Mindconnection eNL, 2018-04-01

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Item 1. Headline from MIT Tech Review: "A stem cell treatment helps fight multiple sclerosis"

New results show a particular $40K treatment may be safer than was previously thought. Chemo "therapy" destroys a patient's faulty immune system, then stem cells from their blood and bone marrow are infused into the patient's body to rebuild the immune system. The BBC says 100 patients were given the therapy or drugs. One stem cell patient relapsed with MS inside a year, compared to 39 in the drug group.

Item 2. Fed-Ex has been adding robots like crazy, but has not been laying off or firing employees to make room for them.

Item 3. This is uplifting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1OHXvZFMPg

Item 4. A racist law enacted during the racist Barry Soetoro administration has now been gutted. That is very good news. Read the fully story here:
http://dailytorch.com/2018/03/congress-succeeds-in-gutting-obama-hud-racial-and-income-zoning-rule-in-omnibus/

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The general approach is a fake person with fake credentials makes a series of fake statements designed to sway the reader to a particular viewpoint. Often, these are allegedly professors. But if you go onto the university site and try to find that professor, you don't. Or you do, but the photo or some other major detail does not align with what you read on the "information" site. You've just been astroturfed.

If some "expert" cannot be found elsewhere, the odds are nearly 100% the "expert" is fake. The fact you can e-mail the person is of no value. People who create a fake expert can continue faking via e-mail.

Today's so-called "journalists" denigrate the idea of "fake news" yet is it the only kind of news they and their fellow fakers have been spewing for decades. If it's news, it's fake. Not because there wasn't time to verify every detail, but because our "journalism" schools have, for a long time, been run by people with a very narrow world view. They indoctrinate students for four years, leaving them incapable of discerning truth. And those people then filter everything through a statist and delusional lens before producing what they call "news".

The vast majority of people realize the "mainstream" news is propagandistic rubbish, as is evidenced by the death of one newspaper after another and the declining numbers of people exposing themselves to television "news." Most people still want to be informed, so they turn to other sources. Unfortunately, many of these sources are astroturfing outlets.

One trap people fall into is they come across a site that espouses views that align with their own. Gee, it must be right. So they go there for their news fix or information intake. The result is an echo chamber, with no real learning and little, if any, exposure to real news.

Many experts say to look for citations. But that just means the author read some other authors and is passing along what those people wrote. It doesn't mean the information is correct.

What I advise is this. Look for the logic and the basis. For example, on the basis:

• I write articles for electrical trade publications. I explain the theory behind what I'm saying. I might cite an industry standard. But suppose I say, "Don't carry tools up a ladder." Using the knowledge I have from two decades as a sport climber, I explain how doing that throws you off balance as you move your base of support up the ladder.
• In this very newsletter, I write fitness advice. Everything I say comes from the physiology, not from some voting of opinions or from what I think sounds good. Sure, I might cite Lee Haney or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that is only icing on the cake.

Logic is a great filter, because many people hold irrational beliefs. You can spot the non-sequitors in what they are saying, without having to look very hard. For example, there are people who believe that banning Bic lighters will stop arson. They are, after all, automatic matches. Oh, wait, I got my delusionals mixed up. I mean there are people who believe that banning guns will stop criminals from using them. And what is the definition of a criminal? Someone who breaks the law. A law is not going to stop them!

Also look for misuse of words. For example, there is no such thing as an "assault rifle." Anyone with a passing familiarity with firearms knows this. But the word "assault" sounds scary. It manipulates the uniformed to approve of policies that achieve the exact opposite of what they claim to achieve.

Fake statistics are fairly easy to debunk. The gun ban nuts use these quite freely.

Basically, if you want to know what fake looks like then visit any site that advocates disarming law-abiding citizens. The underlying proposition is so absurd that advocating it requires the use of all the tools of deception. Thus, such sites are the "model" for astroturfing.

It's also helpful to pick up a few books (not at the same time) on subjects such as how to manipulate people, how to create propaganda, and that sort of thing. Becoming familiar with these techniques will allow you to spot them in use. And they are widely in use.

Think for yourself. That is the key to not being astroturfed.

Bonds are a guaranteed confiscation of wealth, if your method is to buy them and then sell at maturity. You can make money in bond trading, but you have to know what you are doing and even then you aren't likely to break even much less make money.

What is so wrong with bonds? By their nature, they are loaned assets. They do not produce wealth. Therefore, any "gains" will be eaten up by inflation. Let us define inflation, since that term is grossly misused on a regular basis.

Inflation is not a general increase in prices, though it is an input into prices and over time tends to drive the prices of most (but not all) things higher. Inflation is the debauching of the currency by means of counterfeiting the units of currency.

Let's say X amount of dollars represents the basket of goods and services for 1990. Let's say that basket increases by 20% by the end of 1995. If the supply of money also increases 20%, then you have a stable value in each dollar. But this is not what happens. The supply of money grows massively compared to the growth of the basket of goods and services. The supply of money is "inflated," thus we have inflation. Each unit of money is now decreased in value by the ratio growth between the supply of money and the actual value of the basket of goods and services.

To get a handle on how bad inflation is, consider just one event of many. Between 2008 and 2012, the (non)Federal (non)Reserve created $49 trillion (that's $49 followed by 12 zeroes, or 49 million million dollars) out of thin air and simply gave it to the five largest banks. There is no way any bonds issued during that time will possibly earn enough to counter the value those bonds lost due to inflation.

There is only one source of inflation, and that source is the central bank. Inflation is a stealth tax, and it is the largest single tax the typical dollar user pays.

So it's interesting that these scammers warn about other scammers. Maybe they just don't like competition. Read the full story here: https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2017/02/tips-to-stay-secure-during-tax-season

Please note the cynical URL. With IRS in existence, nobody is secure during tax season or at any other time. But at least you don't have to go through ancillary robberies if you follow a few tips.

You may have multiple reasons. Some of them may be good, strong reasons. And some may be rather weak. It might be helpful to make a list of reasons for each of those three, then identify the two best reasons on each list.

What reasons might you have to skip training or do it poorly? For making a bad food choice? For going to bed late?

Personally, I have not skipped training for over 40 years. So I can't think of a reason to do that.

I've been on the "be healthy" diet for over 50 years. I've cheated on that a few times, but not in the past 30 years.

Having consistent bedtimes is not particularly challenging for me, but there are times when making an exception seems the better choice. And even when I do go to bed consistently, I don't always have quality sleep.

People say they want to "lose weight" and that is their motivation for "exercising." Merely exercising is better than being sedentary, but it does not even come close to real training as far as benefits are concerned.

What are those benefits? I think if you look at a list, you might find more to motivate you.

• Condition the body for athletic performance. That is the main reason Usain Bolt trains. It is also a big factor in why I train. Many of the people I regularly climb with have parents younger than I am. My level o of martial arts also requires extreme fitness.
   
• Boost the immune system. Combined with a good diet and sufficient rest, a rigorous training program makes disease almost impossible for you. The main factor is the diet, but the hard training amps that effect considerably.
   
• Maintain good posture. Poor posture looks bad, and it leads to painful conditions at around mid-life. Back pain, neck pain, etc.
   
• Cleanse the colon. The mechanical actions involved in training act to pump your digestive tract out. The average American male at age 53 has 6 pounds of undigested meat fermenting in his colon. That's a cancer factory, and it produces other problems. A good diet and vigorous training reduces that gross slime to zero.
   
• Ward off osteoporosis. Calcium supplements do not prevent osteoporosis. Placing hard, intense demands on your skeletal system does. Weight-training gives you that.

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

As for me, I'm playing the long game. I now know what it's like to be pushing 60 and yet be an athletic powerhouse. No prescription medications, no illness, no mobility issues. Perhaps in 20 years, things will be a bit different for me. But in 20 years, most men who are now my age will be dead. If you have not been playing the long game, play it now.

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

During Kevin Brown's $103 million heist known as the Hoyt Fiasco, 4300 innocent victims who had been defrauded (federal court indicted Brown's co-conspirator Jay Hoyt on 53 counts of fraud) of their retirement savings were then brutalized by Brown's cover-up efforts. His two lead attorneys quit their IRS jobs in moral disgust.