Always happy to find his program in English—he travels all over the world.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Health benefits of decaffeinated coffee
Decaf coffee reduces the risk of incurring diabetes.
The high anti-oxidant levels of decaf will protect the cells from damage that can lead to diabetes. The decaffeination process will not eliminate chlorogenic acid which is the substance that helps regulate blood glucose levels
Cancer prevention.
Decaf still contains high levels of anti-oxidants that can prevent conditions associated with the aging process and cancer. Studies show that regular decaf drinkers have reduced risks of incurring colon cancer. For female drinkers, the risks of breast cancer are also reduced.
Decreased risk of heart problems.
Caffeine has been linked to heart conditions like irregular palpitations, heart attacks, and strokes. Since it has been removed, drinkers are less likely to develop any heart conditions
Prevention of mental decline due to old age and Alzheimer's disease.
The polyphenols found in coffee beans are not lost during the decaffeination process. These substances are responsible in boosting the brain's cognitive abilities, thus further improving memory.
These health benefits of decaf coffee cannot be dismissed as mere theories because proofs have been established with the studies that have been conducted. It may not be able to perk anyone up as effectively as regular coffee, but it will ensure good health and long life.
This article also cites sources. http://www.naturalnews.com/041333_decaffeinated_coffee_health_benefits_healthy_beverages.html#ixzz3SyMNOW6T
I resisted giving up regular coffee for years and would order half caf half decaf, but after my hospital stay in the fall of 2013, I gave up all caffeine. Also learned to brew my own, which I've gotten used to. My favorite decaf story: I ordered a cup of 1/2 regular coffee, 1/2 decaf, and the clerk asked if I wanted the decaf on the top or the bottom. This is why we have minimum wage jobs.Habitual chocolate users perform better
“Cocoa products are particularly rich sources of flavonoids, although this is influenced by the processing during manufacture (19). Due to a high antioxidant capacity, cocoa products have been promoted as having several beneficial properties (mainly cardiovascular). Even very modest consumption of chocolate may significantly contribute to total polyphenol intake (38). However, a recent clinical trial (39) did not find any beneficial effects of short-term (6 wk) dark chocolate and cocoa consumption on cardiovascular outcomes or on neuropsychological tests. In our study, we found that habitual chocolate users performed better in all cognitive tests and had significantly reduced risk for poor test performance in most tests, whereas the mean intake of chocolate among users was as little as <8 g/d. Moreover, a maximum beneficial effect on cognitive performance was gained at a mean intake of chocolate of ∼10 g/d. The real effect of polyphenols in chocolate may be even stronger, because not all chocolates are equally good sources of flavonoids and the type of chocolate consumed was not specified in our study. In the US and Europe, milk chocolate is the most popular form, but this contains less cocoa mass than dark chocolate and therefore contains fewer polyphenols (40).”
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/1/120.full
http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2012/02/hot-chocolate.html
Must be dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. I use Hershey’s 100% cocoa with the brown label, not red.
American atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh.
“Avijit Roy was a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen who proved a prominent critic of ideological hatred in his native country. He and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were attacked as they returned from a book fair at Dhaka University in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, as the Associated Press reported. Some outlets reported that the weapons used were machetes; others reported cleavers. Roy died at a hospital after the attack. His wife was seriously injured, losing a finger, but survived.” Washington Post.
No word if the killers were Islamic extremists, but the country is 90% Muslim and he urged a secular democracy.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/american-atheist-blogger-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/asia/bangladeshi-american-blogger-avijit-roy-killed.html?
Age can slow you down
Eugenie Clark, a marine biologist and prolific author credited with profoundly contributing to researchers’ understanding of sharks, has died at age 92. When she was 85 she told a journalist that she could only dive once a day instead of the 4 or 5 when she was younger.
http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/42287/title/Prominent-Marine-Biologist-Dies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WIe9FUMYwk
A 20 billion lawsuit against big media shutting out blacks
Sell out Al Sharpton is part of a law suit by blacks in media. http://josephcphillips.com/2015/02/the-future-of-black-media/
“Of course, some of us have known for a long time that Sharpton was a pawn and a sell out, offering his racial blessing for a price. We also knew that for all the appeals to race pride, this administration has been no friend to Black businesses or Black people. We knew that what Sharpton and others care most about is lining their own pockets. What is different is that right now, someone with some clout is speaking out. And speaking loudly. Right now, someone with a record of providing jobs and opportunity to Black people is speaking out. Right now someone who is self made and not a product of “the Right wing” is speaking truth to power. Maybe now someone will listen.”
Fake extra virgin olive oil?
From this health website with which I’m not familiar, comes this warning. Many brands of olive oil are fake. http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/12300-is-your-olive-oil-lying-about-its-virginity.html Where is the USDA which consumes billions of our tax dollars to promote safe food and accurate labeling?
Independent tests at the University of California found that 69% of all store-bought extra virgin olive oils in the US are probably fake.(3) This study reported that the following brands failed to meet extra virgin olive oil standards:
- Bertolli
- Carapelli
- Colavita
- Filippo Berio
- Mazzola
- Mezzetta
- Newman’s Own
- Safeway
- Star
- Whole Foods
The same University of California study listed the following brands as having met their standards for being true extra virgin olive oil.
- Corto Olive
- California Olive Ranch
- Kirkland Organic
- Lucero (Ascolano)
- McEvoy Ranch Organic
- Pompeii
Note: although I found the UC Davis Olive Center, I haven’t found the actual study so I can look at it. It does produce its own olive oil for sale and is industry funded. That’s not necessarily bad, but should be noted. So now I’m looking through the Olive Center’s FB page.
The latest report on President’s Malaria Initiative
U.S. aid devoted to malaria increased from $149 million in 2000 to $1.2 billion in 2008.
In June 2005, President George W.Bush launched President’s Malaria Initiative PMI, “a major 5-year, $1.2 billion initiative to support a rapid scale-up of malaria prevention and treatment interventions in 15 high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa.The Initiative is led by the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented together with the U.S.Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).When it was launched, the goal of PMI was to reduce malaria-related mortality by 50 percent across the 15 PMI-supported countries through a rapid scale-up of four proven and highly effective malaria prevention and treatment measures: ITNs; IRS; accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment with ACTs; and IPTp. [insect treated nets; indoor residual spraying; artemisinin-based combination therapies; intermittent preventive treatment of pregnant women . ] http://www.pmi.gov/docs/default-source/default-document-library/pmi-reports/president's-malaria-initiative-strategy-2015-2020.pdf
But as you can see from this graph in 2012, the rates and deaths from malaria are still much higher than when DDT was allowed. This chart starts with 1983, and DDT ended in the 1970s after Silent Sprint written by Rachel Carson, a non-scientist, became popular. She may have killed more people than WWII.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/feb/03/malaria-deaths-research
- Global malaria deaths increased from 995,000 in 1980 to a peak of 1,817,000 in 2004, and then decreased to 1,238,000 in 2010.
- In Africa, malaria deaths increased from 493,000 in 1980 to 1,613,000 in 2004, and then decreased by about 30% in 2010 to 1,133,000. Outside of Africa, malaria deaths have steadily decreased, from 502,000 in 1980 to 104,000 in 2010.
- The majority (65%) of all malaria deaths occur in children under age 15. Individuals ages 15-49 years, 50-69 years, and 70 years or older accounted for 20%, 9% and 6%, respectively, of malaria deaths in 2010.
- Overall, 433,000 more deaths occurred worldwide in individuals aged 5 years or older in 2010 than was suggested by official WHO estimates In 2012 an important research report on malaria was published pointing out serious errors in the tracking of malaria deaths. (The Lancet, “Global Malaria Mortality Between 1980 and 2010: A Systematic Analysis,”) Their figure of 1.2 million deaths for 2010 is nearly double the 655,000 estimated in last year's World Malaria Report.
"You learn in medical school that people exposed to malaria as children develop immunity and rarely die from malaria as adults," said [Christopher] Murray, IHME director and the study's lead author. "What we have found in hospital records, death records, surveys and other sources shows that just is not the case."
Most deaths are still in children, but a fifth are among those aged 15 to 49, 9% are among 50- to 69-year-olds and 6% are in people over 70, so a third of all deaths are in adults. In countries outside sub-Saharan Africa, more than 40% of deaths were in adults.
In Africa, though, the contribution of malaria to children's deaths is higher than had been thought, causing 24% of their deaths in 2008 and not 16% as found by a report by Black and colleagues, whose methodology was used in the World Malaria Report.
The current PMI funding and goals ended with 2014. The only budget information I found for post 2015 is a draft. Don’t know if it was approved, but it does report a funding gap. Since 2009 the funding definitely has not kept up with the initial push.
http://reliefweb.int/report/world/president-s-malaria-initiative-strategy-2015-2020
http://www.fightingmalaria.org/Thursday, February 26, 2015
Word of the week—reboot
Numerous things have gone wrong here, but I think everything is working again—the car, the garage door, the phone and the TV. Our son (manager of a dealer Quick Serve) put my car up on the rack and found a huge chunk of frozen ice and dirt in the wheel well hitting the tail pipe causing a loud noise, and he fixed the “low tire” dash light which had been on for 4 months and inflating the tire didn’t seem to fix it; then the garage door wouldn’t go down when it was 10 below zero, and our son stopped over, got a ladder and unplugged it (rebooted) and it started working (had not gone down during our 2 coldest, below zero nights causing the neighbors to call and remind us to close the door); then the phones stopped working with a message, “no line,” so I thought well, if it worked with the garage door maybe it works with the phone, so I unplugged it, and they started working; then the TV quit, so I couldn’t reach the plug and turned off the surge protector to reboot, and then everything quit even the cable box, but it was working this morning after rebooting. So the word of the day/week is “reboot.”
I agree with John Kerry, the world today is less violent than the 20th century
John Kerry is wrong about a lot, but I think history proves him correct about the 21st century being safer than the 20th, at least so far, although we’re only 15 years into it. It's aggravating that conservative talkers and news shows jumped on that as somehow downplaying what we face now. Obama has still made a mess of things--we would have been much safer if he hadn't blown up the pull out from Iraq which allowed ISIS to expand, but at least in 2015, the world is safer than in 1970 or 1944.
"Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally, less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century." John Kerry
Governments killed their own citizens in the 20th century to the tune of about 100 million--and that's not counting the world wars--and there is nothing around today, not ISIS, Taliban or al-qaeda that can match the cruelty and killing of the Communists of USSR and China, the North Koreans who starved millions of their citizens and the National Socialists of Germany or the Turks who killed millions of Armenian Christians under their control. I think he said it poorly in light of the current news about various threats, but even a few months a go I blogged on this topic, and I think I was using conservative sources. The jihadists are trying to build up steam for their Caliphate, but so far are no match for the terror and crime of the 20th century. Because the Democrats are being eaten from the inside by their own radicals and Communists, Kerry probably doesn't dare mention the history behind those words, or that it was the president [Reagan], the pope [John Paul II] and the prime minister [Thatcher] who made the 21st century safer for all of us by bringing down the Soviet Union.
But, the 20th century looked pretty good and progressive until 1914, so maybe we’ll have to wait and see about it being safer today. So far, I think we are.
Collard greens soup and baked butternut squash
with a side of black beans and brown rice. That’s the sort of things I’m eating these days for lunch, along with fat free feta cheese (bleh) and fat free yogurt (also bleh). (Feta cheese is made with sheep's or goat's milk and it has a bold and tangy flavor. The cheese supplies key vitamins and minerals, but it can also be high in saturated fat and sodium.) The secret to my loosing weight is to not eat things I love and which will encourage my taste buds to ask for more. I’m a sucker for cheddar cheese, peanut butter, Fritoes and potato chips. My daughter has been known to accuse me of “grazing” at her house. Also cookies. Love cookies. I can avoid candy and cake with no problems. After a week of no weight loss, I finally see a little progress. I bought a pair of navy slacks Tuesday at VOA for $.50. They fit great and I think a touch of Lycra and a good brand is the secret to a good fit—like Docker’s or Talbot’s . I also bought Pendleton blue jeans for $.50 but they are still too tight. I didn’t know Pendleton even made jeans, but they are awfully nice. About a year ago I had given away all my 8’s and 10’s, so yesterday I took some cotton jeans of various colors and sizes, washed them, and put them in the dryer. They fit now. Usually I never put jeans in the dryer.
It wasn’t curried, but this is a possibility.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Parks and Recreation ending and I’ve never heard of it
“The writers worked hard to make sure that not one citizen of the fictional Pawnee, Ind.,was left with a dream unfulfilled. The finale, packed with inside jokes and guest stars, showed multiple flash-forwards of the characters through the years. The end result? Every character ended up exactly where they were meant to be, except about a hundred times better”
Net Neutrality is a "Solution That Won't Work to a Problem That Doesn't Exist"
Ajit Pai is an oustpoken opponent of expanding government control of the internet, including FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the same Title II rules that are used to govern telephone-service providers as public utilities. Under current FCC regulations, ISPs are considered providers of "information services" and subject to essentially no federal regulation.
Bye, bye internet freedoms
In a commentary, “Neutralize Obama’s Hijacking of the Internet”, Judi McLeod, the editor of CanadaFreePress.com, said “Forget NSA, the FBI, the CIA, and all warnings sent by Edward Snowden. They’ve got nothing on how Net Neutrality will silence you.”
“Someday in the near future when you type in the words “Islamic terrorists” in an Internet post, you will be knocked off the Net and find it all but impossible to climb back on again.”
Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/l-gordon-crovitz-from-internet-to-obamanet-1424644324
Stacy Dash hasn’t changed her mind
“I didn’t know anything about [Obama] when I voted for him in 2008. My choice to do so was purely because he was black,” she admitted. “Naively, I thought he would be the right person for the job but unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. Obama had the opportunity to really unite this country in such a profound way, but instead he has done the opposite. We are so divided right now, everything has become about race, more than I’ve ever known in my lifetime.”
Stacey Dash, a black actress, was quoted in Huffington Post in 2012 as supporting Romney, and admitted to Fox News (and again today) that she voted for Obama because he was black and sincerely hoped he would bring the country together. Her Twitter account was swamped with hate. It’s hard for blacks to live outside the Democrat party. I’ve yet to see a conservative black guest/talking head on any show not say he/she voted for Obama with that hope. They are admitting those hopes have been dashed. (Pardon the pun).
An Iraqi-Assyrian speaks out after the burning of the Mosul public library
“When ISIS first attacked Mosul, we Assyrians living in America protested and begged for help. We have lived as a minority in Iraq for hundreds of years, we have faced oppression, but when ISIS came we knew this was unlike anything we have ever faced before. Far worse than anything Saddam himself could have imagined. People counter protested us said it was not America's problem, citing the Iraq war. This is nothing like the Iraq war and I think now people are starting to understand why it is our problem. This isn't some backwards, stupid terrorist group. The leader of ISIS is CIA trained; he is smart unlike anything I've ever seen in the middle east before, and he wants to establish a caliphate. He won't stop until he wipes out the US and other westerners off the map. Now, he may very well be in absolutely no position to do that ever, but at the rate he is going he will be strong enough to cause us a lot of problems very soon.” Commenter at the article on burning the library, a Christian church and a theater.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/isis-burns-8000-rare-books-030900856.html
“The library was looted in 2003 and the citizens of Mosul restored it. During the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the library was looted and destroyed by mobs. However, the people living nearby managed to save most of its collections and rich families bought back the stolen books and they were returned to the library, All Faraj added.”
I lay the ISIS problems—the killing, torture and building of the caliphate--at the feet of President Obama, who could have prevented all this loss by leaving minimal armed U.S. military in the country. ISIS flooded in even before our pull out which had conveniently been announced with a time table. And if he were a secret Muslim, what would be different? As it is, he is just another just-us social justice Christian.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Workout in the kitchen while you’re cooking
You can dance, or clean, or do brief workouts while waiting for the timer, or put things in less convenient places (that doesn’t sound like a good idea to me) and march in place. I started subscribing to this newsletter about 20 years ago. Always something interesting.
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