Vindication

A new inspirational poster has emerged.

Vindication: When the loudest critic of your policies achieves his greatest success because of them.

Fasting

Long Considered a benefit for the religously-minded soul, fasting evidently has the added benefit of being good for your body.

From the article:

Today, research cardiologists at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute are reporting that fasting not only lowers one's risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, but also causes significant changes in a person's blood cholesterol levels. Both diabetes and elevated cholesterol are known risk factors for coronary heart disease.

Unlike the earlier research by the team, this new research recorded reactions in the body's biological mechanisms during the fasting period. The participants' low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, the "bad" cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C, the "good" cholesterol) both increased (by 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively) raising their total cholesterol – and catching the researchers by surprise.

"Fasting causes hunger or stress. In response, the body releases more cholesterol, allowing it to utilize fat as a source of fuel, instead of glucose. This decreases the number of fat cells in the body," says Dr. Horne. "This is important because the fewer fat cells a body has, the less likely it will experience insulin resistance, or diabetes."

This recent study also confirmed earlier findings about the effects of fasting on human growth hormone (HGH), a metabolic protein. HGH works to protect lean muscle and metabolic balance, a response triggered and accelerated by fasting. During the 24-hour fasting periods, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men.

...Amen. Let's hear it for increased levels of HGH.

Picture worth a thousand words

Maybe Paul Ryan has something to say. (Gosh, don't like all that red!)

Now that PP is on the proverbial "chopping block"

Blessings

Prices jump

Remember this post? Here? The title in question was: Countries most at risk in case of a Food Shortage

It seems someone could see the future. Did you see country #6 on the list? Egypt. Or #18? Tunisia. Both have overthrown their governments in the last little while. There have also been rumblings in #3. In part, these have been due to rising food prices.

So, what causes food prices to rise? There are a few things which tend to do that - 1.increased demand, 2.reduced supply, and 3.the decreased worth of money. While there hasn't been much of an increased demand, the other two are certainly factors.

Why is food so much? Because there are additional uses for it - government-subsidized uses (think Ethanol). With the competition of demand (vehicles here act as additional mouths to feed), the price goes up - or the reverse, that Ethanol siphons some of the food supply away so there is reduced supply. Either way, it puts upward pressure on food prices.

The other factor in this is the debasement of money. Do you remember when a candy bar cost 25 cents? or less? What about a gallon of gasoline? When we put more money into our closed system, we lessen the value of each dollar. The flip side of that is that the price goes up. If each dollar can buy less, it takes more dollars to buy the same thing. Once again upward pressure on the food prices. Think Quantitative Easing (QE). Think billions and billions of dollars added to the system of the last 2 years. This factor is going to be true for pretty much every commodity. Guess what has happened to the price of cotton? Guess what will happen to the price of clothes?

So, for the people who cannot afford the new food prices, maybe they will be saved by the price in clothing - if they happen to have lots of clothes to sell.

News

Slow Down - Chuck Girard

A wonderful song from my past. This song was occasionally played during the TEC weekends that I was a part of in my youth. It is not really a youth-friendly kind of song, yet it had its place.

Chuck girard - Slow down download

found at bomb-mp3 search engine

And it is, in fact, quite slow.

Another that is similar, is this one:

Chuck Girard - Lay Your Burden Down download

found at bomb-mp3 search engine

I remember them both fondly, and am excited to hear them again. It is really hard to find these old songs, so . . . here they are for you.

Sad commentary

After watching the video, I became sad. We are all in a hurry to protect this "untouched people" from ourselves. On the one hand, I'm relieved that we've discovered that we as a people and culture are rotten and wouldn't it be nice if we could keep from infecting others. Yet, at the same time, these are people as well. Are they not rotten to the core as much as ourselves? Don't we all spring from the same tree? Don't we all curse the same hot sun (snow, in the case of those living in Minnesota)? Don't we all feel the weight of life and death and how we fail one another?

Tis a pity that after all this, our leaders feel that we have nothing - no net good - to offer these poor people.

Yet, these leaders seem to know nothing of God's love - love that Christians know and are commanded to share to the ends of the earth, even to protected people.