Mindconnection eNL, 2018-03-18

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In this issue:
Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

Item 1. North and South Korea appear to be healing the decades-old rift between them. The implications are negative for colonialist powers, such as the criminals who own the United States military industrial complex. But for world peace, it's hugely positive. And, of course, for the Korean people it is very good news indeed.

Item 2. The Libertarian Party continues to grow in terms of people serving in elected offices, displacing the criminal elements and the crazies who believe the people should serve the government rather than the other way around. Even in small cities where there's no Libertarian Party we are seeing blowback against the waste, fraud, and government intrusion that has become so egregious as a consequence of Obamageddon. Criminals and crazies were emboldened during that awful period of USA history, and now decent people are standing up to them. All over America.

Item 3. More good news, related to the previous item. Source: LP News.

"The number of U.S. voters registered as Libertarian has surged by 92 percent since 2008, reports Ballot Access News in its March 2018 edition. That increase has come at the expense of both Democrats, who are down by 8 percent over the same time period, and Republicans, who are down by 5 percent. The number of voters registered as independent or with other parties has increased by 19 percent."

Item 4. Senator Rand Paul is doing something positive about the budget deficit. He wrote:

"On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) passed my “Bonuses for Cost-Cutters” amendment to H.R. 2825, the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act, to incentivize employees at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to speak out if they see the agency failing to properly manage the American people’s money.

My provision authorizes the DHS' Inspector General to pay bonuses of up to $10,000 of savings realized when a federal employee identifies waste, fraud, or mismanagement of funds in DHS’ Operations and Support accounts. It would also ensure that 90% of the funds saved are automatically redirected toward reducing our deficit!

In 2017, I reintroduced my Bonuses plan as standalone legislation, which would apply this cost-saving measure across all federal agencies. We took a major step forward toward implementing this reform at the Department of Homeland Security as a pilot program on Wednesday, and I look forward to its passage by the full Senate.

You can check out my Bonuses for Cost-Cutters amendment to H.R. 2825 HERE."

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Our society has become a collection of ignorance silos and stupidity factories. If you want a high level of brainpower, then obviously you must avoid participating in these brain-deadeners.

In addition to being a waste of time, arguing with people who are uncivil and irrational is stressful.

There are other options. They are not as convenient as arguing online, but they are infinitely more productive without the massive downside. Some examples:

• Join a group. The idea here is to form friendships, and then talk among friends. For example, I belong to one formal and one informal climbing group. Because there is so much trust and so little judgmentalism, anyone can ask a question to see what someone's view is. It's a discussion among friends, as opposed to an online battle among strangers.
   
• Have a talking partner. Pick someone who generally shares your values, but comes at things from a different perspective. A liberal and conservative, for example, can have interesting, challenging discussions. But finding a liberal today is tough; most people wearing that label are actually libtards.
   
• Have safe places. At one time, most people belonged to a group called "the family" and they had discussions at the dinner table. Lunch tables at work might be another option.

These are suggestions for discussions with real people. Where you actually talk. You build empathy and understanding, two assets not present in the social media scene. Some tips when having these discussions:

• The other person has value. A discussion centered on winning an argument doesn't make people feel good. Treating other people in a way that shows you value them makes everyone feel good.
• Be respectful. That is one part of earning respect.
• Remember, your opinion doesn't really matter. So defending it isn't necessary.
• Facts matter. Try to know what you are talking about.
• Logic matters. Take the time to understand the various type of logical fallacies, and eradicate them from both your thought process and your speech.
• Don't be afraid to change your view, say you didn't know something, or challenge your own assertions.

We all make mistakes, and those can add to a conversation. For example, "Earlier, I said yada yada yada, but based on what you just said, I want to revisit that. I think it's maybe not right."

Never approach a conversation as if it's a contest. You're interacting with another human being, not trying to beat that person out of a prize.

The scam Safe Asset Keepers, LLC claims that they are London, UK based escrow company in need of an "Escrow Manager." A supervisor calling herself Libby Harris usually initiates contact with victims via email, but has also used phone text message. BBB has discovered that Safe Asset Keepers is not located at the address shown on their website and all attempts to contact the business have failed. Their websites were created on Jan 8th and 9th of 2018 and registered to another false address.

How the scam works

Once the target agrees to take the Escrow Manager position, Safe Asset Keepers, LLC wires money into the newly hired Escrow Manager's account and has them forward the bulk of the funds to a third party. Once the money is forwarded, the bank discovers that the funds were fraudulent and deducts the balance from the "Escrow Manager's" account, leaving them on the hook for any money forwarded.

BBB has been contacted by several victims of this scam who have lost as much as $5000.

What you can do

When dealing with this scam or others like it:

• Don't wire money. Employers will not ask you to set up a bank account in your name. They definitely won't ask you to wire all of the money out of it, either. Account managers handle bank accounts for the business. Businesses do not dictate how to handle your account.
• Talk to your bank. Bank tellers see more fraud than any other profession and can help you navigate through the best options.
• Warn others.
• File a complaint or submit a Scam Tracker report with the BBB and Federal Trade Commission.
• You may also wish to file a complaint with the CFPB. Even if you don't hear back from consumer protection agencies, they might be working behind the scenes to stop the scam and get refunds for victims.

If you think you've been contacted by a scam, report it to the BBB through Scam Tracker at www.bbb.org/ScamTracker.

As commonly understood, cardio refers to low or moderate intensity exercise such as jogging, treadmill work, elliptical training, stair machines, and stationary cycling.

High-intensity exercise cannot be sustained very long, and by definition any sustained exercise is not high-intensity. High intensity training pushes the body to its limits, and the body responds by trying to raise those limits. This is the adaptive response; it raises levels of pro-growth, anti-fat hormones such as testosterone and DHEA. It also provides many other "make me stronger" benefits.

Any exercise that is less than high-intensity will, if sustained over enough time (not much is required) have the opposite effect of high-intensity training. If you do cardio after a high-intensity workout, you will undo what you just spent the last 20 to 30 minutes to achieve. Cardio stimulates a stress response that trains your body to conserve fuel. That means storing fat while minimizing muscle.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out why people do cardio, why so many gyms devote significant floor space and equipment to it, and why so many personal trainers have their clients do it.

My thinking has been along the lines of "Why would they undo what they just achieved?" This is what happens to your thinking process when you view things only from your own limited perspective (shame on me there). I've been asking the wrong question. They aren't undoing anything.

If you observe any world-class athlete in training, you see  high-intensity training. Really hard work, done in bursts and requiring extreme effort. A real athlete in weight training is not concerned about lifting the weight per se. A real athlete is concerned about maximizing the tension in the muscle.

In the movie Pumping Iron, Arnold talks about the feeling he gets from his intense reps. You can see he is squeezing his muscles and he talks about focusing on a given muscle while training it. Not once does he discuss how much he lifts or what he does to make the exercise easier.

In the typical gym, you see an entirely different dynamic except for maybe two or three people out of all the people using the gym at that time.

Most people are focused on lifting a certain amount of weight a certain number of times. Many people walk around with a chart to keep track of this. They will do what it takes to make those numbers go up. So you see recruitment of non-target muscles, momentum lifting, and various other tricks that allow them to go the distance.

They sacrifice intensity, and thus sacrifice the adaptive response.

Top photo taken 16SEP2016, just days before 56th birthday; bottom photo taken 3 days after 56th birthday

So they add more low or moderate intensity exercise to the low or moderate intensity exercise they just did. Adding cardio to their workout doesn't counteract what they've just done, it is simply more of the same ineffective training.

Benefits of cardio

 What they achieve by doing this:

• Burning of calories (good).
• Circulate a lot of blood (good).
• Damage ligaments and tendons.
• Build almost no new muscle.
• Bang their joints.
• Lower their immunity.
• Waste a lot of time.
• Train their bodies to store fat.
• Stimulate their appetite.
• Reduce their resting metabolic rate (intense training increases it).

Absent from the list is "Take cardiovascular health to a very high level." Cardio is a misnomer for this type of exercise, because beyond correcting for a sedentary lifestyle, it does not improve your cardiovascular health. Why? There's no adaptive response! The heart is a muscle, and if you don't push it to its limit it won't get appreciably stronger. Your lungs won't expand unless they experience "out of oxygen" peak loading. Intense weight training pushes your heart and lungs to their limits (so does HIIT), but cardio deliberately keeps them at some level below those limits.

So from a physical benefit standpoint, cardio is a complete waste of time. In fact, it moves you backwards and increases the risk of injury to the point where injury is just about guaranteed.

Adding another 30 minutes of wasted time to a wasted workout does have a positive psychological effect. If you have convinced (deluded) yourself into believing this extra 30 minutes is somehow going to be beneficial, then you get that psychological boost. Yet, you offset that by continually fighting the "battle of the bulge" as you train your body to store fat and then can't figure out how to get rid of the fat. This increases your stress, which, you guessed it, signals your body to store fat.

In the case of gyms or trainers who push cardio, they can always tell the client "You're not doing enough cardio, do more." But there isn't enough time to do more, so the client takes the blame for an ineffective program by saying, "Sadly, I just don't have the time." Not that gyms and trainers are dishonest, they are either just giving people what they (mistakenly) believe they need or they don't know any better themselves.

Yes, sedentary people who start such a regimen do "lose weight". And if they are atrophied enough, they gain some muscle just by dint of getting off their butt and moving around.

Beware the deception

Then a deception takes hold. Because they are developing their cheating skills, they find they can increase the weight they are using. They misinterpret this as gaining strength.

An example of this deception is what commonly happens with the bench press. I don't like this particular exercise, mostly because it involves so many joints and so much can go wrong. And it mostly relies on the front delts, not the pecs. Arnold used flyes, not the bench, to develop his amazing chest.

I've seen average sized guys bench 180 and believe they can actually bench that much. But they are cheating like crazy. When I have them stop arching their back (to use their legs) and stop rounding their shoulders forward (to use their front delts) and stop all the other cheating, they can't do even one rep with 90 lbs.

This same dynamic is at work in every exercise they do. It's not just pointless for muscle development, it's downright dangerous to all those joints, ligaments, and tendons they are abusing.

Ripped and powerful

If you want a ripped, powerful body, you are not going to get it by simply doing more ineffective exercise. If you want "time wasted at the gym" bragging rights, then by all means stick with moderate-intensity workouts and waste time by extending the ineffectiveness with cardio.

If you want a ripped, powerful body, don't do cardio. Instead, make each rep count. Do your low-intensity warm-up set, yes. I believe in those, because they help get everything lined up for the real work. But make the other sets short and brutal. That does not mean use more weight than you can control. It means use the weight and mechanical disadvantage to generate tension in the muscle.

For example, I used to do military presses with 55lb dumbbells. The shoulder is in a mechanically advantaged position in this exercise, but that's a lot of load to stabilize. Now I do Y presses with 25lb dumbbells; I control the weight much better and don't load my connective tissues the way I used to. The Y press puts the shoulder in a mechanically disadvantaged position. Does it hurt my feelings to cut the weight by more than half? Or to put it another way, does it hurt my feelings to get the same benefit with dramatically less risk?

How much intensity?

For maximum strength and minimum hypertrophy, do low-rep (2 to 4), super-intense, very high tension sets. These are preferable for performance athletes, as unneeded size slows you down. For examples, see Bruce Lee or Usain Bolt.

For maximum hypertrophy, do some pure strength training, but mostly do "high-rep" sets. I don't mean a pansy type of swinging tiny weights so you can go the distance. I mean you keep the muscle under tension so you can complete 8 to 12 reps per set. Slightly less tension than for strength training, but high tension nonetheless. You can achieve this by not squeezing as hard or by increasing the rep speed a bit. Hypertrophy training stimulates the growth of capillaries, which take up space and make the muscle larger in volume. Elite athletes in this space can add in very high rep sets or "pumping sets" but they earned the right to do that. And they do it usually as a finishing set.

For most people, something in between is ideal. You need to experiment to see what works for you. Perhaps try the Bruce Lee level of training (or as close as you can push yourself to get) for 60 days. Then change your program. Scale the intensity down (a tad) for your last set or two so you can hit 8 to 12 reps; maintain this for 60 days. Don't change up more frequently than every couple of months, because it takes time for the effects to be measurable and because changing your goals too often means you won't meet any of them.

Gaining weight?

If you find you "gain weight" during this period of experimentation, ask yourself if that is muscle or fat you are adding. Look at the shape of your body in the mirror to answer that question. Stay off the scale, if the increased weight bothers you. If you're doing this right, that weight is denser bone and more muscle.

Also if you're getting heavier, check your diet. If you're scarfing down big whey protein shakes after each workout, that's not good. There are many reasons to reject whey; the biggest one from a training standpoint is anything over about 20 grams at a time converts to body fat. Keep your diet clean. That means no wheat, corn, soy, or dairy. If you're eating meat, don't eat corn-fed meat; buy organic. Same with eggs.

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

Congress has long excused its funding of the terrorist organization known as the Institute of Reprobates and Sociopaths by dishonestly claiming the Institute's goons "fund the government." The reality is these whackos cost the government about 18 times what they bring in.

The 1040 system is only one of dozens of federal taxes, all of which suffer diminution because of the IRS effect. Simply abolishing the 1040 system and disbanding the terrorists would hugely increase federal revenue. Why is this not done? Because it's not about funding anything, it's about subjugating the people through systematic abuse and terrorism.