No time today

Ok, I really don't have a lot of time to blog right now, and that would not be so bad, but I won't have an opportunity until I return from my trip to see a VERY unpleasent person, my ex. Alas, these visits are necessary, so I will be on hiatus as far as my blog goes. But.... some teasers for later...

"Scientists Say Sunshine May Prevent Cancer"

It doesn't just help, it helps a lot! Of course, many are moving heaven and earth just to hold the party line.

Govt. disinformation - well, we have learned to deal with it. But Brazil has shown itself to be as progressive a country as we have out there. In addition to very liberal (in a good way, no matter what your political stripe) attitude with regards to open-source software, they are releasing all UFO information and ending the secrecy.

And it seems that a small leak has developed with regards to Harry Potter - Harry is going to lose his safety net - Someone is going to die. Well, we knew that, but this will be some one that will REALLY shake him up. See MuggleNet

Sensible sunlight exposure

Sensible sunlight exposure prevents skin cancer; findings baffle old school doctors

I could have just as easily written Vitamin D May Help in Prostate Cancer though this one actually uses a pharmacutical vitamin D.

OK, what is my point? Sunlight is a little recognized nutrient. Maybe nutrient is not quite the right word, but it certainly something we need for proper health. What does sunlight do? I can tell you that I feel better and that I can tell (I know it sounds loony) that my ki is flowing better inside of me.

But let us be specific
It affects production of seretonin
It increases production of Lutienizing Hormone, and therefore, Testosterone, especially sunlight on the genitals.
It increases production endorphins - sunbathers achieve a mind high
And of course, Vitamin D, which many people are short on. I even appears that insufficient Vitamin D (best obtained by sunlight) may be a factor in obesity.

I don't have time tonight to wax eloquent on the benefits of sunlight, but I want to vent my irritation at the medical establishment for the paranoia it has promulgated about the dangers of UV damage. Sunlight is not the bane of existence. People have lived in the sunlight for thousands of years. The scourge of cancer is a relatively modern phenomena. And skin cancer is not correlated with decreased amounts of sunlight or UV. I am not saying sun burns are not bad. I am saying that sunlight is essential, and to say otherwise is bowing before the medical establishment at the cost of human health. Why is it that Big Medicine is not interested in our health. It isn't like I just made these points up. There are perfectly good papers written on it (look up your own references tonight). It is no secret, if you will just look at it without buying the party line. And there are dermatologist who say as much, and yet, by and large what the common man or woman hears is, 'Sunlight gives you wrinkles and skin cancer.'

We have GOT to think and research for ourselves.


Just a few links for your own research.

Full of even-weirder-than-usual New Age stuff, but enough good material to mention

Sunlight is the cure for everything from acne to Peace in the Middle East, oh, and we all should be nudists... ok, it goes TOO far once again, but has some material worth seeing.

Ok, this is a good site I think I can recommend without a dozen
caveats, though I will confess not to have read it all.

Massage and Mathematical Mappings

Today, I had some training on how to do a proper massage. That was quite interesting, but the idea that has caught my attention at the moment is that of what is called mapping. And the essence of the idea is that one thing can be, in some sense, the same as another.

For instance, the letters of our alphabet correlate to sounds. This is not perfect because some sounds have more than one letter ( an ‘S’ sound can be made with a ‘C’ or an ‘S’ ) and some letters have more than one sound (‘C’ either an ‘K’ or an ‘S’ sound ).

Or for another example, places on a map correspond to places in real life. My US highway map in my car shows the entire United States on paper, and each point corresponds to a actual physical point. This is called a one-to-one mapping, because for each point there is one location (only one Salina, Kansas) and for each location there is only one place on the map (Salina, KS only occurs once on the map).

Interestingly, the human body has a kind of self mapping. For instance Reflexology is the study of the pressure points on the feet. Each point on your body has a corresponding point on your foot. I imagine that if we found the point for the foot on the foot, then we would have a self-reference, and a situation like that of a painting, of a painting, of a painting.

In any case, there is a point on the foot for each point on the body. This is also true of the hand. When we talk about the eye, it is called Iridology, and is more useful for diagnosis than massage - at least I have not met anyone that particularly loves eyeball massages. The ear also has a set of points that correspond to each body part and organ. The tongue likewise. There may well be others that I am not aware of. This is not often explored mathematically, because there are not that many physician, alternative or otherwise, who have learned some mathematical set theory. Not that I am anything resembling an expert, because I am NOT.

I suppose that this means that there is no such thing as a localized illness. Every disease state is a state of the entire body. Not that cirrhosis of the liver will make my foot or hand unuseable, but that they are not in a state of optimum health. In practice this generally means that a corresponding point will be sore, but not necessarily. It is more complex than that! It would be nice if we could just use an MRI, or other medical scanner to see these connections, but, alas, it has not become evident how to do that yet. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, you have the so-called ‘Five Element Theory’ which groups the pressure point meridians and defines which ones influence which others. It is quite mathematical. Perhaps I will talk about that later and my own struggle with it.

warnings

Maybe this is just a strange idea. Well, it is a strange idea, but perhaps it is real. Has it ever occurred to you, that is some way, the movies we watch and books we read are warning us, and perhaps even preparing us for what lies ahead?

Yesterday I talked at length about the unusual applicability of Star Wars to our current political situation. I don't think that Lucas ( or anyother mortal) planned it that way.

Other movies might include, The Day After Tomarrow, with the sudden climate shift. Oddly, it was just recently reported that the Gulf Stream is a quarter of what it was just a few years ago.

Perhaps the messages in Harry Potter of more needed today than ever before. Things such as, Harry's choice between what is right and what is easy.

Or consider for a moment, the apex of English Literature this half century, the venerable JRR Tolkien. His books are applicable (not allegorical) on so many levels, there is no way I could list them all. Tolkien meant that on purpose. He was emphatic that he had no allegorical meaning in them. But we find meaning ( and there is a lot to find) because of the enormous amount of applicability in them. Perhaps I should suffice with the message of "Hope, without guarantees" as he would say.

I know there are others, but they are not coming to my mind at the moment. Please feel free to remind me of any. Or alternatively, tell me if I am just plain wrong.

But my guess is that God has a lot of ways to warn us.

Day after Today

Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows

These things can certainly change faster than we generally appreciate. Such a fine line between boiling and freezing. I seems that the world climate is indeed changing and the result of all this warming may be another Ice Age. But in the increasing chaos of our weather, even change is not constant.

Ok, what I going on? The oceanic current that heats Europe and circulates around the Atlantic may be shutting down. It may never completely shut down, but what is known, is that the current by the sea around Greenland, a crucial junction, is a mere quarter what it was just a few years ago. This is a major change. It could have been something like this that caused the Little Ice Age that Europe went through a few centuries ago.

I can tell you this for certain, it has been weird weather here in Idaho this year. We have had over 4 inches of rain, when our average has been a little over an inch, and with the drought, we have not even been getting that.

"The Day after Tomarrow" was certainly fiction, but it had enough truth that we would do well to take head.

Sci-Fi

LewRockwell.com Blog: "This Friday UPN will air the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, bringing the Star Trek franchise to an at least temporary end. Contrary to the Treekies claims that Star Trek provided an 'optimistic view of the future,' Star Trek has always been propaganda for democratic imperialism. Star Trek was based on the notion that an enlightened society had a right, and maybe even a duty, to bring freedom and equality to the unelightened. Of course, Star Trek's definition of an enlightened society was one with a democratic socialist state. In one of the movies we where even informed that money was abolished in the Trek universe since people had learned to work for the common good!"

Ok, I don't have time to delve into this one, but why is so much Sci-Fi pro-Big Government? By Sci-fi, I mean the real stuff, not just TV space westerns. Star Trek is quite socialist, once you start looking at it. At least there are some good alternatives out there now.

So often, Sci-Fi envisions a one world government. But there are no guarentees that any government will be benign to its own citizens. And imagine, a govenment with no terrestrial enemies other than its citizens. Anything that powerful would not be uncorrupted, unless the people it was composed of were of an exceptional caliber and that is highly unlikely.

Even my favorite, StarGate SG-1 is very much in favor of the government protecting us from what (they have decided) we are not ready to understand. Alas

George Bush... Sith Lord?

If something in the blogsphere is big enough to end up on the ‘Today Show’, it has to be pretty big. And while I was not aware of the blogsphere conversation, this is something that occurred to me a while back.

It seems that the similarities of Sen. Palpatine (aka. The Emperor or Darth Sidious) in the Star Wars prequels, has not been lost on fans. What similarities? This senator uses crises that he himself engineered to gain power. In Episode I, he uses the invasion of Naboo to become Chancellor. In Episode II, the threat of the Clone Wars beginning is used to grant emergency powers to the new Chancellor. In Episode III, it will be used to finish his power-grab and eliminate the Jedi. There is still a senate at the end of Ep. III (Revenge of the Sith), but it has become weak and insufficient to rein in the Executive power of Palpatine.

Of course, George Lucas wrote this all long before 911, the Patriot Act, or Iraq. He didn’t need to have known Bush to have written this. It is simply an archetype of those who seek power. But what of those who see modern events in a sci-fi movie, are they wrong? No, they aren’t. It is like the similarities people find in ‘The Lord of the Rings”. Tolkien emphasized that there were no allegories in his books, and yet, we can see them all around us. Because it is written true to the way life works, it will have similarities, no matter what time you live in, or on what planet you live, Star Wars as well as LOTR.

As for 911, it looks just as contrived as Naboo. We don’t have a reason to be in Iraq except to finish what we started, and the Patriot act and the recent Real ID act have given the Executive branch of government enormous power. For instance, the Real ID act, gave the Sec. of Homeland Security authority to disregard any law he sees fit to make the borders secure, without Judicial oversight, or the responsibility to pay for ANY damages. I read it myself. And the vote in the senate was 100-0, notwithstanding many emailed and faxed objections. The legislators worry about re-election and campaign fund more than they do their constituents, or what is right.

The Daily Kos ponders this as well and gives us these quotes...

# "So this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause..."
# "Those who are not with me are against me...and the Republic"
# "Only the Sith (dark side of force) sees life in black and white..."
# "What's the point of putting him on trial if he controls Senate..."
# "Through destruction I will bring peace and freedom to the galactic empire..."

The Coming Storm talks about it but I don't think they have all the right parallels. Warning there are spoilers. (I was doing so good in avoiding them too... alas)

Lew Rockwell has a nice quote from Lucas, even if he ends up on a anti-Lincoln diatribe.


All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea...What kinds of things push people and institutions into this direction?

That’s the issue that I’ve been exploring: How did the Republic turn into the Empire? That’s paralleled with: How did Anakin turn into Darth Vader? How does a good person go bad, and how does a democracy become a dictatorship? It isn’t that the Empire conquered the Republic, it’s that the Empire is the Republic...One day Princess Leia and her friends woke up and said, ‘This isn’t the Republic anymore, it’s the Empire. We are the bad guys. Well, we don’t agree with this. This democracy is a sham, it’s all wrong.’

There were many others, but these were the ones that called out to me. Strange times we live in, when life imitates art, and sci-fi art at that.

Name Game

This is a thought on my mind, and I need to express it at least partly. Alternative medicine has problem with terminalogy. The problem is with words like force, energy, and power, all of which have very distinct and seperate meanings, but are used interchangably in Alt. Medicine. For instance, we say, life force, or life energy, when we really have no idea if it is either. So now, I need to make a list of bad terms and to begin a search for better alternate terms. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

More on Collapse

Ok, I promised more of a piece-wise review of Collapse by Jared Diamond, but I am not convinced I am going to finish it. It has not completely impressed me, and I have another book that is craving my attention at the moment.

But why am I not impressed? All the examples of collapse were all in marginal areas, except for the Maya and I have no idea why they are gone. The section the Anasazi was pretty good though I do not completely agree with his conclusions.

He seems to have an anti-Christian pro-Malthius mindset. If there are starving people, the problem is, according to him, overpopulation. And if that is the problem you identify, then the unspoken solution is implicit - get rid of some population or eliminate growth. I do not consider either acceptable. But then, I learn different lessons from the examples he gives.

The Anasazi, grew to a large population, depleted their natural resources, and were dependent on trade. When fighting started, the trade routes broke down, and the system collapsed because it could not sustain itself.

The story of the Vikings is more detailed and definitely more interesting. But the story is the same. They grew to a large population, depleted (at least some of) their own resources, and when trading ceased and the environment grew unfriendly, they died off. There are however, some things that make this story more complex, namely that the Inuits did not die off. If they had eaten fish and learned some from the Inuit, they could have survived. Never mind that even the natives had died off multiple times. But the point remains, they could have adapted better. And they could have eaten fish. What is up with that? Other Vikings eat fish and they starve in the midst of plenty? Maybe we all do that, I don’t know. But with the event of the Little Ice Age, I have a hard time faulting the collapse of Viking society in Greenland.

But what do we learn from all of this????

If we are not locally self-sufficient, our lives are in the hands others. The Greenland Vikings did not have their own boats, it appears to me, because of a local scarcity of lumber. And when other boats did not come, they were screwed. Same with the people in Pitcairn and Henderson Islands. We have to be locally self-sufficient. We need to grow our own crops and grow our own lumber. If we can not do that, then we are at the mercy of others.

They also lived beyond their means, as did the Anasazi and the Easter Islanders. By that I mean, they did not use their resources in the manner that they should have. They were careless. The poor know this - you can live on very little. For instance, the minimum I need to live is much less that, say, Paris Hilton.

Now, if this were just people a long, long time ago in a place, far, far away, this would have little, other than academic interest. But is isn’t. This is our story today. And if we don’t learn from previous mistakes, we will repeat them, and America will become the next Ozymandias for future generations. That is not our destiny however. America will survive, but you and I? That is for us to decide and prepare for.

Emotion and Health

Just a personal aside, my health has not been what it should be. And now that I have some time to recooperate, I think I see this more clearly. Emotional health is not something that can be ignored - it will have physical effects.

In my case, it started with the birth of my first child. My wife began her selfish turn inward and left me to keep the family running. This was not obvious at the time, but it is what happened. And when I started my junior year at college, now at a large university, things got seriously stressful. I was needed at home, and I just wasn't getting the time at school I needed to properly do my schoolwork. This mad dash to learn physics and hold my family together lasted over three years. And now I am a divorced, single father, with children, and without the indepth grasp of my feild that I should have. I poured everything I had into those two things and I was not balanced about it.

Well, after the divorce, I did the same thing, of necessity. I had kids, and they needed to be taken care of. All of this has taken a serious toll on my health.

My point in recalling all of this is not to elicit sympathy or pity, but to draw attention to the interaction of health and emotion.

I see now that my divorce did more to me than I realized, and especially all that imbalance, specifically pouring everything I had into work and family. It takes too much out of you. Some recent studies have begun to point this out. Loneliness, health and depression in older males is a good study that demonstrates that loneliness is literally not good for you. I know that I have been terribly lonely, but too busy to do anything about. I think that I need to make it a priority in order to get better. If you aren't into reading abstracts, try this - Loneliness May Hurt Your Health

Looking at my health from the standpoint of TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine, my problems originate from the heart meridean. According to 5-element theory (in TCM) each acupuncture meridean is associtated with one of the 5 elements, which in turn affect specific others. And the emotion associated with the heart is joy. It is the kind of thing that, when you hear or read it, you know it is true. I know it is. Nothing gets me very excited these days, and it isn't even a lack of interests. Though, I must confess that "Revenge of the Sith" looks like a lot of fun. Would a videogame help? Those can be exciting. Maybe I will try that, though I suppose I ought to concentrate on relationships. Send all the beautiful geeks my way.

Creative thinking: try lying down

Creative thinking: try lying down

Not a lot to comment on here, but I could not avoid passing up. It seems that we think more creatively when lying down. The brain chemicals, specifically Noradreniline, are differerent. And of course, brain chemistry affects the way the entire brain works. Perhaps I need to do more lying down.

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones - Yahoo! News

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones

Ok, I really don't have time to delve properly into this one, but it looks pretty interesting. What we have here is a reason, yet not a complete cop-out, though I am sure it will be portrayed that way. Now we have some good evidence that pheromones for humans exist, and that our response to them is helps create our sexual identity.

Now, I may offend some (I get used to that) but the responses in our mind may be changed. I am glad that that is not one of my struggles. (Mine are far the other direction, but mental none the less)

Now, the existence and use of pheromones needs to explored... That could be interesting.

Teflon Toxicosis

Teflon Toxicosis: "Teflon offgases toxic particulates at 446�F"

Ok, I have heard for a while that Teflon wasn't as nice as advertised. But now I have some serious details. It appear that it doesn't take much to make a teflon pan outgas. Among the gasses outgassed are several fluoride compounds, a nerve gas analog, and some serious poisons. Dupont blows it off as "polymer fume fever" and insists it is temporary.

I for one, am sick of the desperate lengths that industry will go to to make itself look good. It is psycotic behavior.

Another good site, goes into some of the details of the nasty gasses released under pretty typical, and finally some non-typical circumstances.

We have far too many toxins surrounding us. No wonder, as mighty as our nation is, we are so sick.

Online dating

Online dating - nothing quite like it. Well, being LDS, as I am, (aka Mormon) I thought I would look at dating sites that focus on LDS people, as we tend to be selective, at least on that point. I have tried a number of different sites, and I thought today was a good day to try out some new ones. I have seen The best dating site for LDS singles, LDS guys, LDS girls, blah, blah blah quite a few times, so I started the application questionaire. One of the first questions was what I wanted to use this service for... meeting friends, dating, marriage, friends and intimate encounters... At about this point, I just stopped and my feeble brain attempted to process this information while I stared mindlessly and muttered, 'What?!?'. I went on. It asked me what church I was a member of. Stranger. How active was I? Frequent, Regular, and a few lines down, deacon/deaconess. WHAT THE FREAK? I have not been a deacon since I turned 14. Smoking or Non-Smoking?

Ok, at this point I think I had seen enough and I left the site. But oddly, while I can google for LDSRomances and find gazillions of ads just about everywhere, I was only able to find one person who commented 'What's up with this?'.

Afterwards, I found another equally , odd site with a number of pictures that just didn't cry out 'virtuous'. The girls in the top left, who looks like she wants to unzip her pants, does look quite fetching though.

Clueless people trying to use sex to make a buck, I guess.

FAQ: How Real ID will affect you | CNET News.com

FAQ: How Real ID will affect you | CNET News.com: "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards."

Ok, I called this one a while ago. Unfortunately not online. Regardless, this is giving the government FAR too much power. This effectively is a national ID card, with whatever they want to put on it. This gives us much less privacy and security from our government. Not too many more steps to govt. ID implants.

Male and Female Brains different

His Brain, Her Brain - It turns out that male and female brains differ quite a bit

Most of us have know this for a while, but now it must be official, if Sci-Am will publish it. They don't exactly go out on a limb to look at new ideas.

Turns out, male and female brains are different, some parts are bigger in men, others in women. And a lot of our differences are nature and not nurture, that is to say, the differences are part
of our bodies and not a cultural artifact. Girls do prefer dolls, and boys do prefer mechanical things.

Richard Dolan

Richard Dolan: "UFO Secrecy and the Death of the American Republic"

I have always enjoyed a sci-fi show called Stargate. I want the TV show regularly. But the thing that gets under my skin is the perpetual insistence that all of our knowledge of UFO, aliens and the like, must be kept secret from the public. Yet, even it the show, many foreign governments are the first to know. Industry is not far behind. And their are more conspiracy plots than they can deal with. What is the problem with letting people know what we really have, or that UFOs are real? Why does the government insist on keeping things secret. Supposedly, it is to prevent mass panic - when no such thing has ever occurred. What about the "War of the Worlds" panic. Vastly overstated. And for the most part, a complete work of fiction - meaning the panic. This site, by the infamous and usually incompetent CSICOP group, first points out that there is little to no evidence this panic ever occurred, then warns us that it could happen again, forgetting to use the same logic they used to show it didn't happen like we are told. The only real panic they mention was a mob furious at being lied to. That can be, in my mind, the only reason that the government goes to such lengths to keep it quiet and discredited. But I don't think that is the whole story.

I think that real life is like my TV show gone bad. The power-hungary and corrupt and greedy have control of our government, and all the fun little toys in Area 51, or whereever. In this care, knowledge is power. There have been times when the media have grossly exaggerated something and excited the public, but the any panic was a created one. But in this case, any panic will be manipulated for more money or government control like what happened on 911.