual customers who have very little economic power. They also generally get their raw materials from dispersed third-world entities, which have far less economic power than they do.

It should be easy, in fact it should be child’s play, for anyone to realize that such a system cannot serve anyone’s interests but those of the people at the top, and that its elite will necessarily try and succeed at subverting people’s desires for their own interests, in the same way that the elite in a democratic system always eventually succeeds at subverting moral values for its own power. Capital and guns have always been, throughout history, mutually dependent and mutually beneficial. Inequality of wealth or power cannot lead to anything but a loss of freedom in the long term, for the same reason that loss of freedom must lead to inequality of wealth or power in the long term.

Once again, I must emphasize that these are systemic features and do not depend on the bad intentions of any number of people. The vast majority of people have good intentions, and very few people (except very aberrated cases like serial killers) believe they are doing evil. We must therefore banish from our heads the image of the maniacal politician or executive rubbing his hands together, or tenting them à la Mr. Burns, saying “my eeee-vil plan is working perfectly.” The fact is that they are simply doing their jobs. That’s all that the system’s survival depends on, or the survival of any system whatsoever.

I already mentioned the concept of surplus. In the corporatist system, accumulating surplus is the goal of the vast majority of economic entities, and drives growth. In an economy where actual human needs, not hierarchies of wealth, direct action, the accumulation of surplus, and therefore growth, would no longer be priorities. We must see economic activity, not as an end in itself, but as the extension of how we see each other and what we consider to be proper ethics. Hierarchies betray a pessimistic, authoritarian and dogmatic view of human existence. Its consequences are to turn moral agents into tools of production and consumption (to spend beyond their means, to become trained consumers, and to produce more consumers). Efforts to counter this immorality must pass through counter-economic activities, personal de-growth based on our values, and a refusal to position our lives as part of a production/consumption framework.
I personally believe we are heading toward a world where needs will be met by local, small, and even intimate organization. This would be in contrast to our current overblown system of corporations and governments canoodling to prop up the unsustainable.

The transition will be far from easy, even if it is inevitable.

There are other ways, too… We could always move!

I don’t suppose anyone in this bar knows where I could find a constitutionally limited republic with a gold-backed currency? I heard there used to be one somewhere around these parts…


Peace, love and happiness...until next time...