Mindconnection eNL, 2020-07-18

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Item 1. The world's most feared and hated terrorist organization is running low on psychopaths. Repeated budget cuts combined with patriotic citizens sending the IRS questions and tax forms on paper have resulted in enormous stacks of mail that IRS soldiers find demoralizing. CV-19 has further complicated the personnel shortage. IRS is also having problems recruiting new soldiers, because fewer and fewer people want their reputations sullied by associating with this group of despicable people whose only purpose in life is to hurt other people. In effect, IRS is largely disabled. And that is extremely good news. Keep sending them paper.

Item 2. Despite the massive effort by Nazi Pelosi and her communist comrades to spread fear, anxiety, and dread among the populace (along with lawlessness, violence, and hatred), the economy is making remarkable gains with the easing of CV-19 lockdowns.

Item 3. Candace Owens continues to fight for freedom and the rule of law. Support her here: https://candaceowens.com/

Item 4. President Trump soldiers on, despite the venomous attacks by publications such as The E-communist, The New Pork Times, and the Washington Compost. He continues to soldier on, despite venomous attacks from hordes of clueless, "repeat whatever stupidity you hear from leftwing propaganda" zombie libtards. He soldiers on, despite loud attacks from crazies who seem determined to burn society down and leave a smoking socialist husk in place of this country while blaming him for every real or imagined problem there is.

The President is standing between civilization and the hordes of unthinking, angry militants who seek to destroy it. That may sound histrionic, but it is the reality. Like the rest of us, Donald Trump is not perfect. But all it would take to plunge us into a catastrophic downward spiral of Marxist organized crime ("government") is for Trump to lose in November.

If the socialists keep the House, we are in deep trouble even if Trump does stay in office. If the socialists take the Senate and keep the House, they will have both chambers. They already have the SCOTUS pretty much in their pocket. That leaves the Executive Branch to balance the other two, and it will not be sufficient. But it will prevent a complete takeover by the socialists.

Trump is a fighter and he won't quit. But to see good news in November, we have to do this together. Let us show those who remain from The Greatest Generation that we won't lose what they fought so hard to save. Let's keep the Executive Branch away from the zanies, and take back the House too. We need to fire Nancy Pelosi and the other deranged idiots who live for the purpose of destroying our society. Not merely "transforming" it, but rendering it into a toxic wreck.

Item 5. AOC, the "cancel culture," and the Castro brothers are calling for a boycott of Goya Foods because the CEO of Goya praised President Trump at the White House. That's the bad news. The good news is we can help Goya actually increase its sales. Goya is a true American success story, founded by the CEO’s grandfather an immigrant from Spain, in 1936. They employ thousands of people and are philanthropic. Their food products are staples in many Latino households. Let’s stand up for Trump and make a statement against AOC and the other zombie socialists who want to destroy everything worth saving.

Item 6. Somebody sensible might replace Maxine "Marxist Maniac" Waters: https://youtu.be/nGeAALz0w_Y

Item 7. If your neighbor left stacks of newspapers and open cans of gasoline lying around and insulted you daily, how would you feel if you were forced to help pay for rebuilding his house once it burned down? Not very good, I suspect. And so it is with the People's Republic of Minnesota, a socialist bastion of economic ignorance, lawlessness, inept government, and hatred toward non-socialists. They have the gall to ask the rest of us to pony up to help fix the mess they were so proud of creating. And the good news is they got told no. Read the full story here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/white-house-denies-minnesota-governors-request-to-rebuild-minneapolis-after-riots_3421437.html

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1. Negro.
2. Black.
3. African-American.
4. A person of color.
5. None of the above.

Now for many people, this is difficult to answer. Libtards would have to consult the PC (politically correct) dictionary, latest edition. But a person who can, and does, think would get the right answer without effort and without hesitation. He would call my friend Jerry. That's his name.

Ken, a "now lost to many relocations" friend of mine in the 1990s, emigrated here from Nigeria as a child in 1963. He completed his immigration process and was naturalized. He later completed an electrical engineering degree and then a law degree (the latter from Case Western University). Ken did not like being called anything but Ken. It was my honor to call him "brother," something he reserved for his friends. He did not like "being bro'd" or called "bro" or "brother" by people who didn't know him.

Recently, I referred to Michael Robinson, aka "Michelle Obama", as a transvestite. A friend who pays attention to PC told me the correct term is "cross dresser." I said I don't care what some illiterate person believes about language. I said the word "trans" means "cross" and your "vest" is your clothing so it's the same thing. The words are synonyms.

My friend then said other people might be offended by my word choice. I said they need to grow up. Being thin-skinned and taking offense where none was intended, doing so reflexively by default, is a defect in the person who takes offense. Not in the one perceived to offend. In fact, I went on, this secret code language thing where you have to use the word de jure is a way of bullying, of making people wrong and trying to shame them into wasting their time and mental energy in keeping up with the latest shibboleth in the stupidity war (aka, culture war).

You can use up an enormous amount of mental CPU cycles trying to maintain your lexicon of people labels. Why have those labels in the first place?

When I was a kid, I sometimes heard the N word used by adults. I had no idea who these N people were, but they sounded like pretty bad characters. I was in fourth grade before I connected the dots on this one, but in the preceding years I had been happily playing with kids who fit that racial slur by dint of their ethnicity. My school had kids of different heights, weights, accents, and skin color; all of these potential differentiators were factors in identifying an individual but not in grouping people. The fat kids didn't keep to themselves, the short kids didn't stay away from the tall kids, and kids didn't group by color. Any suggestion to do so would have seemed ridiculous, because it is ridiculous.

My experience was that I knew N people years before understanding whom that racial slur was intended to identify. So I rejected the notion of racial inferiority as soon as I encountered it. For many people, the experience is the opposite. They are taught racial inferiority and then later encounter people who are allegedly inferior only to find out they were fed a big pile of BS.

The human brain weighs about three pounds. It has limits. You have an innate IQ, like so much power in a battery. If you waste that brainpower on BS, you have less brainpower to use on reality. Right now, there's a big libtard push to make "white" people acknowledge this and that alleged offense--committed purely by dint of being "white." I remember the days when it was a crime to "drive while black" and it rankled me. Today, it's a crime to "breathe while white" and that rankles me too.

There's a positive feedback loop here. Recall that a positive feedback loop is neither good nor bad, the "positive" part means the feedback makes the original condition more of whatever it was. So once you begin wasting brainpower on PC and similar nonsense, the less brainpower you have to refute such nonsense and the available brainpower keeps diminishing due to positive feedback. You can reach a tipping point, and at that point your brainpower begins a downward spiral to zero. That has happened to millions of believers in the theory of "white privilege"; their minds are now so enfeebled they can't think at all.

Let me be clear on this "white privilege" thing. Yes, many people of color face barriers that many people whom you might call WASP do not. But being someone other than a "person of color" does not confer privilege. Nor is a "person of color" automatically suffering from a lack of privilege. It is not the adversity that determines whether you succeed, but how you handle that adversity.

A close friend of mine is half Columbian. His mother moved to the USA before he was born, and his father left the family while my friend was still in diapers. My friend couldn't speak Spanish so he didn't fit in with the Hispanics at school. He didn't fit in with the "white" kids because he was clearly not one of them. And he was dirt poor. My friend could have whined about the distributive injustices, how unfair things are, and how the system owes him. But he did not do that. He worked very hard, and he built a business that is quite successful. I wrote to him a few weeks back that everyone at his company brings their A game, and how remarkable that is. One thing he does not do is hire whiners who want to blame other people for their troubles instead of work hard to succeed.

Don't waste your mind on foolish PC games. If other people are offended, that's their problem. They will always be "offended" by something. They are not rational, and they probably are not useful. So you don't need their approval. Reducing your own mental prowess to appease them gains you nothing. They will keep coming up with silly "walk on eggshells" games for you to play. That's disrespectful to you, and it's a form of bullying. There's no reason to deliberately antagonize these people, but there's no reason to go out of your way to please them either.

You have only three pounds of brain to work with, so put your brainpower to use doing things that bring positive results in meaningful ways.

My sister and I never had a budget or financial plan, per se. We just live by certain principles. For example:

1. If you don't need it, don't buy it.
2. If you need debt to buy it, you probably don't need it.
3. Pay off your credit cards regularly (at least 1x/month). Treat a credit card as if it's cash you're spending, not extra money you don't actually have.
4. Savings come first, not "if you have something left over".
5. Buy quality items, not cheap junk. Good appliances, good furniture, good fixtures, good bedding, etc.
6. Buy for utility, not for status. If you "need" a car so expensive you have to finance it over 7 years, you are delusional and self-destructive. Re-evaluate, with the consideration that how people value you depends on how you treat them not on what you drive.
7. If you can repurpose something old to serve in place of something you might otherwise buy, do it.

The number one reason people have financial difficulty...

1. Early in life, is they buy things they don't need. Like fancy coffees or fancy cars.
2. In middle life, is they live beyond their means. Too much house is the typical problem.
3. Late in life, is they have medical bills that exceed their insurance. The solution there is to not live the disease lifestyle in your early, middle, and late years. Then you don't get sick and thus don't have those medical bills.

Once your finances get out of control, you need a strict plan to get debt-free as soon as possible. You also need to learn new habits of frugality so that once you are debt-free you stay that way. If your finances are not "out of control" but need to be better, then address each of the seven points above.

Regarding cheap junk, this includes clothing. I have a closet full of nice tailored suits and I have a wardrobe full of nice tailored shirts and sport jackets. I always wear a dress shirt and sport jacket when traveling by plane, and I get VIP treatment at every point. Instead of polyester that pills, my shirts are made from thick, quality cotton. I don't usually "dress up" anymore. But there are times when I won't do otherwise, for example if taking my sweetie out. A few years ago, my next door neighbor asked why I always dress up before coming over. His mother-in-law was living there at the time (she passed away at 103), and I told him I did that out of respect for her.

The key to avoiding financial stress is to make smart financial behavior a habit. Think about the principles you can apply, and then apply them consistently.

You need to protect your mind from sources of propaganda or you will be manipulated into doing things that deprive you of property and liberty. I recently read something in The E-communist (The Economist) magazine and wrote the following letter to the editor. It's instructive not just for its content, but for what it illustrates about ragazines (rag magazines) like this one.

The letter:

I grew up in the USA state of Illinois, which proudly proclaims on its license plates "Land of Lincoln". Over several decades, I have studied the "War Between the States". I have personally read personal letters from the era (kept under museum glass), visited battlefields, and put my fingers into holes left by Union bullets in buildings such as the Courthouse of Columbia, SC.

In your 13 June issue, Bagehot said, "America fought a bloody civil war to abolish slavery in 1861-1865." That statement includes two opposing positions. A civil war, by definition, is one in which insurgents try to take control of the existing system of government by force. Yes, there is a newer, more colloquial (sloppy) definition today that it's merely a war between organized factions of citizens; but using that definition obfuscates what really went on and that definition ignores cause or motivation as if citizens fight each other for no particular reason.

A civil war did not happen in 1861-1865, the North invaded the South. Why would the South invade the North, anyhow? But assuming they did (as Bagehot's statement would require), what sense would it make for them to invade the North to free the slaves? They could have freed their own slaves without invading the North. There is a difference of opinion as to who actually started this war. But every historian agrees that the North aggressively pursued the Southern army in the south and the North torched Southern cities. The reverse did not happen.

This war was about secession, not freeing the slaves. The secessionist crisis simmered long before Lincoln took office, but it blew up shortly after that. Lincoln sought to preserve the union, and in 1862 he said if he could do so without freeing a single slave, he would do so (this is one reason radicals are now calling for tearing down his statue in Washington, DC). In his Gettysburg Address, he referred to this war as a civil war even though he knew it was not. The point was to keep England and France from entering the war and supporting the South. At no point did Lincoln recognize the Confederacy as sovereign. The Southern surrender was executed by General Robert E. Lee, not by Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy).

Lincoln could recognize Lee as a combatant, he could not recognize Davis as a head of a foreign state.

General Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Northern armies to victory and became US President when Lincoln's successor left office, said in his memoirs it was a war between the states. Not once did he refer to it as a civil war and not once did he say it was about freeing slaves. It's a big memoir, but well-written. Before commenting on US history around this period, authors at the Economist should read it.

The Emancipation Act did not free Northern slaves. It freed only slaves in the rebelling states of the South. It defies logic that the South would invade the North to free Southern slaves and it defies logic that the North would start a war to end slavery except in the North.

I hope you will publish this and I hope you will correct policy internally so the Economist correctly portrays this particular era of US history.

Thank you,
Mark Lamendola
History buff in USA

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.

During the shutdown, I've been climbing on a wall I built in my backyard: https://youtu.be/gH86p-E32-8

See all of my climbing videos here:

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

The Invincible Immune System, Part 6: Environment

Do you use bleach or Lysol in your home? These and most cleaning products reduce immunity. How clean are your sheets? How clean is the air you breath indoors? I'm amazed right now that the CDC tells people to stay inside to avoid getting sick, even though the typical home (or office) is toxic. The good news is the toxicity can be reduced dramatically, perhaps to insignificant levels. Consider these factors:

• Plastic fiber for clothing, also called "polyester" is toxic. Avoid contact with the skin. If you have plastic underwear, replace it with linen or bamboo fiber underwear. Sheets, same thing. Cotton is non-toxic to use, but producing it is highly toxic and highly water-consumptive.
• Formaldehyde furniture. If you bought something at Junkea (IKEA) and took it home, you should probably throw it away. The cheap fake furniture hawked by this company (and many others) is made from particleboard, which is made with so much formaldehyde the fake furniture emits it for up to several decades. Sometimes resulting in a high, cancer-causing concentration.
• Dust under or behind furniture. Dust in homes consists mostly of dust mite poop and human skin cells. Periodically pull furniture out and clean under and behind it. The same goes for large appliances.
   
• Bleach. The typical dishwasher detergent contains chlorine or bleach. This is toxic in several ways. Replace it with a gel (won't clog your drain pipes) made from non-toxic salts; several brands are available at Natural Grocers and even in some "regular" grocery stores. The Seventh Generation brand is excellent.
• Petrochemical cleaners. One of the main reasons for cleaning your home should be to make it a healthier place in which to live. Using bleach, Lysol, foaming spray cleaners, and anything else consisting primarily of harsh chemicals or secondarily of fragrances defeats the purpose. You can clean almost everything with Borax, vinegar, and baking soda. Scrubbing pads have come a long way and The Eraser is an excellent tool for cleaning sinks, tiles, tubs, and other surfaces.
• Petrochemical fragrances. You find these in "air fresheners", hand "sanitizers", many kinds of cat litter, shampoos, and other products you apply to your skin, hair, clothing, and environment. They are all toxic. Rather than stink a place up with "fragrances", destroy the causes of malodor at their source. For example, instead of wearing petrochemical perfumes eat only real food. Instead of "stench-enhanced" cat litter, don't make your cat sick by feeding him/her corn, wheat, or soy. If you want a nice scent in your home, use coffee grounds or cinnamon. You can put coffee grounds on a cookie sheet in the oven at the lowest setting for 45 minutes. Then open the door. Sprinkle cinnamon on apple slices and bake on low heat for 20 minutes. Don't want that heat in the summer? Find fragrant plants you are not allergic to. For example, use potted basil to give your kitchen or dining room a wonderful scent.
  
   
• Paper coffee filters. The white ones are bleached, which means you get a little carcinogen with each sip of coffee. Replace with non-bleached types or replace your coffee maker with one that uses a mesh basket instead of a filter. I did this and have not paid for filters for years or added them to the waste stream.
• Paper plates and cups. A few years ago, a friend told me that many people eat off paper plates and drink from paper cups every day rather than wash dishes. This astounded me, not just because of the unnecessary expense and unnecessary waste generation, but also because the plates are made using bleach. So you get a little bleach with each meal, and that's great if getting cancer is on your bucket list.
• Paper napkins. I don't use napkins, generally. When guests visit, I provide very nice cloth napkins. There is some confusion as to what a napkin is for, and most people genuinely do not know. It's not there to wipe your fingers after you lick them; licking your fingers during a meal is one of the rudest and disgusting things you can do. It's not there to wipe food off your face.
  
  The napkin is to rest on your lap while you are eating. If you get up for some reason other than having finished your meal, your napkin goes on the table neatly folded lengthwise. If you are finished with your meal, cross your fork and knife on top of your plate and (depending upon local custom) place your napkin in the aforementioned place or on top of the crossed tableware. I see the napkin as a relic of the past, though that's just my opinion based on this signaling function that is its only traditional purpose other than being a final barrier between your lap and spilled food or drink. Today, people use napkins to engage in "dry bathing" (wiping) their faces and/or fingers during a meal. Paper seems a good choice for that, as it will soon ruin cloth napkins. But if you entertain company, assume they are not barbarians and use cloth napkins. Exception: If it's a party where you are serving finger food, then small paper napkins made for that purpose are a good idea.
   
• Newspaper. In addition to the fact that what's printed on newspaper is mentally toxic (it's negative and full of disinformation), the paper and ink emit toxic vapors. This is a double-whammy to intelligence, which explains why devoted readers of the New York Times have such reality-challenged opinions.
• Fragranced cat litter. The "fragrance" is made with petro-chemicals. If the box smells bad, change the litter completely then sprinkle some baking soda on it at least once a day. If this does not solve the problem, your cat is sick. First check your cat's food. If it contains wheat, corn, or soy, you have found the cause of the illness. Toss all that poison in the garbage, and make a special trip to Pet Smart or your grocery store to buy a non-toxic cat food. Most grocery stores stock Purina One, which isn't toxic (read the label).
   
• Antimicrobial rinses and sprays. These don't decrease any disease factors whatsoever, but they do create a microbe imbalance that increases your chances of getting sick.
• Mouthwash. Not really an environmental factor, but it's often used by the same people who use bleach, antimicrobial sprays, and scented cat litter. It promotes tooth decay by altering the flora and fauna in your mouth, and the various chemicals in it increase your chances of cancer of the gums, tongue, palate, and throat. If you have some, use it as a toilet bowl cleaner but don't put any in your mouth.
   
• Toxic paints and finishes. This is a hard one. You build or remodel, and suddenly your home is toxic. Carefully read up on any paint, varnish, or other finish before using it in your home.
• Toxic coverings. Carefully read up on any flooring, carpeting, or window curtains before putting them in your home. Try to choose natural materials, or at least non-toxic manmade ones (e.g., nylon).
• Toxic lighting. There is no reason to have CFL lamps ("bulbs") in your home. They waste energy compared to incandescent (due to the inrush current and the short run time) and they contain mercury. There's a lot of hooplah if you break one, due to the mercury. Since these have been a con job from day one and shoddy ones that fail 95% sooner than expected are normal, you can bet these lamps leak mercury vapor. Remove any on your property, and replace with LED or incandescent.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Survey your home, one room at a time. What toxins can you discover? Find a non-toxic alternative that serves the same purpose. This could be expensive to do all at once, so take notes and schedule action items so you can complete this in a reasonable timeframe without breaking your piggybank. You might, for example, have just opened a bottle of bleach. You could decide to use half of it before disposing of it, rather than just toss the whole thing out. Whatever progress you make toward non-toxicity is good progress. It need not be all at once, but it needs to keep moving forward.

Thus far, I have discussed toxins that people bring into their home but can choose not to. There are other toxins that enter your home without your help. Atrazine, for example. There is so much of it in use, you can't get away from it. But what you can do is run HEPA filters in your house to remove it from the air you breathe all night and much of the day. Use several small ones in different rooms, so if one fails or needs cleaning/refiltering the others are still carrying the load. These filters, along with a good furnace filter, will remove mold, dust mites, bacteria, viruses, and all sorts of nasty bits from the air you breathe. Caution: They will not remove IRS agents. To remove those nasty critters, you need a parasite removal specialist called a "Tax Attorney."

Future topics:

The Invincible Immune System, Part 7: Nutrients and supplements. Which foods hugely boost immunity and should be focused on during an epidemic? Which vitamins, minerals, and supplements actually work toward strengthening your immune system (hint: Vitamin C is not even close to being the whole story).

The Invincible Immune System, Part 8: Rest, emotional maturity, and mental attitude. Sleep deprivation dramatically lowers immunity, but it is a normal condition for most people. Being emotionally mature is something that does not happen on its own, and for most people it never happens--I'll provide some tips to fix this. The right mental attitude is key, and I'll explain what it is and how to make it the attitude you have.

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

The concept of three main races (Asiatic, Caucasian, and Negroid) originated with one man (I don't recall his name) and there is no scientific basis for it. At all. Other racial classification systems, equally baseless, have emerged in various civilizations over the past few thousand years. Several have emerged in the past couple hundred years. While grouping people into these categories can seem to be a convenient way to categorize people, one must question why make the effort in the first place.

Some of us grow up and become thinking, responsible adults. Most of us stay immature and become zombie-like adults. Which kind of adult are you, and how do you know?