One place to start would be to consider the possible role of fructose. Some people on a Paleo diet exclude it, but many (most?) don’t.

Fructose is converted to fructose-1-phosphate in the liver, a process which can deplete the phosphate stores that normally would be used to create ATP, which is the body’s primary source of metabolic energy. A lack of ATP triggers the degradation of adenine, which produces uric acid, which can lead to gout — which is associated with metabolic syndrome. The fructose metabolites are then moved into fat storage, by increasing triglyceride levels in the blood. Fructose also increases insulin resistance.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16234313?dopt=AbstractPlus

As a result of the process above, fructose can then lead to fatty liver:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403641

Consuming PUFAs and alcohol can also contribute to liver injury and inflammation:

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2009/12/cirrhosis-and-fructose.html

I should mention that there’s a difference between eating low-carb and being in ketosis. When you’re in ketosis, the body is burning fat as a primary fuel, rather than glucose. Triglycerides are fats, and if you don’t burn them up, they tend to accumulate. Triglyceride levels can go from being high to normal within 72 hours of going into ketosis.

Based on the research I’ve done, it is perfectly safe to be in ketosis for a few months at a time, and probably even longer. However, alternating out once in a while is prudent — an expert I know advocates going out of ketosis twice a week or so, or maybe one week a month. In my case, making the transition isn’t particularly easy, so I do it less often (out 1 month of every 6 feels like it would be about right, although it’s more easily said than done).

A few interesting tidbits about ketosis: the brain’s adaptation to ketones starts on about day 3, but isn’t complete for about 2 weeks; I tend to feel a bit fuzzy during that adjustment period. After 2 weeks, though, the brain can derive 25% of its energy from ketones. The heart ejection fraction can increase by 30% within a few hours after an injection of ketones (helps with CHD). If you force cells to burn glucose, they turn cancerous relatively quickly; if you force them to use the same fuel they used in the fetal state (ketones), the cells tend to undifferentiate (stop being cancerous). Alkaline cancers, in particular, live on glucose; getting your blood glucose level down from 110 to 80 makes a huge difference in the cancer’s ability to grow.

Leptin resistance can also be a factor in the body’s use and accumulation of fat. Mold toxins can cause adverse effects on the leptin system, as well as aggravating insulin resistance. There’s a book called “Mold Warriors” that talks about this (redirects to Amazon):

http://tinyurl.com/43bus2p

This may include various forms of subclinical intestinal yeast overgrowth (meaning it can be a problem with no obvious symptoms). Everyone has yeast in their gut and on their skin; it’s a question of species and quantity, as well as the competitive balance with normal gut bacteria. Some fungal species, such as Candida rugosa, are resistant to certain antifungals, so just because you’ve been through a round of treatment doesn’t mean the problem has gone away. Sometimes, treatment just changes the balance around, and can even make you worse (always a good idea to supplement probiotics when taking antifungal meds).

In addition, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) can inhibit lipolysis (breaking down fats). You may be able to check yourself to see if your PGE2 levels are a factor. A niacin flush can significantly lower your PGE2 level (as well as histamine). One way to do the test is to start by dissolving a 24 hr dose of regular niacin (not niacinamide or no-flush niacin) in 8 oz of water. Then, take a sip and wait about 30 to 40 minutes for a flush. Then take a larger sip, wait, flush and repeat. You may need to repeat again for a few days, with steadily increasing doses per day. When you’re done, the flushing should stop or nearly stop. After that, if PGE2 is a problem, you should be symptom-free for many hours. In general, the larger the flush, the higher your PGE2 levels.

Some people also have mitochondrial deficiencies. I have recently come to suspect that “subclinical” mitochondrial disease is much more widespread than is commonly accepted (particularly in brain-related illnesses, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and possibly epilepsy). This can also contribute to difficulties in effectively burning fat for fuel; you can run into a bottleneck of sorts. Experimenting with mitochondrial nutrients while in ketosis might help to both identify and treat some of those issues — for example, carnitine, medium chain triglycerides, NADH, Lipoic Acid, B1, B2, B3 (NADH precursor) as niacin vs. niacinamide, B5, CoQ10 (std vs. ubiquinone) and N-Acetyl-Cysteine. You can assess yourself to see if they’re helping by looking at your cognitive function (memory or something similar), strength, stamina, and/or body temperature.

First, here are her words:

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Now let’s take a closer look at what she said.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for

I paid for those roads as much as you did; probably more, since my income is above average, and roads benefit others much more than me.

you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate

I paid to educate people, too. I paid property taxes (the source of educational funding in California) for 30+ years, and never sent my kids to public school. I am also not the only person to benefit from the education of others.

More fundamentally, though, so what if others paid for my employee’s education? If someone’s parents paid for their child’s education rather than taxes, should an employer be expected to pay the parents back? When I hire someone, I am paying them in accordance with their skills, knowledge and abilities. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement: employees get an income, and I get the benefit of their efforts; the more educated they are, the more they earn (to a point). Win-win.

BTW, the quality of US public education generally sucks. In many cases, I would often prefer to hire people who haven’t been damaged by it.

you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Those police and fire forces are using facilities and equipment that people like me designed and built for them — structures, vehicles, computers, communications, etc, etc.

And again, I paid for those services as much as anyone else. And again, I’m also not the only one to benefit from them.

Police and fire services don’t really keep me safe anyway; safety is much more a function of morality. Installing a new police force in Somalia wouldn’t change anything.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

OK, now we’re getting to the meat of it.

First, there is no social contract. That’s simply an invention the Left uses to try to impose guilt or duty on us. A contract requires conscious and voluntary agreement between parties, and it presupposes the ability to reason, discuss and even disagree, so it’s not something you can be born into. I certainly never agreed to anything like what Warren implies. What if I had been born in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany? By Warren’s logic, I would be required to live by those “social contracts” as well. No thanks.

My individual rights are not negotiable. No one, including government, has the right to take from me because of some perceived need — or for any other reason. My life belongs to me.

Finally, perhaps the most important point: when I create a business, I am adding value to the world. I am employing people and producing a product or service that others value more than the money they give me in exchange. How about some thanks, some appreciation for that? No, the Left don’t want to thank me, they want to destroy me; they want to steal my earnings while trying to portray me as evil. Why am I evil? Because I am successful, because I am good.

So if government spending doesn’t work, then what’s the answer? It’s basically the opposite of what the government has been doing. Rather than increasing regulations and creating more and more barriers — just get out of the frigging way!

A few examples:

1. Repeal regulations. It may not even matter where you start — almost all of them are bad.
2. Allow failure. Freedom only works if it’s also possible to fail. Don’t protect companies from failure or mistakes; let them go bankrupt or be sued. You’d be shocked at how many laws there are that seek to interfere in this area.
3. Make it easy for people to be fired. Although it might seem paradoxical at first, making it easy for an employer to fire their employees also makes it easier for them to hire. If an employer is likely to be stuck with someone they can’t get rid of, it makes them reluctant to hire in the first place. Easy firing also lets them trim dead wood, so the truly productive are more likely to be rewarded.
4. Abolish the minimum wage. Unemployment is highest among young adults. Is it better to work for a low, yet mutually agreed wage, or to not work at all? Keep in mind that even when working for a low wage, people are building experience — which often leads to higher wages down the road.
5. Repeal all laws that require jobs to be licensed. You need a license these days even if you want to just wash someone else’s hair. Licensing has become a way for people who do certain jobs to put up barriers against competition. Caveat emptor is a much better policy.This would be especially effective at reducing healthcare costs.
6. Allow employment testing. The Supreme Court’s 1971 decision against employment testing ended up making it much more risky for employers to hire, because they’re can’t be as confident in their hires as they would be otherwise.
7. Repeal all “equal opportunity” laws. If an employer is forced to hire someone only due to their race or gender, and not because they are the best person available for that job, it means the company is less productive, and therefore able to support fewer jobs than it could otherwise.
8. Reduce or eliminate corporate taxes. Higher profits means more money would be available for jobs. Corporations aren’t living entities. The real burden of corporate taxes falls on their shareholders — which includes many of today’s ailing pension funds. Corporate taxes are really just hidden taxes on individuals; we pay them in higher prices for the things those companies produce.
9. Something needs to be done about unions. I agree with the idea that people should be able to collectively bargain, and things like that. But current union-related laws go much further than that. It seems to me that what we see in Detroit today is largely a result of unions that have taken things too far. I don’t know exactly what the solution is.
10. Legalize owning and making stuff. There is a surprisingly huge list of things that are illegal to make or own in the US. For example, alcohol stills (which are legal in New Zealand, BTW). Once legalized, assuming there is demand, companies would spring up to manufacture them, and those companies would need employees — as would supporting companies, such as accounting firms, transportation, distribution, wholesalers, retailers, construction, etc.

In addition, when the government borrows, it is competing with businesses for capital. Reducing government borrowing would therefore make more capital available to businesses, which would allow them to hire and grow.

New Zealand does not have capital gains or inheritance taxes. Interest and dividends are taxed as regular income. For individuals, very few expenses are deductible. For example, you cannot deduct mortgage interest or capital losses. The income tax form is short in comparison to the equivalent forms in the United States; for 2010 it consists of forty one “lines.” Property taxes (called “rates”) are low, and apply only to land, not to improvements or other forms of business property. Local city councils collect and spend rates.

If you make a living working in a certain field, then New Zealand does not consider earnings from that work to be capital gains. For example, if you trade stocks for a living, then those gains would be taxable, whereas if you only make occasional investments in stocks while having a job in another field, then they would not be, nor would losses be deductible.

There are four personal income tax rate brackets. The rates for 2009 ranged from 12.5 to 38 percent, with the maximum rate applied to earnings over NZ$70,000. The rates declined slightly in 2010, and now range from 10.5 to 33 percent. You can claim a credit for income under NZ$9,880, with the effect that if you earn less than that, you will not owe any income tax. Seventy five percent of New Zealand residents are in the intermediate 17.5 percent bracket (up to NZ$48,000). The corporate tax rate is a flat 30 percent, and will be decreasing to 28 percent in 2011.

New Zealand bases personal income taxes on individual income only; there are no “joint” returns or brackets. As an example, assume a husband works and his wife stays at home and they have a joint savings account. The husband will owe tax on his earned income plus half of the interest income. His wife will owe tax only on half of the interest income, potentially at a much lower rate than her husband will.

Employers deduct most income taxes at the source, through the pay as you earn (PAYE) program. Banks and other financial institutions deduct taxes from interest and dividend payments through the resident withholding tax (RWT) program. One way that PAYE differs from RWT is that PAYE includes an additional 2% fee for no-fault accident insurance (ACC). Although New Zealand has a publicly funded healthcare system, people injured in an accident can receive additional benefits, such as physical therapy or compensation for lost wages.

One advantage of New Zealand’s approach to income taxes compared to the United States is that the end-to-end system is reasonably comprehensible by the public. It is possible to estimate accurately the impact of changes in income or tax rates on yourself as well as others. This helps facilitate better economic planning, which is important for a well-functioning economy. If you cannot plan, or if your planning is error prone, it is easy to make a wide variety of financial mistakes. For example, you might end up with a level of debt you cannot afford to service, or you might unnecessarily defer the purchase of assets that you could have put to good use.

The motivation for not taxing capital gains stems in part from a respect for property rights, as well as from a desire to limit the benefits government receives from inflation. When capital gains are taxable, inflation alone can cause a nominal gain, even when there is a loss of purchasing power. For example, if you buy an asset for $1,000, and after one year without inflation, you sell the asset for $900, you would have a $100 capital loss. Now assume that there is 20 percent per year inflation. The sales price would be $1,080; you would have an $80 capital gain, even though there is a loss in constant dollar terms. Inflation plus a capital gains tax will amplify your losses (and your gains) compared to depreciation alone.

New Zealand has a national sales tax called the goods and services tax (GST). Items that you purchase overseas and import into the country are also subject to GST, with a NZ$50 minimum threshold per transaction. Instead of the government providing exemptions for companies and individuals who collect GST on the goods and services they sell, those entities file periodic GST returns where they can claim a credit for GST they have paid. If they pay more in GST than they collect, they receive a refund.

Only a few goods and services are exempt from GST, such as donations to non-profits, which they then sell, financial services such as bank fees, and rent for a residential dwelling. The most interesting exemptions are for fine gold, silver and platinum. The combination of no capital gains tax and no GST has the potential of enabling a form of penalty-free trading using precious metals as money, although such a market has not yet materialized.

The GST tax rate started out at 10% when New Zealand introduced it in 1986; it went up later to 12.5 percent. As part of the legislative package that decreased income tax rates in 2010, GST increased from 12.5 to 15 percent.

In addition to GST, the government also imposes excise taxes (duties) on a number of imported items, including alcohol, tobacco, fuels, carpets, footwear, hats, apparel, bedding, cosmetics, amplifiers, and so on. Typical rates vary from 5 to 10 percent of cost.

A duty used to be payable on gifts over a certain amount. The government has decided to eliminate that tax in 2011, largely due to the high cost of administration compared with the relatively small revenue that was taken in. As a result, gifts of any size are now tax-free. This change also fits with not having an inheritance tax; the idea is that you pay taxes only when you earn the money, not when you give it away, either voluntarily or upon death.

The government raises roughly 45 percent of its total revenue from individual income taxes, and about 20 percent from GST. Corporate taxes, duties, investment income and other taxes make up the remainder.

New Zealand’s central bank is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ). The government restructured the RBNZ charter in 1989, in the aftermath of the financial crisis in the early 1980s. The law under which the government chartered the bank defines its primary function as providing stability in the general level of prices. New Zealand was the first country to adopt a formal inflation target. Unlike the Federal Reserve, the RBNZ charter does not include managing the level of employment or other aspects of the economy. New Zealand does not provide FDIC-like bank deposit insurance, whether through RBNZ or otherwise.

The combination of not allowing mortgage interest to be deductible, having a central bank focused on controlling inflation, and a lack of bank deposit insurance superficially discourages debt and inflation. Even so, it was not enough to prevent the country from having a modest real estate bubble; prices have roughly doubled over the last ten years.

Having lived with the New Zealand tax system since moving here from the United States four years ago, overall I find it to be a breath of fresh air. Eventually, I would like to see the country move to a more limited government that is entirely funded by voluntary fees. The purpose of government should be to protect our rights. Taxation requires force or the threat of force to enforce it. As a result, through this implicit or explicit force, government is violating our rights. This puts government in a constant state of both internal and external conflict: “violating your rights in order to protect them.”

In the near term, on the path to a voluntarily funded government, there are many things New Zealand could do, in addition to the often suggested “cut spending and taxes.” To encourage saving, which helps minimize the true cost of capital, I would like to see taxes on interest income eliminated. To help reverse the decline in domestic industrial growth, the government could reduce personal and corporate income taxes, and offset the revenue loss with an increase in import duties. Import duties are potentially avoidable, so they are a more moral option than income taxes. Import duties could also be made uniform, so they do not damage or benefit one industry more than another.

Because soap is a natural antibacterial, it was apparently disturbing the natural balance of bacteria in my mouth and throat — to the point where I eventually got a bad case of thrush (yeast overgrowth), which was an unpleasant experience, to say the least.

This may not happen with everyone who brushes with soap; I think I’m sensitive in this area. It may also depend to some degree on the type of soap you use. You could probably also offset the antibacterial effect of soap by having a spoonful of acidophilus yoghurt after you brush.

The toothpaste I’m using now doesn’t have sodium lauryl sulphate or fluoride, but it does have glycerin. Even so, I was encouraged at a recent dental hygiene appointment with no gum pocket depths greater than 3mm (5mm is considered the threshold for gum disease).

The X axis is the traditional Left vs. Right model. The Y axis shows the degree of sacrifice that’s required from a particular political party or system. The political parties are shown in green, political systems are black, and the targets of sacrifice are red.

What I’m trying to show here is that the fundamental difference between the Left and the Right today is not, say, the support of individual rights vs. collectivism. Rather, they both advocate sacrifice, just to different targets. The Democrats want us to sacrifice ourselves to our neighbors, so they support egalitarianism, welfare programs of all kinds, and uses of taxation for both purposes. They are also strong supporters of various racist agendas, such as “equal opportunity” (a misnomer if there ever was one) and multiculturalism. The Republicans want us to sacrifice to corporations and the country (endless wars), and they have a strong religious agenda too.

You can see where the fringe parties and political systems of today fall. The Greens want more sacrifice than the Democrats, by having us sacrifice ourselves to the environment. Anarchists advocate less sacrifice than Democrats, while often still preaching egalitarianism or other forms of sacrifice to your neighbor, or sacrifice all-to-all. The Tea Party wants a little less sacrifice than  Republicans, by being against sacrifice to corporations, but they would be happy to sacrifice to God and country.

Although there are certainly atheists in the Libertarian camp, my experience with them as a group is that they tend to support sacrificing themselves to God to some degree. Since they adopt the non-initiation of force principle as a primary (rather than in an appropriate context), they also tend to be pacifists who support sacrificing themselves to their enemies. However, they generally prefer eliminating sacrifice to both corporations and the country.

As we move down the Y axis, true socialist governments take sacrificing to your neighbor to even greater extremes with actions such as government ownership of major industries. The people of Nazi Germany sacrificed themselves to the Aryan race; that was the true name in which many of their atrocities were committed. Italian-style Fascism demanded sacrifice to the country (Nationalism) and happily created a marriage of corporations with the State. Theistic states such as Iran demand sacrifice to God.

At the level of total sacrifice, we have communism on the left, such as in the Soviet Union, where private property and working for profit (“speculation”) were outlawed. On the right, we have totalitarianism, which would be a type of feudalism, where a King rules by fiat.

At the top of the diagram’s triangle, not sacrificing to anyone means supporting individual rights as a primary, which leads to laissez-faire capitalism. This is a “hands off” type of capitalism, limited mainly by laws against the use of force or fraud, but free of modern regulation.

The diagram also helps to illustrate the tendency of humans when it comes to politics to move down the Y axis, toward increasing levels of sacrifice — which also naturally leads to increasing violence and war. Jumps up the Y axis are relatively rare, yet also very powerful when they do happen, such as with The Enlightenment.

I had a heart scan done myself about 5 yrs ago, and would highly recommend the procedure. Although mine came back clear, I could imagine that having someone tell you that they suspect plaque has started to form in the vessels affecting your heart is nothing like actually seeing and measuring them.

Instead of statins, look into the Pauling/Rath protocol for reversing heart disease. Basically, Lysine, Proline, Vitamin C, Co-Q10, Carnitine, Niacin and Vit E.

Arginine supplementation can also be useful. It helps by increasing nitric oxide release in tissues, which in turn promotes wound healing (such as in the arterial walls; plaques form in response to wall damage), and helps to dilate blood vessels. Dr Joe Prendergrast’s work in this area is very interesting.

If the heart scan does show some calcification, consider having EDTA chelation therapy, which can help dissolve the plaques. It’s a slow process (once a week for 20+ weeks), but it has a pretty good track record, particularly when the plaques aren’t too thick. The most effective approach is by IV, but it can also be done using EDTA suppositories — the latter takes longer and requires some care in administration, but you might prefer it to getting stuck with an IV needle. Used in conjunction with a heart scan, you can actually track your progress.

Watch your blood pressure. High BP can damage blood vessels; repeated micro-damage means more plaques.

Also, watch/limit your calcium intake and Vit D level. There is a bunch of interesting work in this area. Tom Levy of Vit C fame was planning a book on the subject.

What I found is that the most common cause is not having enough magnesium. The second most common cause is getting too much calcium. Other micronutrient or electrolyte imbalances can also play a role.

Calcium is required by muscles in order for them to contract, and magnesium is required in order for them to relax. There are many factors that can lead to magnesium deficiency, including exposure to toxins in your food or environment. Some people also tend to leak magnesium from their kidneys when they are totally well, and so can be in a chronic state of deficiency, even when on a good diet.

If you’re having cramps, you might try dramatically increasing your magnesium intake, while reducing calcium as much as you can, until the cramps abate (if you get too much, you’ll find it’s a natural laxative). There are many different forms of magnesium supplements; some are much more readily absorbed than others. I prefer the amino acid chelates, although I’ve also found mag citrate (“Natural Calm”) to be effective when taken in sufficient quantity.

At high doses, calcium is actually a cellular toxin. I worked with a very bright doc once (Robert Cathcart, of Vit C fame), who had a theory that calcium toxicity was responsible for osteoporosis, and contributed much to heart disease.

Another thing to try is Epsom salt baths: take about 250 grams of Epsom salts (about a half-pound) and dissolve them in a bath full of warm-to-hot water, and soak for 30 to 60 minutes. Finish the bath at least an hour before bed, to allow your body time to cool down before you go to sleep. When the cramping in my legs used to get bad, I found this was one of the most effective things I could do to help.

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash Americans

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship – the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and “reality” programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin’s ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere’s ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world’s largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn’t real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn’t born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren’t activated, you aren’t alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person’s credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. “liberals,” “hippies,” “progressives” etc. This form of argument – if it can be called that – leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.

3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you’re using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It’s often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.

4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin’s mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they’ll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

(continues)

mid-2007: Buy US$100 worth of NZ dollars. Exchange rate = 0.68 USD/NZD, so net = NZ$147.06
mid-2007 to mid-2008: Interest rate for savings account 7.4%, so NZ$157.94 at the end of the year
2008 to 2009: 7.2% –> NZ$169.31
2009 to 2010: 6.0% –> NZ$179.47
2010 to 2011: 5.0% –> NZ$188.45
mid-2011: Exchange NZ$188.45 back to USD. Current exchange rate = 0.81 USD/NZD, so net = US$152.64

That’s a 52% gain over 4 years, or 11% compounded annually. 19% of the gain came from a weakening USD vs. NZD alone.

For comparison, gold has about doubled in USD terms over the same period, but pure USD deposits are up only a few percent.

The following draft was given to me by someone from the Florida Tea Party. They have adopted it as their own. I really like it, and would like to hear what others think.

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Tea Party Mission Statement

We uphold and affirm the natural rights of every individual, regardless of race, creed or national origin, to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness; rights to which the founders of our nation pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

We hold that the proper role of government is to protect the rights of all citizens at the expense of none; to protect its citizenry from force, fraud, and breach of contract, thereby allowing all citizens to dispose of the products of their thoughts and labor as they see fit.

We recognize that free trade and free markets—the voluntary exchange of goods and services—are responsible for the unprecedented wealth and prosperity of our nation; and that such are both practical and morally necessary for human dignity, prosperity and enjoyment of life on earth.

While we respect the generosity of individuals who willingly give to charities and causes, we reject the premise that one person’s “need” constitutes an enforceable claim on another’s life, and that such a claim can or should be fulfilled through government force or coercion. We advocate the principles of fiscal responsibility in government policies.

We acknowledge and support all who through their courage and loyalty have served in any of the armed services of the United States of America and through their efforts have secured our country’s existence and safety for this and future generations.

To further this vision of the United States of America, we pledge to provide a common ground for civil discourse for our members and like-minded individuals and encourage them to support candidates for—and holders of—public office whose positions are consistent with these principles.

There are reasons to suspect that the gold in Fort Knox may not be there. GATA has shown evidence of a very active program of the government leasing gold to so-called “bullion banks,” as a way of generating a return on an otherwise stagnant asset. However, in spite of that, let’s assume for the moment that the gold either is there, or can be readily recovered.

Governments and central banks have a history of holding gold, for good reasons. In World War II, a number of countries that the US government did business with would not accept dollars in payment, nor would the US accept their currencies. Many war supplies could only be purchased with gold; it was a major medium of exchange during a period of shortages and substantial uncertainty. In that sense, it is a strategic asset.

Another reason central banks hold gold is in case of a currency collapse. If the dollar becomes worthless, having a large store of gold would allow a “reboot” of some kind.

In fact, I would like to suggest that the reasons central banks hold gold are the same reasons individuals should; not as an investment per se, but as a form of insurance.

This also suggests that selling the central bank’s gold would be a bad idea without other substantial changes happening first. If anything, I would argue for the reverse. Since we are clearly in the middle of a long-duration crisis, it would seem like the time to increase insurance, rather than eliminate it. However, the situation might change if the US were to adopt gold as currency again; not by backing the dollar with gold, but by repealing the legal tender laws, not taxing gains on the sale of gold, and allowing it to circulate on a by-weight basis as an alternative to the dollar. In that case, it’s possible that the resulting durable wealth of the people might be able to take the place of the central bank’s holdings – whereas if the gold is simply sold, the most likely buyer would be other central banks (as happened when central banks in Europe sold their gold).

In addition, the oft-repeated meme that the government “stole” the gold from citizens doesn’t paint the full picture. It’s true that FDR required people to turn in their gold. However, they were given paper money in exchange – money which could be spent in the same way as gold. It was the subsequent act of devaluing the dollar that was the real theft, as inflation is today.

Here are a few that I came up with. If you can think of any to add to the list, I would love to see them.

1. Why do labor unions insist that their employers “share the wealth,” while they refuse to share in any of the losses?
2. If education should be free, why do teachers and their unions demand (and receive) such high salaries?
3. Why are the politicians who preach economic egalitarianism so strongly against a system with true political equality?
4. Why are parents chastised for not spending enough time with their children, while also being forced to send their kids away to public schools all day?
5. Since initiating force against another person is immoral, how can you justify legislating morality, since it requires force?
6. If people making over $200,000/yr are considered rich and evil capitalists, why are the public and union employees who make that much considered “deserving”?
7. Why does government expect us to obey the laws they pass, when they exempt themselves from many of them, and when they refuse to follow the Constitution?
8. How can government protect my freedom by violating my rights?
9. If more legislation is the answer, how much will be enough?
10. If money (or the love of money) is evil, why do you use it?
11. How many poor people have you ever worked for?
12. Why do so many Black Americans embrace Christianity, a religion which was imposed by force on their slave ancestors?
13. Why does getting elected to public office entitle elected officials to spend public tax money for their own personal holidays?
14. If equal pay for equal work is a good thing, why isn’t it OK for someone not to be paid for doing nothing?

The article points out that “licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.” It also quotes a labor professor from the Univ. of Minnesota, “Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages,” and “If you go to any statehouse, you’ll see a line of occupations out the door wanting to be licensed.”

In other words, using the force of government to limit competition and keep prices artificially high – another flavor of the same problem that has corrupted labor unions and many industries.

I’d like to suggest two straightforward and principled ways to address the high unemployment rate: abolish all occupational licensing requirements, and eliminate the minimum wage. Not only would more people be employed, but prices for those of us who use such services would decline, and the overall quality would likely improve as service providers became more competitive.

In addition to the FICA deduction, your employer pays the same amount again on your behalf, as EFICA. However, the way the law is now, employers are forbidden from showing EFICA on your paystub. Such an implementation of the tax was clearly chosen as a way of hiding its magnitude from those who pay it.

I’d love to see that law expunged, and to have employers report not just EFICA on your paystub, but all other fees that they pay for you. Even better would be to abolish the EFICA deception all together; but that’s a much bigger step than a simple change in reporting. The message would be clear, and the motivation for change selfish: if your employer didn’t have to pay EFICA, your take-home pay could be higher.

Morally, forbidding companies from showing EFICA requires them to commit a form of fraud; companies are being forced to deceive their employees about the true nature of their wages and the related deductions.

Even if such a law change wasn’t passed, the debate alone has the potential of generating substantial public awareness by exposing the deception.

1. A feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one‘s own achievements, the achievements of one’s close associates, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired
2. The quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s importance

It seems to me that the Christian sin is the second one.

For the first form, it seems to me that pride has to be earned; it’s not something that one can just feel whenever one wishes. I can see how false pride would be a bad thing, but that’s really a form of arrogance.

Aristotle considered pride the greatest of all virtues. It’s a big leap from there to the worst of all sins.

For me, pride is a psychological reward that we earn from living our values; from being just, honest, having integrity, and so on. Living unethically destroys the chance for pride — so I don’t understand how that goes along with pride being a sin.

Perhaps it’s that in order to feel pride, one must live for themselves? Is that the aspect that’s sinful?

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Fellow members, I rise to ask your support for a new bill. After 30 years in Congress, my approach today will be completely new.

Like the rest of you, I’m a habitual liar; I’ve always considered it to be part of the game of politics. The press and the public seem to know I’m lying, but they never say anything or call me on it. Frankly, even though I don’t see anything wrong with lying, I’m tired of it. It takes way too much work, and the public’s memory is so short that I can screw up in the most horrible ways outside of election season, and still get re-elected if I play my cards right. So, I have decided to use a different approach. I am going to stop lying while I’m on the floor of the House, except during the 90 days before an election, when the voters in my district will believe anything that I say, as long as I act sincere enough.

The title of my new bill is the Encouraging Class Warfare Act of 2011. So far, it’s about 2,000 pages long. The bill was written by one of the lobbyists for my largest campaign contributor. They assure me that if the bill passes, not only will they will funnel huge amounts of money into my campaign, but they will also feed me all sorts of inside information that I can pass to my friends and family. They also throw really great parties.

I haven’t read a single page in the bill. I don’t really care what’s in it. Some intern on my staff said it would cost billions of dollars. So what? I know you couldn’t care less about what’s in it, either. Like we always do with these things, if you can get some details to my staff about the current hot buttons in your district or for your lobbyists, I will make sure those items get included in the bill too, so we can all feel comfortable about voting for it.

If someone asks you whether you’ve read the bill, you might try my approach. Just say something like “of course not; no one actually reads bills anymore.” Or, “another member (or the President) said he likes this bill, so of course I’m going to vote for it.” Or even, “hey, this bill has lots of pork in it that’s important to my lobbyists!”

Another kid on my staff said something about the bill not being constitutional. I laughed so hard, I nearly blew a gasket. The kid is out on his ear now, of course. I can’t have anyone who cares about such dated and limited notions working for me.

As to how the bill will be paid for, well of course we can’t raise taxes. The people in my district expect me to lie, but they don’t like it when their take-home pay goes down. So, as usual, we will use deficit spending instead. I might even include a small tax cut in the bill, just for fun. No one dares vote against a bill that cuts taxes.

I love inflation! As a hidden tax, it’s the perfect way to raise money, because no one notices slow declines in the purchasing power of the dollars they receive. Even better, we can lay the blame on the evil companies who make the stuff people buy. They are, after all, the ones who are raising prices, not us. Just think about this: since we stopped using silver in our money in the mid-1960’s, the value of a dollar has gone down by about 90%. That means, we, as government, have been able to take 90% of the value of what people have saved, and spend it on our pet projects. How wonderful is that!? We never could have accomplished that level of spending through straight taxes.

Another very cool thing about inflation is that by taking money from the productive people in the country, it helps achieve one of my long-term goals, which is equality for everyone. I hate the idea of anyone having any more than anyone else. I would rather everyone be equally poor than to have anyone be richer than anyone else. After all, if someone is rich while someone else is poor, the rich person should have wanted to help the poor person. Since he didn’t help, it’s our responsibility to right that wrong.

Of course, while I say “rich,” the middle class is really the main target of these attacks. After all, the middle class is where the bulk of the real wealth and earning power is in this country. I say “rich” because they are such an easy target; I love the idea of class warfare, hence the title of my bill. Even though I’m rich, as are my family and friends and all of you, as usual we exclude ourselves from bills like the one I’m putting forward today, while continuing to use and spend the public’s money for personal gain in both property and power. Remember, even after all wealth besides our own has been destroyed, the poor will still need someone to guide and care for them; to make sure that they don’t hurt themselves. We must work to abolish all pain, especially the pain of envy – unless, of course, that pain is for their own good.

Oh, and for those of you who think that deficit spending can’t go on forever: well, you’re right, of course. But it will be a great ride. One of my buddies at Goldman has even helped me use the turmoil to play several of my campaign contributors off against one another. Wonderful times ahead!

Must-watch for anyone who drives, esp. those with teenage kids who drive:

I believe government policies were the primary cause of the crisis, and that more regulation will make things worse, not better. I found a very interesting hour-long talk by John Allison, formerly CEO of BB&T Bank (a large bank in the southeast), where he lays out an argument that supports this view, and thought it might be of interest to summarize it here. In case you’re not familiar with Allison, he’s one of the few good and honest bankers out there.

Here’s a summary of his arguments:

Federal Reserve

The government effectively nationalized the monetary system in 1913 with the creation of the Fed. Now that the government owns and controls the monetary system, so if there’s a problem, they must be involved.

Before the Fed, most banks were leveraged about 1:1. After the Fed, commercial banks were leveraged 10:1, and investment banks were 30:1.

In the early stages of the crisis, residential real estate values fell by 20% in the US. That destroyed $500B+ in capital in the financial services industry. At 10:1 leverage, that destroyed $5 trillion in liquidity (lending capacity). Appx $200B of that capital was eventually replaced, though, so the net loss of liquidity was about $3T. There is a fear now of another $100B decline in RE values, which would be another $1T loss of liquidity.

Starting in the 1960s, the Vietnam war plus Johnson’s Great Society plus a desire to not raise taxes resulted in the government using the Fed to print much more money. That eventually led to high inflation in the early 80s. Savings & Loans financed fixed rate mortgages with certificates of deposit (CDs). When interest rates were raised to fight inflation, the S&Ls costs went up hugely on the liability (CD) side, and they got killed; many S&Ls failed, eventually leading to the S&L crisis.

FDIC

When WaMu went under, the FDIC covered uninsured depositors, which caused WaMu debt holders to suffer huge losses. As a result, the capital markets for banks were effectively destroyed, since investors saw that they had no legal rights with regard to the Treasury, the Fed and the FDIC.

Pick-a-payment (negative amortization) mortgages were a product that was only made possible by the guarantees afforded by the FDIC. All of the major players have failed (Countrywide, WaMu, Golden West).

During the S&L crisis in the 80s, the FSLIC forced S&Ls to hedge their interest rate risk. However, that can’t be done with home mortgages, since the banks can’t force a prepayment. When interest rates eventually fell, the S&Ls lost billions more on their hedge positions. The FSLIC also strongly encouraged S&Ls to enter the commercial RE business. Since they had no experience in that business, even more S&Ls failed in the early 90s.

Housing Policy

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F&F) first came on the scene in the post-early-90s market, they drove many financial intermediaries out of prime mortgage markets, due to the government guarantees on debt that F&F had, which their competitors did not.

The Community Housing Act (CRA), passed by Congress, required 50% of F&F’s portfolios to be in “affordable housing” — which caused huge market distortions.

F&F were leveraged 1000:1 before they went broke, at which time they owed $5 trillion. That leverage, combined with the Federal guarantees, made their cost of capital well below their competitors’. As time went on, they also drove competitors out of the subprime market too, and pushed some of them, like Golden West, into the pick-a-payment business.

F&F made the broker origination model possible. Brokers fed Countrywide, WaMu, etc, who then fed F&F to meet “affordable housing” goals, which helped keep their support in Congress.

F&F are huge political contributors. Combined with the political desire to push “affordable housing,” it was impossible to take any meaningful action against them, in spite of the fact that it was obvious years in advance that they were going broke.

Investment bankers created financial innovations under the belief that the Fed would keep the risk in the financial markets low. Eventually, the originate and sell model replaced originate and hold. Perverse incentives were created for originators, which encouraged first sloppiness, then outright fraud. On top of that, the ratings agencies made huge ratings mistakes. The investment bankers make irresponsible decisions based on “greedy”, dumb, pragmatic thinking: i.e. short-term: irrational / lacks integrity / evasion / arrogance.

SEC

The SEC sets the accounting rules used by banks and large financial institutions. Changes in accounting policies artificially created fluctations in accounting results.

One of their rule changes was “fair value accounting,” also known as mark-to-market. This concept is not in keeping with a free market, because it assumes a willing buyer, but not a willing seller. The result was that banks had to mark down assets to the value that deep-discounters were willing to pay, rather than keeping them at what they would be worth when the banks were willing to sell.

This impaired the market, because potential bank buyers couldn’t be sure that huge markdowns wouldn’t be required after they bought something; it generated accounting risk.

If fair value accounting was applied to all businesses in the US at year end 2009 as applied to financial intermediaries, 90% of them would be insolvent, given the lack of liquidity in the markets.

Another accounting system issue is the management of loan loss reserves. The normal policy is to build up reserves in good times. But the SEC forced the use of mathematical models which prevented that approach. The models looked back at past experience. As a result, banks had very low loan losses going into the crisis. Many initial losses happened as a result of raising loss reserves — which would not have happened if not for the SEC.

The ratings agencies (S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) are a government sanctioned monopoly, backed by the SEC. They did a terrible job rating mortgage instruments. The market responded by saying maybe they also failed at rating all sorts of other securities; there was a loss of confidence in the rating system, and liquidity suffered as a result.

As an example, in the Auction Rate Municipal Bond Market insurance companies MBIA and Ambac provided funds to municipal projects such as hospital expansions. They also held a lot of mortgage debt. When mortgage debt ratings were found faulty, Ambac and MBIA’s ratings remained AAA — a failure of the ratings agencies. When this was noticed by the market, the source of funds for the insurance agencies dried up. Without sound ratings, how would an overseas investor expect to know whether some municipal project was financially sound?

The rating agencies also failed when it came to CDOs and related credit instruments. Investment banks split them into separately saleable groups. They were making money selling A, B and C traunches. Then the Fed inverted the yield curve. Borrowing short at a high yield in order to buy long at a lower yield meant there would be a loss.

The only assets the banks could hold that had a positive spread were the high-yielding Cs. The banks thought “the economy is projected to do well; just hold the Cs for now and sell them later.” But the traunches were not rated correctly: A, B and C were really D-, F and F-. When the market started coming down, there were 100% losses on the Cs. Merrill Lynch, for example, got caught in this and took huge losses.

Misregulation, not deregulation

Regulatory cost was at an all-time high at the peak of the bubble in 2005 – 2007. Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) was supposed to eliminate fraud in the wake of WorldCom and Enron — but the banking industry already had their own version of SOX imposed back in 1990 in response to the S&L crisis.

The banking industry spends about $5B/yr complying with the Patriot Act. No terrorists have been captured as a result, nor are any likely to be in the future.

There is an irrational belief in “models”; the risk in the tails of the assumed Gaussian curve aren’t as small as the math would lead you to believe. Also, a 1% chance of something happening doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Models don’t capture human behavior, particularly under stress. The Fed’s models did not predict a recession, much less one of the current magnitude. Wachovia and Citigroup both failed when using models to manage risk.

BASEL uses models to determine how much cash banks should hold. As a result, European banks had much less capital than US banks, so they went down even faster.

Regulatory compliance is a huge misdirection of management energy — away from running their businesses effectively and safely to making bureaucrats happy who know little or nothing about the industry.

Banks regulators have actually tightened lending standards. The myth is that regulators are trying to encourage banks to make more loans. That might be true for the people at the top, but not the regulators. If you’re a regulator, the worst thing that can happen is for one of your banks to get into trouble. So, there’s a perverse incentive: be extremely conservative, including tightening credit standards.

9 Shocking Examples Of Black Friday Violence — Is This A Foretaste Of The Economic Riots We Can Expect When The Financial System Collapses?

It seems with each passing year the madness on Black Friday gets even worse. This year, there were reports of fights and rioting from coast to coast. It was estimated that over 180 million U.S. shoppers headed for the stores on Friday, and whenever you get that many people together there are going to be problems. But just how crazed ordinary Americans are getting over saving a little bit of money is deeply disturbing when you really start thinking about it. If people will go this wild just to save 40 percent on a television set, then what in the world are they going to do when they have been without food for a couple of days? If Americans will act like psychotic animals just to save 50 bucks, then what in the world will they do when they have lost everything and are desperate to survive?

All of us had better hope and pray that an economic collapse does not happen any time soon, because it is becoming increasingly apparent that the American people are not morally equipped to be able to handle one. Greed and selfishness have become so rampant in America that large segments of the population have totally forgotten how to be any other way.

If the United States ever experiences a really, really bad economic downturn, this nation could very quickly start looking like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina from coast to coast. Most Americans would simply not know how to handle it.

The following are 9 shocking examples of Black Friday violence that should make all of us wonder what is happening to America….

#1 At a Target store in Buffalo, New York the crowds waiting impatiently outside suddenly became a chaotic mob once the doors opened at 4 AM on Friday morning.

One man that was lying on the ground remembers thinking “I don’t want to die here” while he was being trampled by crazed shoppers….

#2 Crowds were becoming so violent at a Wal-Mart in Sacramento, California that the police actually evacuated the store early Friday morning.

#3 Three women from West Palm Beach, Florida said that $1,000 in presents that they had just purchased at Best Buy were stolen from their vehicle on Friday morning within minutes of being purchased.

#4 One U.S. Marine reservist that was collecting toys for children was stabbed with a knife when he attempted to stop a shoplifter in eastern Georgia on Friday.

#5 Blogger Lynne Elder-Blau has posted about overhearing police officers describe a huge brawl that erupted this year at one well-known store on Black Friday….

Well, the girls and I were in a popular convenience store in Garden City last night while a store employee and a Garden City Police Department Officer were visiting. They were conversing about a large group of customers who got into a knock-down brawl at a nationally-known variety store in Garden City yesterday morning. Several police officers were brought in to break up the ball of adults who were pulling and tugging at products and actually punching other customers in their faces and stomach areas! We’re not just talking about a few people who were involved in this violent non-sense. The officer said that there was a large amount of people involved in this particular altercation. Ridiculous!!!

#6 A 21-year-old woman from Middleton, Wisconsin was arrested when she threatened to shoot other shoppers while waiting to get into a Toys R Us store for Black Friday. The other shoppers had objected when she attempted to move to the front of the line.

#7 The following is video of customers literally tearing apart a store display at a Wal-Mart in Douglasville, Georgia as they pushed and shoved each other in an attempt to grab the best deals….

#8 The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department actually “locked down” a section of a Cerritos, California shopping mall after a wild fight broke out in the food court. There were even reports that some people were flinging chairs at other customers.

#9 At one Wal-Mart in Texas, a near-riot broke out right in the middle of the store as a huge crowd of customers pushed and shoved each other to get a handful of Black Friday deals that were being wheeled out to the floor….

Remember, the products that these Americans are fighting over are not free. This is how crazy people are willing to go just to get a deep discount on an item.

So what is going to happen someday when people are desperate for food or shelter?

If this is how people act when the sun is shining, how are they going to behave once a really bad storm arrives?

(continues)

Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world — by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself — you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan — welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socioeconomic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bull****. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

(continues)

From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-22/u-s-banks-will-close-5-000-branches-in-18-months-whitney-says.html

US banks will close 5,000 branches, Whitney says

U.S. banks will close 5,000 branches in the next 18 months as they face profit declines from decreased loan demand and lower fee revenue, said Meredith Whitney, the former Oppenheimer & Co. analyst who now runs her own firm.

Banks face an “uphill battle” in generating loan growth as consumers reduce debt and will receive less revenue from fees because of new regulations and the lack of a securitization market, Whitney, 41, said in a report dated Nov. 18 and obtained today by Bloomberg News.

Whitney has said earnings pressures and new regulation will lead to some lower-income customers losing access to banking services. The number of households without access to the “traditional banking system” will rise to 41 million by 2015 from 30 million in 2009, she said in the Nov. 18 note.

“The most regrettable unintended consequence of some of the quickly written regulatory reform, we believe, will be the inevitable ‘debanking’ of the U.S. financial system,” said Whitney, who started New York-based Meredith Whitney Group after correctly predicting Citigroup Inc.’s dividend cut in 2007. “Fewer ‘bankable’ customers will contribute to the trend in fewer bank branches.”

Whitney also sees slower growth in investment banking. U.S. securities firms may cut as many as 80,000 jobs in the next 18 months as revenue growth slows, she said in September.

(continues)

German people in unprecedented rebellion against government: 1000 injured in protests in nuclear protests: police at breaking point

Like the Roman legions vanquished in the Teutoburger Wald in Lower Saxony in 9 AD, the 17,000 police officers that marched into the woods around the nuclear storage facility in Gorleben in northern Germany on Sunday morning looked invincible. Police personnel from France, Croatia and Poland had joined in the biggest security operation ever mounted against protestors against the a train carrying nuclear waste to an depot in an isolated part of Lower Saxony’s countryside. Helicopters, water canons and police vehicles, including an armoured surveillance truck, accompanied an endless column of anti-riot police mounted on horses and also marching down the railway tracks into the dense woods. Tens of thousands of anti riot police clattered along the tracks, their helmets and visors gleaming in the morning sun, and wearing body armour, leg guards and carrying batons.

But by Sunday night, those same police officers were begging the protestors for a respite.

Trapped in black, icy woods without supplies or reinforcements able to reach them because of blockades by a mobile fleet of farmer’s tractors, the exhausted and hungry police officers requested negotiations with the protestors. A water cannon truck was blocked by tractors, and yet the police still had to clear 5000 people lying on the railway track at Harlingen in pitch darkness. The largest ever police operation had descended into chaos and confusion in the autumn woods of Lower Saxony, defeated by the courage and determination of peaceful protestors who marched for miles through woods to find places to lie down on the tracks and to scoop out gravel to delay the progress of the “the train from hell.”

The police union head Reiner Wendt gave vent to the general frustration when he issued a press statement via the dpa news agency last night saying the police had reached exhaustion point and needed a break. Behind the scenes, a battle seemed to be raging between the police chiefs tucked up in their warm headquarters and urging more action and the exhausted officers on the ground.

The police on the ground won out. The Castor train — called a “Chernobyl on wheels” because it has been carrying 133 tonnes of highly radioactive waste to an unsafe depot — was stopped in the middle of the countryside and Nato barbed wire was placed around it. Lit by floodlights and guarded by a handful of police, the most dangerous train on the planet was forced to a halt after a 63 hour journey across France and Germany.

The defeat of the legions at Teutoburg marked the end of the attempt by the Roman empire to conquer Germania magna. And the failure of the biggest ever police operation two thousand years later in the woods of Lower Saxony to tame women, elderly people and school children protesting the government’s nuclear policy, could well also go down as a turning point.

The Berlin government can no longer rely on the discredited mainstream media to control the way people see issues. Too many people recognise it to be a tool of propaganda. The government now needs to resort brute force to bludgon through decisions that enrich corporations and banks and impoverish everyone else. But the police forces at its disposal are simply not sufficient given the scale of the protests now gripping Germany. Only 1,500 police reinforcements could be mustered on Morning from the entire territory to deal with road blockades by thousands of protestors aiming to delay the transport of the nuclear waste on the final leg of its journey.

(continues)

I’ve had a difficult time explaining this to my friends and family, but I’ve recently had an experience that I thought I would share, to see if it might help get some small part of it across.

I think we can use TV shows to gain insight into the societies that create them. They tend to reflect our morals, priorities, interests, etc. Even if we don’t agree with the themes and content of a specific show, the standards that are used in script writing are relatively consistent from one show to another, and many themes are repeated time after time: pro-police, pro-government, pro-military, etc, etc. I’m not talking so much about cable or pay-TV shows, since they have enough freedom to do things differently from time to time. I’m talking about advertiser-sponsored broadcast TV; there’s a lot of content that sponsors won’t allow, on top of limits (censoring) by the FCC, and of course the priorities of the TV networks and the people who run them.

A few weeks ago, I discovered something that I thought was interesting. There is a very popular TV show in New Zealand, called “Outrageous Fortune.” It’s shown on broadcast TV here, complete with advertising (both traditional and product placement). It’s in its sixth season, and I’ve heard that roughly 1 in 4 people in the country watch it. With that level of success, someone decided that it would be worth showing it in the much larger US market (4M people here vs. 300M there). However, the show as-is has a lot of NZ cultural references (things like Maori terms and local slang) and other “quirks,” so they decided to do a remake, which is called “Scoundrels,” now in its first season. The scripts are almost, but not quite, identical — and it is precisely those differences that make for a very interesting social commentary.

Here’s a short video that previews the third season of Outrageous Fortune, to give you an idea of what it’s like:

What I’d like to suggest is the following: first, watch at least the first two, but hopefully the first 3 or 4 episodes of Scoundrels. Then, watch the same number of eps of Outrageous Fortune, from its first season (available on DVD or torrent). Try not to get distracted by the acting. Instead, listen to the script and look for the words and scenes that were changed, and at the theme and feeling of the story. Then ask yourself why the people who run broadcast TV in the US don’t want you to see and hear the things they censored.

One small example is swearing. The usual argument I remember in the US in favor of censorship is that parents supposedly don’t want their kids to copy those words; yet shows about violence are perfectly OK. So we’re supposed to believe that the kids will uncontrollably copy swearing, but won’t copy the violence? That somehow TV will circumvent or replace morality? And yet most normal kids are exposed to swearing regularly in everyday life.

Another example is how sex is portrayed. The NZ version is reasonably explicit at times, including showing topless women and the type of (simulated) sex scenes you might see on HBO or Showtime in the US. Those scenes have been “sanitized” in the US version.

The result is that US TV lives in this “vanilla-ized,” conflicted world that tries to portray (semi)-realistic environments, but with a bunch of the stuff that actually happens in reality filtered out; that, in turn, substantially reduces the level of entertainment they provide. A major foundation of entertainment is being able to relate on some level to a show and its characters. The more detached a show is from reality, the less entertaining it becomes.

I’m not sure this will make any sense — at least not at first. But if you have a chance to watch both shows, I would love to hear your reaction.

My family was in the fishing business for several generations, including starting the first sportfishing business in San Diego in the early 1900s. Over a period of years, the size, number and extent of large game fish, such as marlin, albacore tuna, etc, dropped off dramatically. My grandfather swore that the cause was the canning industry’s overfishing of sardines, which were a primary food source for the game fish. He fought them for many years. Unfortunately, even though the canning industry eventually collapsed in the 1950s (their behavior caused their demise), the stocks of both sardines and game fish have never returned to what they once were.

The solution is to cut back on protein and carbs. What happens when you cut back both protein and carbs is that fat, as a percentage of total calories, needs to go up; fat also tends to be very satiating.

This type of diet change does take time. However, once your body enters fat-burning mode (which is indicated by being in ketosis), one benefit is that most people tend to get hungry much less often; for example, I can generally go at least 15 hours between meals without feeling hungry. That also means less cooking. Being in ketosis also means that your insulin levels are at their lowest, which will minimize blood sugar swings, which is part of why it helps resolve hunger issues. You do have to be careful about increasing fat without also decreasing carbs. If you don’t cut back on carbs, the resulting high insulin levels are a pretty sure-fire way to gain weight; yet most people will actually lose weight on a high-fat, low-carb, low-protein diet. In addition to controlling blood sugar, insulin also acts as a “storage hormone,” which causes excess calories to be stored as fat.

I know many people have trouble giving up sweets. I was in that camp myself, in fact. I tried fake sweets years ago, but found they actually made things worse, by constantly reminding me of what I couldn’t have. My ultimate solution (not for everyone!) was to replace sweets with bitters: things like cocoa, coffee and dark green veggies. After a few months of that, not only do I not find those things bitter any more, on the few occasions when I’ve tasted something sweet, they now generally taste sickly-sweet to me.

If you have fat tolerance issues, you might try taking a lipase-containing supplement with your meals. Lipase is an enzyme that helps to break down fats. You might also try several different types of fat, to see if you tolerate some better than others (butter vs. cream, for example, or cooked vs. not); even the texture can make a difference. A few ideas to help increase your overall fat intake:

• Add cream when cooking your meat. It helps dissolve the grease, and adds tremendously to the flavor.
• Mix your avocados with a little olive oil – can be great in salads.
• Try a half-cream / half-milk beverage as desert; possibly with a little coffee or cocoa (also an option for a quick meal).
• When cooking eggs, try tossing out an occasional egg white to decrease protein and increase fat. You can also add a few tbsps of cream to your eggs; plenty of cheese is nice, too.
• If you like bacon, and like the taste but not the greasy feel of the grease, cook the bacon first, then toss about half the resulting grease, and cook eggs in the same pan. Adds lots of flavor to the eggs, and doesn’t taste greasy at all.
• Use plenty of butter and/or some occasional cream when cooking your veggies.
• Retain and eat the skin on chicken, rather than tossing it out (plenty of fat; very tasty).
• Buy less expensive cuts of meat; the ones with a higher fat content (more marbling, etc).
• Add grated cheese liberally to veggies and meat.
• Drink your coffee or tea with plenty of cream.
• For a quick, no-think meal, try full-fat unsweetened / no-fruit yoghurt with a few drops of vanilla; the one I get is only about 5% carbs.

You could also try blenderizing your cream a little before using it, to see if it improves digestability for you by breaking up some of the fat globules (avoid too much blenderizing, though, or you’ll end up making butter).

Also, in addition to a diary, you might consider tracking the composition of the foods you eat on a site like fitday.com—at least for a few days. That will help you see how much of your meals are carbs vs. protein vs. fat. That can also help you find “hidden” sources of carbs in your diet (for me, it was too many nuts).

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/obesity/another-china-study/

There are things you can do to improve how well nutrients are absorbed from your food. As I’ve mentioned before, chewing really well is an important one. Eating a good variety of food is another (avoid a mono-diet). Juicing (veggie juices) can also help.

I tried a whole food approach for quite a while, without supplementation, and it wasn’t enough for me–but I was very unwell at the time. I had to add supplements before I started to make any progress. In fact, after everything corrected, I stopped taking supplements and went back to whole foods only, and found that several minerals in my blood dropped back down well below normal. So for me, I need to continue certain supplements even today.

One issue with using whole foods alone is that there can be considerable
variation in the mineral content of your food. Also, certain types of food are good sources for certain minerals; if you eliminate those foods from your diet, it can be a challenge to get enough of the associated minerals. For example, molybdenum is present in beans; if you don’t eat beans, it can be difficult to get enough.

Of course, if you’re healthy and live in good environment, I don’t think
this is an issue. Paleo people certainly didn’t need supplements to survive and thrive.

The gut, on the other hand, has a much larger surface area than the skin, and readily absorbs nutrients that come into contact with it. I am therefore skeptical that Mg applied to the skin would be absorbed any better than Mg when you ingest it. As a technology, transdermal is great for compounds that you want to be absorbed slowly over a period time or in very small doses. But the body needs a fair amount of Mg every day, and of course even more when you’re deficient.

In addition, the gut provides a safety factor that’s not present with transdermal (or IV) administration: if you get too much, the body will get rid of it, one way or the other. This isn’t as big a deal with Mg as it is with other minerals. Too much copper, for example, when given by IV, can be fatal; but the gut acts as a safety valve and tends to help prevent copper poisoning by causing you to vomit if you accidentally ingest too much. The gut wall can also alter the extent to which certain minerals are absorbed or not absorbed, depending on your current health needs.

I’m not aware of any studies about how long it takes to correct deficiencies, although I imagine they must exist; this is a well-known phenomena in the field of Environmental Medicine. From a theory perspective, keep in mind that many mineral absorption / transport
mechanisms are active — that is, rather than relying on a concentration gradient to cause them to be absorbed, they have to be actively carried into the body by a transport system of some kind (ion pumps, ion channels, etc).

Another issue is that many minerals serve their ultimate functions in the body by being at the center of an enzyme: zinc, molybdenum, Mg and selenium, for example. Enzymes are complex proteins that actually have to be grown–so it’s not a matter of just having some mineral ions floating around in a big soup. Those ions have to be captured and an enzyme has to be grown around them. If you don’t have enough of certain minerals, then the associated enzymes are not created in the same amounts as they would be otherwise.

When you’re deficient in certain enzymes, it can put a load on others, causing the body to divert more resources in certain directions, and away from the production of other enzymes. Also, certain health conditions or environmental factors–such as leaky gut, candidiasis, food allergies, celiac disease, chronic fatigue (low ATP) and exposure to toxins–can interfere with the absorption of minerals and other nutrients.

The combination of the issues above can conspire to make it difficult for some combinations of mineral deficiencies to correct, and one deficiency can slow down the correction of another. In my case, I found my deficiencies tended to correct one at a time over a period of many months, rather than all at once, even though I always supplemented with everything I was low in.

In addition, in order for GSH to be used properly by the body, the mineral selenium (Se) is required. Se is present in GSH peroxidase, one function of which is to eliminate peroxides such as hydrogen peroxide. Se is also often low in the diet, particularly in certain regions with soils that are naturally low in Se, such as Finland and New Zealand. Low levels of Se in the blood are a well-documented risk factor for cancer.

Just because the chemical pathways exist in the body doesn’t mean that nutrients or their co-factors are being made in the quantity needed. Also, supplementation of the substance itself (such as GSH, which is largely destroyed in the stomach) is often not the best way to address the problem; specific precursors such as cysteine or Se may be much more effective. Getting these precursors through diet is the ideal for the long-term, diet alone may not be enough to correct or even prevent deficiencies (depending on where you live and the source and quality of your food).

One thing that Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories) and others have clearly shown is the idea that minimizing insulin levels and insulin resistance is extremely important for long-term health. “High fat Paleo” is one way to accomplish that (it’s not just carbs that cause insulin production; protein does, too).

In terms of evolutionary reasoning, there were many sources of fat in the Paleolithic world. In addition to the larger animals that Monica mentioned, Paleolithic people also ate the entire animal, including the marrow, skin and the brain, which are fatty. I have no doubt that bird eggs have been consumed by man for ages, and egg yolks are fatty. In fact, many birds are themselves reasonably fatty. Some indigenous peoples consider grubs to be a delicacy, and they are fatty. As a dense calorie source and something that’s normally very tasty and satiating, it wouldn’t surprise me if Paleo people were attracted to fat over protein.

I also don’t think that the exact diet of Paleolithic people is well-known enough or was consistent enough for it to be the sole foundation of what we eat today. Personally, I would rather have my diet be a Paleo-inspired, but science-driven approach.

The red blood cell (RBC )Mg test is probably the best “easy” test. Unfortunately, a normal result isn’t enough to rule out a deficiency.

The Gold Standard in magnesium testing is the Magnesium Loading Test. The process involves having an IV containing a known amount of Mg, and
measuring 24-hr urine Mg before and after the IV. Using those numbers, you can calculate how much Mg the body held onto, and based on that amount, you can tell if you’re deficient or not. Since an IV is costly and time consuming, most docs fall-back to the RBC Mg test if you’re lucky, or the plasma test if not. The plasma test is one of the least reliable, most misleading tests around (plasma contains only about 0.3% of total body Mg).

The reason the blood tests aren’t very accurate is because blood is only store of Mg in the body — it’s also present in bones, muscle and other tissues.

After working through massive frustration with doctors on this issue over many years, my solution was self-experimentation. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

– Mg oxide and Mg carbonate are pretty much useless when it comes to
correcting deficiencies
– Time-release Mg chloride tablets work pretty well (“Slow Mag”), but take a long time
– Liquid Mg chloride works faster than the tablets, but can cause GI upset and headaches because it gets into the body quickly (take with food and in divided doses)
– The Mg chelates also work well, particularly Mg glycinate and Mg aspartate; orotate and taurate are also good
– Mg citrate, although not as well absorbed as the chelates, also works well because it can be taken in a higher dose (1 tsp to 1 tbsp at a time), such as with “Natural Calm” (my current favorite form of supplementation)
– Dark green veggies are a great source of Mg in food (chlorophyll uses Mg in a way that’s analogous to how hemoglobin uses iron); chocolate is also a good source
– Some medications and health conditions can cause the kidneys to leak Mg (where you excrete more than normal); hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) is one way that can happen
– Something like 80% of the population is Mg deficient
– Mg is used by over 300 enzymes in the body, and is required in order for muscles to relax
– High calcium intake can interfere with Mg absorption
– Common symptoms of Mg deficiency: high blood pressure, asthma, tension headaches, muscle cramps, constipation, anxiety, and depression

The whole article is interesting, but the graph below is the kicker:

Notice that as HbA1c increases, particularly over about 6.2%, the risk of a cardiac episode increases dramatically.

Also notice that there is no indication that high cholesterol with a low HbA1c increases the risk of cardiac mortality.

In other words, an important goal for any heart disease prevention diet should be to minimize HbA1c. How do you do that? Minimize blood glucose — and the most effective solution there is to reduce simple carbs and increase fat.

In comparison, standard table salt is 99.9% sodium chloride. In addition to 0.01% potassium iodide, it sometimes has things like aluminum silicate added to help it stay powdery (some brands also have a small amount of sugar added to them). I think of table salt more as a drug than a food.

I’ve tried a number of different brands of sea salt. They vary depending on where and how the salt is harvested and cured/dried. I’ve noticed a surprising difference in taste from one brand to another. The Lotus brand I mentioned above comes from Spain. I’ve had another brand that originates in Baja California that’s also good. I haven’t enjoyed the “Celtic” brands nearly as much.

An tidbit from a (long-term!) evolutionary perspective: human blood has
almost exactly the same concentration of salt as sea water. In fact, I recall reading that in an emergency, sterile sea water has been successfully used instead of blood or saline in people who have suffered from blood loss due to surgery or trauma.

In addition, one of the main techniques that industrial food processors use to increase the shelf life of food is to replace potassium with sodium (salt). Unfortunately, other trace minerals are also removed at the same time.

If the craving remains, a trick that I’ve used successfully with fruit is to reduce the quantity significantly, and then bury it in cream (unsweetened whipped cream works particularly well with berries). My wife jokes that I’m having a little fruit with my cream. The thing is, though, that it’s much easier to eat a huge bowl of fruit than it is to eat a huge bowl of cream; the cream works to activate satiety, where the fruit does the reverse. At least for me. The added fat also reduces the overall GI, which in turn helps minimize blood sugar swings.

Measuring nutrient levels is complicated by the fact that enzymes and molecular pumps in cell walls selectively create concentration gradients between the plasma and the inside of the cell for some nutrients. In general, measuring the level inside red blood cells, as opposed to in the plasma, results in the measurements that most accurately reflect functional ability. However, there are exceptions—for example magnesium, for which there isn’t really a good blood test (a loading test is the best measurement).

There’s also another class of tests related to “functional” levels of both vitamins and minerals. I know a couple of docs and researchers that swear by those tests, but my personal experience with them hasn’t been very good (and they’re expensive).

You can get some sense of deficiencies from looking at trace mineral levels in hair. The advantage is that the test is cheap and easy to do. Unfortunately, those results are easily contaminated (even from things like chromium on the blades of scissors used to cut the hair, as well as shampoo contents). Mineral levels in hair are generally most useful for detecting heavy metals.

Here are links to a few labs that do the right kind of tests:

http://www.doctorsdata.com/home.asp

http://www.metametrix.com/content/Home
http://www.genovadiagnostics.com/

Correcting deficiencies is a whole other art and science, because so many factors are involved: everything from stomach acid to minerals that compete, to gut dysbiosis, to the form of supplement that’s used, associated microcontaminants, competing foods or drugs (including alcohol), etc, etc.

1. They are rich sources of carbs, and will cause an insulin spike when eaten in quantity. For optimal health, as well as weight control, that’s something I strive to avoid.
2. They are nightshades, which mean they contain toxins that include nicotine and other alkaloids. I also try to minimize toxins in my diet. Although humans are adapted to handling many food toxins, proper and complete detox may be impaired in those with mild to moderate mineral deficiencies—a condition that is surely epidemic for those who ate SAD foods for any length of time.

In my case I’m pre-diabetic and have arthritis, which are two more reasons that I avoid them (the toxins they contain are pro-inflammatory and can cause or aggravate arthritis in some people). I also know from detailed blood tests that I am still deficient in certain detox-oriented nutrients, in spite of years of supplementation.

Having said that, you might also think of them like fruit or honey: infrequent small amounts won’t be a disaster. The problem for some people is that potatoes can be quite addictive, and if you eat a lot, the insulin spikes can aggravate hunger problems and carb cravings.

I think yams and sweet potatoes are slightly better, because they aren’t nightshades.

BTW, did you know that some vodkas are made from potatoes?

My solution was two-fold.  First, I had tried a number of times in the past to ease my way into a low-carb diet, and ended up failing every time.  This time, I decided to go cold-turkey.  Although the first two or three weeks were very difficult, it got easier after that.  The other thing I did was to find something that I liked as well as carbs, that was an acceptable Paleo food, but that had also been considered relatively taboo previously.  In my case, that ended up being cream, in several different forms (plain, mixed with a little milk, mixed with baking cocoa, whipped, etc).  If I had a carb craving, I trained myself to have a cup of cream instead.  Rather than just drinking it, I eat it with a spoon to make it last.  At the end of the cup, I found that the carb craving was almost always gone.  If it wasn’t, I would drink a large glass of water, and that usually did the trick.

Two things I found to cause big problems in the craving area were the taste of something sweet (even toothpaste), and the smells of some carb-rich food cooking, such as bread or pizza (often coming from other family members who don’t eat like I do).  The problem is that those tastes and smells can cause insulin to be released, which will lower blood sugar, and make you hungry.  My solution was to eliminate anything sweet tasting from my diet for the first three months or so, and to replace the carb-rich smells with fat-rich ones, such as bacon.  At the end of the three months, I found that sweets tasted much sweeter than before, and that I actually preferred slightly bitter foods (unsweetened baking cocoa is an example).

After being on Paleo for about 6 or 8 months (and losing 35+ pounds in the process), I fell off of the diet for about a week.  I didn’t go back to my old ways, but “just” had one carb-rich item a day (rationalizations are a dangerous thing).  However, by that time, my body had adjusted to low-carb, and as a result, I felt really terrible: fatigue, new aches and pains, and even bloating.  Plus, I gained about a pound a day.  After that brief experience which tied the theoretical to the concrete, it was easy to see how bad the carbs were for me, which also made them very easy to avoid.  I never want to feel like that again.

Everyone is different, YMMV, but that’s what worked for me.

Cross-posted at Modern Paleo.