Mindconnection eNL, 2019-11-03

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Item 1. Not long after Lincoln's assassination, President Johnson was impeached. The reason behind this was Johnson was continuing the policies of his predecessor, who had freed the slaves. Today, we have a president who reversed 8 years of devastating economic policy that produced atrocious jobless rates (much of this was targeted at black people, but Soetoro's policies affected the whole nation). That reversal caused unemployment to drop to its lowest level in 50 years. So naturally, the Democrats are impeaching him. This is good news, because the impeachment process will reveal the rot and backfire on the people who initiated it. That could mean the Democrats lose as many as 37 seats in the House in 2020. But it will be the most radical Democrats who go, and that can only improve things.

Item 2. The job numbers are still good! The median age in the USA is just under 38 years old, but the unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in 50 years. Chew on that for a while if you're trying to decide on whether Trump is doing a good job or not. And you can compare that to years of "jobless recovery" we had under Barry Soetoro and his relentless attacks on jobs and the economy.

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It should come as no surprise that the people who started sounding the alarm about fake news have been in the business of producing fake news for a long time and it's what they do for a living. I am talking about people who work at mudstream media outlets such as the New York Times. That rag rarely gets its facts straight and even when it does those facts are spun in a way that presents a false picture.

Traditional newspaper and television outlets have been producing fake news for decades because they serve a statist agenda based on a very distorted view of reality combined with a complete inability to apply logic or process information in a rational way. As a logician (I got a perfect score on the Watson-Glazer Test of Reasoning and am a quant by education), I feel qualified to make this assessment. If you review their stuff using critical thinking techniques, you can verify my assertion for yourself.

Due to the chronic spewing of balderdash by these folks, alternative outlets started to rise. Remember when the only source of news on television was Jon Stewart's The Daily Show? Look at clips from his coverage of Ron Paul's last bid for President and you will see what I mean.

Alternative news outlets were a boon to people wanting to disseminate the truth, because the statist gatekeepers could not censor them. Unfortunately, this same advantage for those wishing to spread truth turned out to be an advantage for those wishing to spread lies. Antisocial media soon became over-run by liars, spin artists, and propagandists.

What is fake news?

Fake news is news that is based on a half-truth at best or is simply made up out of thin air. It contradicts reality. People produce it not in an effort to persuade, but in an effort to manipulate. It is far from harmless. Not only does consuming it waste your time, it also causes your perceptions to conflict with reality. It cripples you intellectually.

How can you recognize fake news?

Here are some ways to recognize fake news, though not all of them apply to any particular spewing of it:

• There are no references or citations to proof. This isn't fatal, but if there are references that's a good sign you probably have real news. Just be sure to check those references. They also might be fake. If you read that an office seeker said something and there's a link to a YouTube video in which the office seeker says that, it's a good reference. But often, references are listed and they are either irrelevant or not real. Check them.
   
• The language itself seems alarmist. For example, I exercised my First Amendment right to participate in the election process by distributing door hangers with 7 facts that had citations and even a Qcode to scan. The hangers had my name and phone number on them. I just went up and slid them in the door handle, I did not knock or make contact with anybody or interrupt what anybody was doing (except one person, who was in his garage and we had a very pleasant but short conversation).
  
  Very inobtrusive. The person running against the person I was backing then put up "news" on her campaign site accusing me of harassing people, being a "stranger trespassing on your property", being a "suspicious person," etc. She advised people to report me to the police. If you see both sides of the story, it's obvious she is lying. But if you see only one side, how can you tell? Because her gross mischaracterization of me doesn't make the slightest sense. Who would act the way she was accusing me of behaving? The language was just too alarmist, as were the accusations themselves. Look for "over the top" when you try to spot fake news.
   
• The issue itself is magnified out of proportion. The language might be tame, but the author is making a mountain of of a molehill. Ask yourself what makes this issue so important, and would the predicted outcome really be that bad.
   
• The issue is minimized. Often in response to criticism, an offending person or organization will rationalize away the problem and make it sound benign. But look at the relevant facts and try to project the real outcome. For example, a city government spends its reserves on a wasteful project, then claims that's OK because they had the money and finances are fine. But if they spent the reserves, that means even a small contingency can create a big crisis.
   
• It has incongruence. Do all the facts fit together into one narrative, or does it appear to be a laundry list of things?
   
• It has internal conflicts. These are often subtle, which is why even the author misses them. Look at the various facts; can all of them be true? Often when someone is spinning a yarn, they can't follow their own line of BS well enough to see at least two of the "facts" are mutually exclusive. That's why sometimes you will see a retort to an article asking, "Well, which way is it?" If the account is factual, the facts don't conflict.
   
• It has holes. The whole story is sketchy, it somehow feels like important information is missing. Well, it was probably left out on purpose.
   
• The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the (alleged) facts. This is the classic non-sequitor, the most common way of spewing fake news. The conclusion is stated, and then supported with a list of irrelevant statements that are believable, and then the conclusion is stated again as if it follows from those statements. But does it really?
   
• You see evidence of "mental accounting." An example of this is a City administration wastes a million dollars on some stupid and unnecessary project. They defend this by saying the funds were already allocated to a special budget, so money isn't being wasted. In other words, the waste was planned ahead of time so it's not actually waste. This is plain lying. If a dollar is taken from a taxpayer, it's taken from a taxpayer. It does not matter which pocket the government puts it in, it's still a dollar and if it's wasted it's wasted. Or they compare the waste to the total budget, as if any waste is OK because the total overspending is so huge--it's not relevant.
   
• The author clearly has an agenda. This is where trustworthiness comes in. Generally any author of any piece will have an agenda, and the piece is likely to slant toward that. But a good author will try to present a fair and complete picture. Often, it's hard to tell if that is the case. To determine if it is, you can look at other accounts of the same incident. But don't look at ones from sources that are similar, as they are all likely repeating the same story from the same flawed source.
  
  For example, I read several articles by Democrats defending Al Frankel against sex predator charges. Not convincing. Then I read an article by a Republican, who listed all the reasons he did not like Senator Frankel. He concluded by saying Frankel is many bad things, but a sexual predator is not one of them. That was very convincing, because it came from a person who strongly disliked Frankel and had no motive to defend him other than being incensed at the injustice of the whole farce.
   
• Its central theme is an ad hominem attack, as opposed to being issue(s)-based. As Socrates said, "When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers." Look at the news or article or whatever it is to see if this is the card being played.
   
• It's posted on a blog or social media site, and there are no dissenting views. Of if there are, they are very weak arguments that were probably posted for the appearance of being fair and honest. Also look for a series of idiotic comments; these are red flags that the posting is fake news and the fake news gang is providing fake social approval of the fake news item.
   
• The author provides an in-depth technical analysis of something, but there is no corroboration from any recognized expert in that particular field of expertise nor any references the lay person can follow. This is a very common problem. Someone who thinks he knows, but doesn't, makes a seemingly compelling argument. The problem is that argument is based on several false assumptions that an expert in that field would not make. This is arguably the worst kind of fake news, because it is so convincing to those who don't even know what questions to ask.
   
• You see phrases like "common sense" as in "common sense gun control" but there's no definition or explanation. It's just tossed out there to manipulate you; if you don't agree, you don't have common sense. This is a dishonest tactic that works best with people whose self esteem is so low they must have the approval of others. Note that what someone calls you or thinks of you is their problem, not yours. It has no bearing on whether something is true.
   
• The author appears to have no credentials anywhere and no portfolio of articles anywhere but their own blog or publication. Credentials by themselves don't mean the piece has veracity. But someone who has written a news story should have a track record and should have guest articles somewhere. If the author does not, it isn't a fatal flaw. But it should alert you to be more discerning than usual when reading the piece.
   
• The author's portfolio stinks. So you check out the author and find she's been published almost entirely in the New York Times and Huffington Post. While having no credentials isn't a fatal flaw, having these credentials is.

The new ISP needed to run fiber to my home, and then penetrate the building envelope to bring the signal inside. For several reasons, this was a challenging installation. But the installing technician had nothing to worry about, because I was here to help, to solve problems, and to provide the correct tools.

We used my drill (I have several, this one is a $400 Metabo and a serious drill was needed for this job), my battery-powered jigsaw, my PPE (including a respirator for him, I have a box of these), my fish tape, and my super bright work light wand. The technician had never even heard of a fish tape and had never used a jigsaw. He also did not know about silica protection to prevent pulmonary fibrosis.

What does this story have to do with your finances?

I have two neighbors who, like me, have an arsenal of tools. And an arsenal of craft knowledge in multiple trades. Between the three of us, there is probably not a job that we can't do. We also have significant collections of screws, bolts, nuts, washers, nails, and other kinds of fasteners plus enough other hardware to start our own little hardware store. We can do plumbing, carpentry, automotive, electrical, masonry, you name it. I also have all kinds of meters and instruments, more than the typical small electrical shop does. And there's all my automotive test equipment, much of it professional grade.

So, again, you ask, what does this story have to do with your finances?

My two buddies are a generation older than I am, but all three of us grew up with the mentality of the Depression and the War rationing. We learned as kids to build and repair, rather than to buy and discard. Those tools and other items are investments we have made over decades. The return on investment has been huge, something few (if any) mutual funds can match.

Growing up, I did not know of a single family that didn't have tools and the knowledge of how to use them. We fixed our own cars, built our own additions onto our homes, and repaired everything that was worth repairing. Most of the adult men (husbands) didn't sew, but we boys learned how and we were expected to sew our own buttons back on (our moms did the more involved jobs such as hemming or patching).

In my early 20s, I moved away from my home state to take a construction job and stayed six years in construction (first as an instrumentation tech, later as a startup engineer). In this environment, also, everyone was tool-literate. It was only when I took a desk job designing process control systems that I discovered there are men who can't use a screwdriver. One of my fellow engineers, an immigrant from India, stayed late with me to work on some program simulations. We needed a test panel rewired, but the techs had gone home. When I took out a screwdriver and began rewiring the panel, my coworker was astounded. The next day, he was telling other engineers about this, and they just gave him perplexed looks; they also had grown up using tools and didn't understand what the big deal was. Had I not rewired the panel, I surely would have earned their scorn. Or if one of them had been in my place, he would have rewired the panel also.

So here I am, having been born during Ike's last year in office about nine years before we would put a man on the moon, wondering how it is that my generation failed to pass this self-sufficiency on.

Personally, I have done my part several times over. I had stepchildren many years ago, and I passed this on to them. My 12-year old stepdaughter, for example, removed the pan from the transmission in her mother's car. Then she changed the fluid and filter, gave it a band adjustment, scraped the flanges clean, correctly applied sealant on the gasket, installed the pan, and correctly torqued the bolts. She wasn't old enough to test drive the car, but she could do the transmission maintenance. No leaks, a perfect job every time! I taught her how to do just about everything on a car, including adjusting the carburetor but that particular skill is no longer needed. She was really good at brake jobs, and that particular skill is still needed.

Yet I often encounter adults who have no idea how to replace a garbage disposal; they have to call a plumber and pay for a service call. It's a pretty simple job. One "young person" told me his dishwasher was always full of water when he went to take out the dishes, and he wanted to know what replacement model I might recommend. He was ready to spend $600. I said, "Just replace the $10 drain valve!" I've replaced that valve, the fill valve, and even the motor on dishwashers I have owned. I won't replace the panel, because that is a very expensive item that is tedious to replace and at that point you really need a new dishwasher.

If you are already all set with tools and you build and repair, that's great. If you're not, then you need to make that investment. These days, the best approach is probably to buy a fully stocked rollaway toolbox. Then be sure to subscribe to a handyman magazine or two, and set aside time to watch YouTube videos on various types of repairs (whatever interests you). These aids will help, but to truly learn you must DO not just watch. So find someone who is a Depression era "build it / fix it" person (but qualified, and with high standards of workmanship) or find a small business tradesperson who will take you on as a part-time apprentice/helper when s/he has a big project and learn by doing.

I grew up immersed in the build it / fix it environment, not even knowing there was any other approach to life. This knowledge of how to build and fix things also imbues a person with the knowledge of how to make things last for a very long time. So I have benefitted from decades of saving money and reducing the waste I generate. If you have not yet started building the skills and acquiring the tools, make doing so a high priority. Schedule time to start that process in the next few days. Start making a list or a plan, and work on it nearly every day. The money you save and the waste you reduce are two great benefits. But for me, there is also a huge emotional reward. We builders and fixers enjoy the pride of a job well-done. Even a small job. And we do a lot of small jobs.

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Photo taken a couple of weeks after my 59th birthday.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

Fair enough, except I'm not a will power freak. On the morning I'm writing this, for example, it's leg day. There is never a time I look forward to leg day. I don't do it out of will power.

I don't do it because it "gives me energy" either. This workout drains me. I do it every other Monday, because with my other activities that put demands on my legs recovery takes about that long (your own recovery time may differ, this is mine).

So how do I manage to do this workout without skipping it or watering it down? Simple. I tell myself this is my most important workout. It also helps that on the "off week" I work calves separately and do not work them on leg day. If you do not understand why working legs is the most important of all workouts, you need to stop and seriously think about that. Explaining it would be the subject of another article. But here are three points to get you started:

1. Massive stimulation of testosterone.
2. Works more muscle than any other workout does.
3. Initiates a calorie burn that lasts 5 to 6 days.

And here's a bonus: It serves as an inoculation against mobility loss, nearly ensuring I won't wind up in a nursing home. That alone wipes out any reluctance to do it.

Each workout has its own particular benefits. Start thinking of those and write them down as ideas occur. Or do some research to compile a list. Use these benefits to motivate yourself.

What about eating? Again, no will power needed! I simply don't buy junk food. What many people don't realize is that desire for junk food is an acquired taste. You can unacquire it. There's no need to review the damage this junk does to your body; instead, focus on the positive for real food. Learn some nutritional fact about each food, and also learn various ways to prepare, combine, accentuate (e.g., using spices and condiments), and serve these foods.

Examples of benefits:

• Eggplant. Fights colon cancer three different ways. Can be added to nearly any dish, especially if diced.
• Bok choy. Fantastic source of calcium, many other nutrients. Extremely versatile for meal plans.
• Spinach. High in fiber, so very satisfying. Also loaded with nutrients. Tastes great and can be the foundation for about 11 million different, interesting dishes.
• Kale. Loaded with nutrients, and very high in protein. Doesn't taste so great alone, but plays nice with others. Mix with eggplant, bok choy, and spinach, then use a cider vinegar and olive oil dressing and you have a taste bonanza.

By contrast, if you need some negatives to kickstart a lifestyle change:

• Cow's milk. Lactose intolerance is normal for 95% of the population. Unless the milk is organic, it's loaded with pus and antibiotics from the cows who produce it because they ALL have mastitis.
• Cereal. Loaded with sugar and other toxins. Zero nutritional value. Rots your teeth, drives testosterone to zero, makes you fat. For men, risk of prostate cancer is greatly increased if consumption is regular.
• Baked goods containing hydrogenated oil. Hugely boosts your risk of colon cancer.
• Sodas. Osteoporosis in a can, tooth decay in a can, esophageal cancer in a can.

.

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

While many libtards are advocating for a carbon tax and that's their only contribution, intelligent people are contributing by personally reducing their energy waste. At scale, it's even better; in China, for example, 37 cities now offer solar at cost parity with grid power so solar is being adopted at a dizzying rate there.

Life is full of choices. You can choose to belittle and bully other people, for example. This is a great way to compensate for a poor self-image, except it doesn't address the poor self image. Another example is you can choose to look at what you do well and what is good about you, so your self-image is healthy. Then do the same for other people, so your relationships are healthy.