We’re going to war against Iran.

Pablo Escobar nails it. The article is worth a close read.

I stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, and I hope the theocracy is overthrown some day.

The Inner Smile.

What is the Inner Smile?

“In ancient China, the Taoists taught that a constant inner smile, a smile to oneself, insured health, happiness and longevity. Why? Smiling to yourself is like basking in love: you become your own best friend. Living with an inner smile is to live in harmony with yourself.” -Mantak Chia

Hat Tip: wujimon taiji blog
– Source: The Inner Smile Meditation Technique

I’m going to have to incorporate this into my thinking. Becoming my only best friend is a great thought. I’m certain Nichiren would approve.

One Day Long Ago.

I had just returned to the USTAFISH after taking my engineers exam. I passed, first time. I went down to the wardroom on one of my off days to look at mail and messages. I had to pee so I went to the officer’s head. Hanging on the back of the stall door was the duty officer’s keys. I didn’t know who had duty, so I called up to topside and looked in the crew’s mess. No duty officer.

So I called maneuvering and we went to General Quarters. That brought the duty officer out of sonar and I handed him his keys. That particular duty officer was a panic. Rather he than I.

Clean Energy Technology is Coming from China.

You can read all about how China is eating our lunch in clean energy tech.Our government thinks that proclamations will magically produce jobs in high-wage America. California is braying all the time that it wants to be the clean energy leader, but has trouble finding companies who want to locate in the land of fruits and nuts, with all our regulations, permits, and layers of taxes. It’s simpler to build a plant in China.

Don’t get me started on WHY the US needs sources of rare-earth metals for clean tech. Mining is a threatened industry in the US, again, China is providing the US the rare earth metals we need. You can’t build a wind tower without neodymium.

The California Pension Systems are Broke, also.

From CALPENSIONS:

CalPERS, CalSTRS funding levels plunge
January 29, 2010 by Ed Mendel

A decade ago, when the stock market was booming, the funding levels of CalPERS and CalSTRS were both over 100 percent, a projection that assets would be more than enough to meet pension costs in the decades ahead.

Now the funding levels of the nation’s two largest public pension funds have dropped below what some regard as the acceptable minimum, 80 percent, and for different reasons are not likely to bounce back anytime soon. Reflecting heavy losses in the historic stock market crash and other investments, a new report says the funding level of the California State Teachers Retirement System dropped to 77 percent last June — 58 percent without “smoothing” that spreads out losses.

The powerful California Public Employees Retirement System board, avoiding a $1 billion rate shock, approved a plan last month expected to boost the level in the fund covering most state workers, now about 60 percent, to just 65 percent after 30 years.

One part of the solution could be to terminate the pension systems, and give vested employees an annuity and non-vested employees a check for their balance. *Poof!* Problem solved.

But I figure the California Taxpayer will be tied to the whipping post and will make the funds whole.

Using comic books to learn reading.

We had no money growing up so I couldn’t buy comic books. My great grandmother had a bunch of comics that I would pore over when we visited. I think it helped me to read better.

I was *read to* a lot growing up, my mother says I could read before I got into school. I used to be a voracious reader, but the internet has cut into my reading time.

Ah, well, I have a nephew that I sent all my science fiction books to. I doubt if he has even seen a comic book. But he reads a lot more than he used to, LOL.

Bernanke is a Disaster.

Ben Bernanke should NOT be reappointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Send him back to Princeton.

He has presided over the destruction of the American economy, and even now is lining the pockets of his banker friends with 100 cents on the dollar bailouts of poorly underwritten loans. Let the banks fail, and pick up the pieces. Stronger banks will clear the wreckage, and the economy will rebound. But instead we are feeding the banks, debt junkies one and all, more debt. It’s insane.

A quick, healthy snack.

Get some cheese. Not just any old cheese, try Tillamook, the good stuff.

Get out your bottle of balsamic vinegar, the real stuff is DOP or DOC certified. Do NOT use supermarket “balsamic” which is colored vinegar.

Slice the cheese into smallish cubes. Drizzle balsamic vinegar on the cheese. Eat the cheese. Drink the leftover vinegar.

It’s time to enjoy life, and small things mean a lot to me evermore. My wife loves this treat.

For a real treat, pour balsamic on vanilla ice cream. YUM!

From: The Healthy Skeptic

For more than five decades we’ve been brainwashed to believe that saturated fat causes heart disease. It’s such a deeply ingrained belief that few people even question it. It’s just part of our culture now.

Almost every day one of my patients in the clinic tells me proudly that they have a “healthy” diet because they don’t eat butter, cheese or red meat or any other foods high in saturated fat (nevermind that red meat isn’t particularly high in saturated fat, but that’s a subject for another post). Or I might overhear someone at the grocery store saying how much they prefer whole fat yogurt to the low-fat version, but they eat the low-fat stuff anyways because they want to make the “healthy” choice.

What most people don’t realize is that it took many years to convince people that eating traditional, animal fats like butter and cheese is bad for you, while eating highly-processed, industrial vegetable oils like corn and soybean oil is good for you. This simply defied common sense for most people. But the relentless, widespread campaign to discredit saturated fat and promote industrial oils was eventually successful.

What if I told you that there’s absolutely no evidence to support the idea that saturated fat consumption causes heart disease? What if I told you that the 50+ years of cultural brainwashing we have all been subject to was based on small, poorly designed studies? And what if I told you that a review of large, well-designed studies published in reputable medical journals showed that there is absolutely no association between saturated fat and heart disease?

Well, that’s what I’m telling you. We’ve beed duped. Blindsided. Lied to. And we’ve suffered greatly as a result. Not only have we suffered from being encouraged to eat packaged and processed foods made with cheap, tasteless vegetable oils, but these very oils we were told would protect us from heart disease actually promote it! See my article How to Increase Your Risk of Heart Disease for more on that.

The recent review I’m talking about is a meta-analysis published this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It pooled together data from 21 unique studies that included almost 350,000 people, about 11,000 of whom developed cardiovascular disease (CVD), tracked for an average of 14 years, and concluded that there is no relationship between the intake of saturated fat and the incidence of heart disease or stroke.

Let me put that in layman’s terms for you:

Eating saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease.

Complete Blog Here.

My wife and I switched to butter and eating the fats on meat when I realized that the trans fats in margarine were unhealthy. Butter is better!

One Year In, Howzit Mr. Obama?

Congress raised the national debt limit a few weeks ago. “The Debt Subject to Limit is the maximum amount of money the Government is allowed to borrow without receiving additional authority from Congress. The current statutory limit is $12.394 trillion.”

But I see from the “Public Debt to the Penny” website that our debt is now 12,322,107,592,352.96. Seventy more billion, what, that’s two to three days and the US will be broke again. Tax cheat Timmy and Bennie Boy are so proud.

Gitmo is still open. I thought Barak was going to close that penal facility. Ha Ha, he wrote “penal.”