Past issues

Mindconnection eNL, 2002-10-20

In this issue:

1. Featured product line
2. Brainpower tip
3. Finance tip
4. Health tip
5. Fitness tip
6. Thought for the day

1. Featured product line

With kids back in school and dark winter days now approaching, it's time to liven up your home and office (and kids' rooms) with posters. We have tons of 'em, at unbeatable prices with free shipping!

Some of these are just breath-taking.

2. Brainpower tips

Brainpower isn't permanent. There are many ways to lose it. One of the most insidious ways is via brainwashing. Do you doubt brainwashing is rampant, these days? Consider the evidence:

• Colas are essentially osteoporosis in a can. Yet, Warren Buffet owns Coca Cola stock because this poison is wildly popular. The only reason people drink it is they are brainwashed to ignore the very real damage it does.

• People smoke. 'nuff said.

• Most people buy way too much house (too much to clean, pay for, etc.), because they are brainwashed into believing a bigger house is a better house. It might be, but "it ain't necessarily so."

• People actually believe it's a sign of success to spend half as much as their annual income on a vehicle that will spend roughly 90% of its life simply sitting in one place. The idea that an expensive car says something positive about the owner is pure brainwashing. Note: we are defining expensive here as the cost of the car in relation to the ability to pay. A $30,000 car is expensive to the average wage earner, but a $300,000 car is not expensive for Bill Gates.

• In the 2000 presidential election, people actually voted for a candidate who promised to destroy the environment (by increasing EPA regulations, which would drive polluters to areas with no regulation at all), provide better working conditions for violent criminals (by disarming the potential victims), eliminate jobs (through increased regulations and taxes), lower incomes of those who manage to keep their jobs (through higher taxes, which are no different from a wage cut), massively reduce access to healthcare (by having the government, in its own incompetent way, run it), and a bunch of other harmful things. One reason to vote for such a horrible platform is a brainwashing-induced inability to determine the results of actually implementing the rhetoric. Another reason is fear of the other candidate! We see this in every election, regardless of who the candidates are.

OK, so we've beaten to death the horse of "show me brainwashing is rampant." What can you do about it? Here are some tips:

• Look at things for what they are, not what they claim to be. Coca Cola, which is loaded with thirst-inducing sodium, claims to be a refreshing thirst quencher. There is nothing refreshing about osteoporosis. The Pepsi New Generation has given us a generation of 20-somethings whose bones show aging previously the reserve of folks in their 70s. Brainwashing prevents people from saving their own bones. That is really sad.

• Look for the results that come with any course of action. The upside of smoking is that cancer cures it, but there is a whole lot more downside. It is the leading cause of male impotence, premature baldness (genetics is #2), and a host of other blood-system related ills. But, brainwashing allows people to set sanity aside and essentially turn their bodies into money trees for the tobacco executives--many of whom don't smoke.

• Look for real value. What do you really get with that huge house? More storage space for junk you never use? More surfaces to dust and vacuum? You should live in a house that is sized right for you. If you do a lot of home entertaining, a big house may be perfect. If you want a big house "just in case," consider the economics of renting a place. If you truly love to do housework, then get more house than you can afford.

• Ask "What if" questions. For example, what if you owned a business that could no longer make a profit when environmental regulations passed the lines of common sense? Would you lay everybody off and shut it down? Or would you do like Dow and other companies do? Look across the river from Michigan into Sarnia, and you see Canadians happily making money while their pollution blows into the USA. Ditto when you look across the Rio Grande into Valdez--thanks to our "clean air" laws, Americans living in El Paso choke on brown clouds of crap wafting across from Mexico. An intelligent approach would be to pass laws everyone can live with, and thereby keep companies under control of those laws. We don't have an intelligent approach, because the left has been brainwashed into not asking "what if" questions.

• Look at patterns. Every federal tax increase ever passed since 1900 has resulted in a correspondingly larger increase in spending. So, tax increases always create a net loss in the national treasury, which then fuels another tax increase, which triggers more excess spending, which....

• Look at other examples or similar circumstances. For example, in every nation or major city  where gun bans have taken place (e.g., U.K., Chicago), violent crime has skyrocketed. In states with right to carry laws (e.g., Florida) , violent crime has plummeted. Why is this so? Our final bullet (no pun intended) item explains this.

• Look at cause and effect. If X happens, what will result Y be? In the case of disarming citizens, the result has been known for thousands of years--it's even addressed in the Bible. But, if you still think disarmament makes you safer, consider how a lioness hunts. She doesn't go after the big buck with the huge antlers. She finds an unarmed antelope and kills it, instead.

• Put yourself into the equation. This plays on cause and effect. Suppose you are a crook, and you're told two men have $10,000 on them and all you have to do is "take this here baseball bat and mug one to get the money." You walk in one room, and there's George Foreman with a stack of $100 bills next to him. You walk into another room, and there's a 90-year old asthmatic double amputee sitting in a wheelchair with stacks of money on the floor. Which one would you go for? What if that 90-year old asthmatic double amputee had a loaded shotgun pointed at you? Hmm. Cause and effect. It works for me.

Now, I realized I touched on some "sensitive" issues here, like the right to self-defense. But, the very fact there is even argument about it points out the need to battle brainwashing.

3. Finance tips

This section is really about little-known secrets to reducing energy costs.

• Fluorescent lights don't necessarily reduce energy consumption compared to incandescent lights. Fluorescents require an initial jolt of energy (inrush current) to produce light. Yes, they use less energy when they are producing light, but getting them there is the problem. Think of it as acceleration. Depending on the design of the ballast and lamp, the recovery time (where the fluorescent becomes more energy-efficient) varies from about an hour to several hours. So, for "quick" lights--such as in closets or hallways--use incandescent. For sustained lighting, use fluorescent.

• Dimming lights below 20% results in wasted energy. If you dim your lights that much, shut them off. Or use a lower-wattage lamp (in the lighting industry, a "light bulb" is a "lamp.")

• Motors have an even more pronounced inrush current than do fluorescent lamps. They must store energy in their windings. Also, repeated starts with short runs in between significantly reduce motor life. Think about your house fan, vacuum cleaner, and other motor-operated items. Try to let them run just once, when possible. This is why I use an industrial grade extension cord with my vacuum cleaner.

• There is no need to hold the refrigerator door open while you think about what you want to eat. People who do this in grocery stores while thinking about what to buy are essentially stealing from the rest of us. The longer that door is open, the more energy it will take to cool the inside back down. keep it to a minimum.

• You can brush your teeth in the dark. Think about this. Do you actually look inside your mouth while you brush? If having the light on feels comfortable, then leave it on. The cost isn't much. But, if you are concerned about reducing the costs of wasted energy, then turn it off.

• You do not need to warm your car up to drive it in the winter. Doing so with the engine idling introduces raw fuel into your engine's cylinders, and that creates wear that reduces fuel efficiency. Better: scrape the windows, then get in and drive. In very cold or very damp weather, warm it up at about 2000 RPM so you have a defroster.

• Synthetic oil pays for itself very quickly. In addition to reducing engine wear, it boosts engine efficiency by typically 10% over parafin-based engine oils (the cheap stuff that isn't synthetic). If you aren't concerned about fuel economy but are concerned about power, well, 10% efficiency means 10% more output from the engine.

4. Health tip

Six small meals a day means much better regulation of your insulin and other hormones. The myth that "three square meals a day" is good for you is just a myth. And it's wrong. We know this instinctively, which is why so many of us snack on candy bars and swig down osteoporosis from a can between meals. Better to have an apple with peanut butter on it, some eggs and hot sauce, or some other combination of quality protein and carbohydrates.

By the way, no diet that demonizes one of the macro nutrients (fat, carbohydrates, protein) will work--it simply does not address reality. Those who go on these diets are succumbing to brainwashing. If you really want diet information that does you some good, visit www.supplecity.com

Speaking of diet, I recently visited a couple of older folks (she's 66, he's 70). He's had four strokes and she is on high blood pressure medicine. They make nearly all of their meals with pre-made mixes and sauces. Reading the labels on what they were eating, I saw hydrogenated oil on every single item in their cupboards and on every bottle of whatever they had on hand. This particular substance lines the inside of veins and arteries with a gummy substance that putrifies into a hard black deposit. Guess what? This narrowing of the blood vessels causes strokes and high blood pressure. They are paying someone to give them strokes and high blood pressure, then paying someone else for medicine to deal with these problems. Call me a fool, but it seems to me it would be more sensible to cut out the middlemen and not get the strokes and high blood pressure to begin with.

5. Fitness tip

A guy who tells me he "works out" hasn't made any progress in years. He is still undermuscled. I asked him about his workouts.

• Mistake number one. He "works out" exclusively on machines. These tend to isolate muscles. Suppose you want bigger arms. Doing curls with a machine won't provide them, because the back and other supporting structures must also grow to accommodate increased arm strength. Remember Steven Austin, the bionic man? That was flawed because 'ol Steve had no way to transmit the huge forces from his arm through his back and down to the ground.

• Mistake number two. He doesn't do major exercises or compound motions. You must do squats and deadlifts to build muscle of any consequence. These are very natural exercises. If you lift bags of dirt from the ground and spread the dirt on your lawn, you are doing natural work--this is actually a variation of the deadlift. You must involve large groupings of muscles in "compound exercises" for the body to change how much muscle you have.

• Mistake number three. He exercises in the gym only. Weights stimulate muscle growth, true enough. But, so does a generally high activity level. You need rest, but you also need motion. Take up a sport, practice the Kama Sutra,  walk the dog, mow the lawn--do something other than gym work. I have yet to see a farmer or iron worker who is undermuscled.

6. Thought for the Day

How often do you really communicate with the people who are important to you? The next time you have a chance, just listen to people talk. Do you hear insecurity popping out? That's the main reason people argue. Do you hear two different conversations going on? A collective monologue is a common event. But, don't stop just with drawing conclusions about others. Take the lessons back to your own conversations. Think about communicating, and think about how you want this person to feel when the two of you are done talking.

Wishing you the best,

Mark Lamendola
Mindconnection

Authorship

Except where noted, this e-newsletter is entirely the work of Mark Lamendola. Anything presented as fact can be independently verified. Often, sources are given; but where not given, they are readily available to anyone who makes the effort.

Mark provides information from either research or his own areas of established expertise. Sometimes, what appears to be a personal opinion is the only possibility when applying sound logic--reason it out before judging! (That said, some personal opinions do appear on occasion).

The purpose of this publication is to inform and empower its readers (and save you money!).

Personal note from Mark: I value each and every one of you, and I hope that shows in the diligent effort I put into writing this e-newsletter. Thank you for being a faithful reader.

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