Sunday, January 31, 2010

Karma explained



Karma creates nothing, nor does it design

It is man who plans and creates causes

And karmic law adjusts the effects

Which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony

Tending ever to resume it's original position

Like a bough of a tree, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigour

It is not therefore Karma that rewards or punishes

But it is we who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work thorough and along with nature

Abiding by the laws on which that harmony depends

or break them

There is not an accident in our lives

Not a misshapen day

or a misfortune

That could not be traced back to our own doings

In this or in another life

SD

You might not like this idea however this is how it is

Pay attention to your thoughts because they also create Karma

More so than your physical actions

Saturday, January 30, 2010

45 suggestions





"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
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It is the most-requested column I've ever written.
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My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:"
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01. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
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02. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
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03. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
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04. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
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05. Pay off your credit cards every month.
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06. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
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07. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
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08. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
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09. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
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10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
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11. Make peace with your past, so it won't screw up the present.
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12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
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13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
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14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
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15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
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16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
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17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
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18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
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19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
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20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
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21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
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22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
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23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
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24. No one is in charge of your happiness, but you.
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25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ''In five years, will this matter?".
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26. Always choose life.
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27 Forgive everyone everything.
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28. What other people think of you is none of your business
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29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
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30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
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31. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
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32. Believe in miracles.
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33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
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34. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
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35. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
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36. Your children get only one childhood
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37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
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38. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
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39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
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40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
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41. The best is yet to come.
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42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
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43. Yield.
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44. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.
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45  ?

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old,

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

Friday, January 29, 2010

Limitations



When you take on a project there are always people who will tell you why it will not, cannot work
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The same when a new problem arises in your life, you will find many people who will give you all kinds of reasons why your ideas will not work
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But just because they have limitations does not mean that you have or should buy into their point of view
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See past their limitations and decide to find a way how to make things work
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There is a solution to every problem, even those which do not seem solvable
.
Our key is to remove the limitations of others or of generally perceived wisdom
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Include in this your own limitations
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We simply must remove the limitations because if we do not then for sure we will not find a solution
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Check out your own life and see how your problems are a function of your own perceived limitations
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And how many are because you allowed others to impose their limitations on you?
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Make a determination to go beyond
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Go beyond what you have considered possible
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Then it can become possible
.
It cannot become possible until you so determine
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Stretch yourself we all need to from time to time

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Personal ethics




Special agent John Gillies, who has led major anti-corruption drives during his 27-year career with the American FBI,during a speech recently focused his words primarily on crooked financiers and unscrupulous officials.


However, he added that sporting heroes such as Tiger Woods were also to blame, letting down children who saw them as role models.

The golfer is currently embroiled in scandal since his high-profile car crash on 27 November. "Money can't buy everything," Gillies said.


He told a chamber of commerce meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, that failures in personal ethics and integrity sowed the initial poisonous seeds of corruption in a society.


He said that fallen sporting heroes sent the wrong message to the young: that cheating was acceptable.


In a speech reported by Reuters, he said: It really gets at the soul and fabric of the United States when people are out there corrupting.

It all starts with simple ethics violations


Gillies described corruption as the number one crime in the US and disclosed that public corruption investigations had jumped by 20% over the last five years and 25% in the last year.


Gillies, who was brought up in Chicago and said he was inspired as a child to join the FBI by reading a history of the organisation and its battles against Al Capone, has held a series of senior positions within the FBI, with a particular focus on corruption.


He has served from Hawaii to New York and established a reputation for bringing corrupt officials to court.


As well as what he saw as a decline in moral standards, he blamed the recession for increasing corruption, with people looking for high-earning financial schemes that often turned out to be scams.


For anyone tempted by easy money or looking for a way out of a dead-end job, he offered this advice: "The worst day at work is still better than the best day in jail."

Guardian

Often it might seem that the little lie

The little cheating or stealing is OK

Problem is even if you do not get caught you know you did it

You know that morally and ethically it was wrong

Many people then adjust their memory to deny to themselves that it was wrong

Now they have lying to themselves to live with as well

Guess why many people have breakdowns and psychological issues

Morals and ethics do matter

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Incapable




Incapable of love that is

Today we live in an era of what we could call one of transitional views about sex

Those who embrace it enthusiastically claim that sex for sex's sake is fine and there need be no other aspect to the union just the sex

Getting angry if anyone says they disapprove

Others remain uneasily aware of old taboos

A transitional state in many societies

Those who see sex solely as exercise or solace are horny, needy, and afraid or incapable of love

How so?

Because they think it is OK to place the great gift of physical intimacy in the same space as shaking hands

They think it is OK to consider other humans as sex toys

To be used

To be thrown away afterwards

This recreational attitude to sex has become normal with drunken clubbers and others

There have always been those who felt sex to be a sport or hobby

The normalisation of casual sex without care or courtship is fairly recent

In one way it is good that sex is no longer a secret dirty business

It is fine that we no longer (Muslims accepted) persecute divorcees, single mothers or gays

There need be no comments about the Roman Catholic church who still insist that sex is only for procreation purposes, which is probably a step too far in the other direction

What is not so cool is the idea that you see someone you fancy, decide to have sex with them, do so and say goodbye

Removing the courtship and confining the experience to sex alone is selfish

Is it because they are frightened of relationship?

Is it a conquest in their eyes?

Or is it really running away and or abuse?

Having no interest other than the sex act itself is it because they are lonely?

Or maybe they cannot stand themselves?

For sure it blunts their humanity

It reduces their interest in another human to a small temporary sexual transaction

Once this becomes the norm then addiction follows

Like all addictions it is hard to stop once started

Some grow out of it and take the risk of real relationship

Others no they carry on getting less and less out of each experience as time goes on

Does this tell us something?

Over time they become incapable

Incapable because they have become totally cynical about the other sex

About what they are there for

Just incapable of love

For love is unconditional

Not a temporary transaction to relieve oneself

Incapable humans is what they are and what they become

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Angry





Anyone can become angry - that is easy.

But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reasons, and in the right way - that is not easy. - Aristotle

When we look at anger we find it's all about your consciousness

If you are lacking in self control then the above ideas about anger management are not possible

Your anger will come out whenever someone pushes your buttons

At the slightest provocation anger outs

Even if you have basic control to be angry to the right degree, at the right time, for the right reasons, and in the right way, is probably still a stretch for most

Anger tells us much about ourselves

How we block it in

How we let it out

How often we get angry

All of these can help us see where we are

A conscious human is not just someone who is awake

In our sense a conscious human is someone who understands herself or himself

Is becoming a master of herself

Is learning why people can provoke her

Why she responds

Where her anger comes from

Takes the time to find the causes of her anger

The real reasons underling why anger comes to her

Finding these causes which are often deeply buried allows her to master and control anger

Becoming the master of ourselves is a long and hard journey

It starts with accepting there is a problem

Do you have a problem?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Electric power and space weather




The problem begins with the electric power grid
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Electric power is modern society's cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend, the report notes.
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Yet it is particularly vulnerable to bad space weather.
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Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems.
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Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area.
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The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours:
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According to the report, power grids may be more vulnerable than ever.
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The problem is interconnectedness
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In recent years, utilities have joined grids together to allow long-distance transmission of low-cost power to areas of sudden demand
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On a hot summer day in California, for instance, people in Los Angeles might be running their air conditioners on power routed from Oregon
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It makes economic sense—but not necessarily geomagnetic sense. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging "cascade failures.
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To estimate the scale of such a failure, report co-author John Kappenmann of the Metatech Corporation looked at the great geomagnetic storm of May 1921, which produced ground currents as much as ten times stronger than the 1989 Quebec storm, and modeled its effect on the modern power grid
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He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power
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The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with "water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on
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The concept of interdependency, the report notes, is evident in the unavailability of water due to long-term outage of electric power--and the inability to restart an electric generator without water on site

NASA

And that is just looking at the US

Look to Europe and Asia as well and suddenly our increasing interconnectedness begins to look less clever

However the forces of money are intent on going further by interconnecting whatever and wherever they can
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You and I will pay one day

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Still twitching




Sometimes it does not seem to matter what we do the twitching is still there

An 'iffy' day maybe

Whatever getting busy on something where you cannot think about your issues is best
.
Get busy

Take your mind off

Yes we do all these things and still it persists

Still twitching

OK what next?

Only one way

Acknowledge that you have a problem

You would be surprised how many people deny they have a problem

In fact we could say one of the biggest human problems is people denying they have a problem

Why would you deny a problem?

Because it frightens you

Yes that is one reason

Because you don't know what to do

Yes that's another reason

Because you think others might laugh at you or put you down

Yes that's possible

Because the cure sounds frightening

Because the cure sounds expensive

Yes all that might well be true

And guess what if you do not acknowledge and do something about it one day it will knock you for six

Here we are talking about many things from smoking, drink,drugs, medication addiction and phobias

Not to mention fear of dying, being paralyzed, cancer, aids, sexual disease, growing old, arthritis and many many more

None of the things we supress will go away on their own

The symptoms might for a while

But if the cause is not addressed then believe it will come out in full force later in life if we do nothing about it

Most of us deny this or that

Ask a friend or family member what they notice about you and your funny habits

Take what they say and ask others what they think

Find out where you can get help

Twitching says we have a problem

Act on this please before it acts on you!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Patchy bananas




The fully ripe banana produces a substance called TNF which has the ability to combat abnormal cells.
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As the banana ripens, it develops dark spots or patches on the skin.
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The more dark patches it has, the higher will be its' immunity enhancement quality .
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Hence the Japanese love bananas for a good reason.
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According to a Japanese scientific research, banana contains TNF which has anti-cancer properties.
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The degree of anti-cancer effect corresponds to the degree of ripeness of the fruit, ie the riper the banana, the better the anti-cancer quality..
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In an animal experiment carried out by a professor in Tokyo U comparing the various health benefits of different fruits,using banana, grape, apple, water melon, pineapple, pear and persimmon, it was found that banana gave the best results.
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It increased the number of white blood cells, enhanced the immunity of the body and produced anti-cancer substance TNF.
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The recommendation is to eat 1 to 2 banana a day to increase your body immunity to diseases like cold, flu and others.
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According to the Japanese professor, yellow skin bananas with dark spots on it are 8 times more effective in enhancing the property of white blood cells than the green skin version

Friday, January 22, 2010

Celebrity





A celebrity is a person who is famously recognized in a society or culture.

Generally speaking, a celebrity is someone who gets media attention and most frequently has an extroverted personality.

The desire to be notable is implied by some to be a part of Western culture and more specifically the American Dream as a measure of success.

A celebrity that shies away from the public eye or keeps a very separate private life is called a reluctant celebrity.

At the other end of the spectrum, a celebrity that seeks out publicity for him- or herself is often called a media tart, whereas one that uses his or her private life as a vehicle for enhanced celebrity status, sometimes desperately, is referred to as a media whore.

Examples of this are fake or planned relationships, reality television appearances, celebrity nudity and in extreme cases, scandal or celebrity sex tapes.

There are a wide range of ways people can become celebrities, from their profession, appearances in the mass media, beauty or even by complete accident or infamy.

Instant celebrity is the term that is used when someone becomes a celebrity in very short period of time.

In some places, someone that somehow achieves a small amount of transient fame through hype or mass media, is stereotyped as a B-grade celebrity.

Often the stereotype extends to someone that falls short of mainstream or persistent fame but seeks to extend or exploit it.

In the 21st Century, the insatiable public fascination for celebrities and appetite for celebrity gossip has seen the rise of the gossip columnist, tabloid, paparazzi and celebrity blogging.

The rise of international celebrities in acting and popular music is due in large part to the massive scope and scale of the media industries, enabling celebrities to be viewed more often and in more places

Wikipedia

Disgust with public fascination about the lives of unremarkable people with a savage need to scream "look at me"

I exist

So what?

Given that a large and maybe increasing percentage of the population have neither interest or ability to concern themselves with anything other than the trivial and mindless the trend to endless celebrity must continue

So hope the mass media for whom a diet of mindless stories about these people is a godsend to stem the steady erosion of their circulations

Silly stories have been around since the days of the storytellers of old, just that today they are more intrusive and vulgar and reach a wider audience owing to increasing media saturation and global reach

Just turn off the tv

Don't watch or read the mindless there are other things of more interest

Overkill is in everything today

Celebrities are no exception

Create your own life their lives are seldom worth noting

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hundreds of millions





Of people leading hard lives

Being abused by cynical, selfish, greedy, leaders

Literally hundreds of millions

Some being killed, some starved, and yet more deprived of any rights or respect

Others made to live lives as refugees in appalling conditions such as Darfur in Sudan

How come?

Karma

That's how come

All those who abused others

All those who inflicted pain and death on others

All  those who were uncaring and selfish

All those who betrayed their neighbours

All those who reported others for personal gain

Must now in this and lives to come experience what they did to others

Hundreds of millions of people

Look around you

Think about what this means

So many humans have been bad to their fellow humans and must now pay the price

On an individual basis now turning to you and me how is your behaviour?

Are you ethical and moral?

Nature uses karma as a mechanism to ensure harmony

A mechanism that is precise

A mechanism that makes no exceptions

None

That notes our every action and reaction

That adjusts our experiences to ensure that what we reap what we have sown

Don't believe us?

We cannot nor should we try to prove anything to you 

That is your business

That is your own free will

What we all believe and choose to believe is our own personal individual choice

How you act and behave that is also your own free will

Until you die we cannot prove anything it is your choice what you choose to believe

When we die however we see everything we have done in minute detail

Yes that is all the bad things we have done and the good too

Every single one

Every single one

Then when we next incarnate we do so seeing before us the life we must lead

We all agree to accept this life

We agree to the coming hardships

This includes the understanding that we must experience the exact same pain and horror our actions in our last life inflicted on others

Want to avoid this?

Then grow

Grow in your learning and understanding

Life is short

Do not waste yours please

Make it a better life

One of ethics and morals

Standing up for what is right

Being heard when your contribution could make a difference

Taking the trouble to inform yourself and acting on that knowledge

Only this way can we bring the needed changes to our planet

Only this way can humanity move beyond our current phase of extreme selfishness

Only this way can you personally move beyond

None of us are exempt we all have the same journey

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Mental exercises




Mental exercises such as puzzles and quizzes are said to burn an average of 90 calories every hour – more calories than are contained in a jammy dodger or a chocolate hobnob
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Mental agility expert Tim Forrester from brain training website canny minds.com which published the claims, said giving the brain a workout burns calories in the same way that giving the body a workout does.
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"Our brains require 0.1 calories every minute simply to survive," he said.
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"When we do something challenging such as a puzzle or a quiz we burn through 1.5 calories every minute."
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The brain is made up of millions of neurons which communicate with other neurons, transmitting messages to the body.
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Neurons produce chemicals called neurotransmitters to relay their signals.
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These neurons extract 75 per cent of the sugar glucose, available calories and 20 per cent of the oxygen from the blood to create these neurotransmitters.
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So undertaking activity such as difficult crosswords or challenging sudoku’s means your brain will need more glucose and more calories.
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Eight-time World Memory Champion Dominic O'Brien said brains needs work outs just as much as bodies.
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"Just as you need to continually exercise your body to stay fit and healthy you also need to exercise your brain and memory to remain mentally agile," he said.
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* Snacks you can enjoy which have the same calories as an hour's brain workout include:
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A chocolate chip cookie = 56 calories
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A jammy dodger = 85 calories
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A custard cream = 57 calories
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A chocolate hobnob = 79 calories
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* But if you carried on for two hours with a puzzle you could enjoy:
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A pack of Hula Hoops = 175 calories
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A bag of Maltesers = 186 calories
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A creme egg = 173 calories
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A bag of jelly babies = 180 calories
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Daily Telegraph

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Churchill on the Muslim religion




“How dreadful are the curses which Islam lays on its votaries!

Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries.

Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
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A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities.

Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
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No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.


~ Sir Winston Churchill

Monday, January 18, 2010

Left brain world




Our modern world is in love with science

With provable knowledge

Money is poured into all areas where scientists and engineers can prove this 'n that

To a point, and we have reached this point, this is fine

Beyond this point not so fine

The questions we need answers to are not approachable through the left brain

They cannot be proved

Try proving love

Silly times indeed

Worshipping a wooden door

To move further we need to go where most scientists fears to tread

Beyond the mind

Unfortunately most scientists live in their minds

They work with their minds, in other words left brain hemispheres

And beyond the mind can only be approached through the right brain

The left brain is of no use as it only knows how to evaluate, to compare and extrapolate

The right brain by contrast is open to higher realms

Realms of truth

Only approachable through love

Through light

Through letting go

Letting go of mind

Letting go of all that is familiar

Are we ready for this?

No

We are clinging on to the familiar

At great cost to humanity we resist this imperative

Our only way out is by going beyond mind

Our world leaders and scientists are not comfortable with this idea

Resistance is everywhere

Will we overcome?

Let us see

In the meantime where are you?

Can you still and quiet your mind?

Can you be in this moment only?

If you cannot then time to start learning how to control your mind

Your mind is where your fears lie

Your mind is where you live most of the time

When you sleep you are out of your mind both literally and figuratively

So have no fear of moving beyond your mind

Learn to control your mind to give yourself some rest free from thoughts

Later if you can explore the approach to the dimensions we are talking about

The approach of learning to be love

Living in love

Hint love unconditional love can only be approached when we go beyond the mind

So actually a third of your life is already spent outside your mind

All we are asking is that you learn to do this in your waking hours

Why?

Because this is where our freedom lies

Beyond mind

Think about it

Better still don't think

Thinking is a mind activity

Beyond mind is where truth lies

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Slice of life




Overheard in supermarket

Mother to child "If you don't stop crying you will get no supper"

Child to mother "I don't care I am not hungry"

Child is holding half eaten snickers bar at the time of this exchange

Mother loses battle exit child and mother

At this level of dialogue it is clear that the mother is fighting a losing battle with her daughter

Children are smart and quickly learn that saying no, shouting or screaming can get them what they want

Others know that if they argue their parents will give in very quickly

Blackmail is the weapon of choice for many children

Clearly many then take this into adult life

When asked why they agreed to do something they do not like or want to do people will often answer "because"..............without stopping to think why they have given in

Why they do not resist unreasonable behaviour

Whether it is from your partner or colleagues or boss

Look at your patterns

Are you blackmailed by others?

Are you?

Do you give in?

If you do and have long stopped noticing that you do so

Time to notice

Time to understand that by always giving in you have lost some freedom and self respect

Giving in to bullying is not good for our health

Over time it can burst into resentment

Anger and violence can one day erupt

If you give in then take stock

Decide if giving in is really what you want to do

If it is not then consider how you will resist next time

Explain that no, you do not intend to do whatever it is

Explain that you are not doing it now or in the future

If the other party gets angry invite them to address this issue in themselves

Explain that you are tired of being used

Enough can be enough

It is your life

Do not give chunks of it away to others who want to use you unless this is really what you want to do

Slice of life

Do not give it away to others

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Power of words





We have written several times about this subject

Today we want to say something more

Our world is filled with academics studying a multitude of subjects

On which they endlessly spout their knowledge

In contentious areas they give us their theories

Often we are left dissatisfied

Something inside us remains empty

Less than impressed

Not able to buy what they are telling us

Why?

For one huge and simple reason

They are not living this truth they are pontificating

When someone lives their truth

When they live what they are talking about

They have a power

A power totally missing when it is a theory

When it is not lived

This is why words are losing their power

They are being used by people who are not living what they are talking about

Words are being sprayed around like confetti

Find the humans who walk their talk and you will be persuaded

It will resonate inside you

Why ?

They are living the truth they talk about

It is them they are that truth

And you are you living the truth of what you are?

Friday, January 15, 2010

Crow on leaves




Crows have a funny reputation with humans

Not very friendly

Make funny noises

Always seem to be hanging around with intent

Thought I should know more about them

So here we go

Crows have also been known to imitate the human voice, just like parrots.

Crows that have been trained to "speak" are considered valuable in parts of East Asia, as crows are a sign of luck

Some people have adopted crows as pets.
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Though humans cannot generally tell individual crows apart, crows have been shown to have the ability to visually recognize individual humans, and to transmit information about "bad" humans by squawking
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Crows can hear sound frequencies lower than those that humans can hear, which complicates the study of their vocalizations.
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Loud, throaty "caw-aw-ah"'s are usually used to indicate hunger or to mark territory.
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When defending a nest site or food, crows will usually enlarge their crest feathers and hunch their shoulders to increase their size.
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Softer, gurgling sounds have also been observed as a sort of beckoning call, or a call of affection.
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These noises are emitted from within the throat of the bird, much like a cat's purring.
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As a group, the crows show remarkable examples of intelligence, and Aesop's fable of The Crow and the Pitcher shows that humans have long viewed the crow as an intelligent bird.
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Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests.
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Certain species top the avian IQ scale
.
 Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing
.
 Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order.
.
One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food.
.
These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass
.
 Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a heavy trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open, and then waiting at pedestrian lights with other pedestrians in order to retrieve the nuts
.
On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows.
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It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs
.
Crows in Queensland, Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.
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Recent research suggests that crows have the ability to recognize one individual human from another by facial features
.
So now we know more about crows
.
Just one anecdote
.
In Moscow some crows who were attacked by a man who disliked their noise and presence and later on he was attacked by them every time he came out of his apartment
.
Yes crows are smart
.
For me not so lovable though

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Celebrity culture




Celebrity culture spreads like a cancer around the planet
.
It swallows even those whose fame and status is based on real achievement and real responsibility
.
'As the empty are valued
.
So the valuable are devalued'
.
The valuable are often today treated as if they were as empty as most modern celebrities
.
Engineers, technicians, scientists, artists and those doing really useful work of benefit to society become valued not by the serious, complex matters that they deal with or by their real achievements
.
But, increasingly by poking and prying into their private lives, their personal traumas, their personal traits
.
Why?
.
Because increasingly the media is lazily judging the worthwhile by the same criteria they apply to modern cardboard celebrities who have nothing of note accept their bodies and shrill demands to be noticed
.
Judging everyone by the same criteria causes the public to ignore the real achievements of the valuable
.
It lazily allows them to focus on the trivia and avoid the effort of understanding the valuable
.
Personal, emotional judgement as opposed to analytically informed examination
.
Allowing the lukewarm and lazy to falsely compare themselves with the private characteristics of the valuable and not on their achievements
.
And all of this judgement based on true or false perceptions of their personal behaviour or character
.
And from this we move to seeing ourselves forever in competition with each other
.
Using the same criteria separating us from each other
.
Encouraged to try to destroy each other
.
Then turning on ourselves and disliking what we se
.
Enough! 
.
These shallow useless comparisons are seldom true
.
Seldom the whole story
.
Seldom in context
.
The celebrity bitch is still a bitch
.
The shrill demand for attention only survives because we pay attention
..
Put your attention on those who have something to contribute
.
Make this your direction of pursuit
.
Follow where they are guiding us
.
Leave the shallow to wallow in their own world of trivia and division
.
Modern celebrities are a disease pulling others with something useful to say into their world of trivia and shallow judgement

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Did you know?




You will be so much smarter when you finish reading this
.
Just keep scrolling down
.
'Stewardesses' is the longest word typed with only the left hand
.
And 'lollipop' is the longest word typed with your right hand.
.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple
.
"Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.?
.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
.
The sentence:
.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' uses every letter of the alphabet.
.
The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left
.
There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous': tremendous, horrend ous, stupendous, and hazardous
.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: 'abstemious' and 'facetious.'
.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear
.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds
.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
.
A snail can sleep for three years
.
Almonds are a member of the peach family
.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age
.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon
.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated
.
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction
.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors
.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing
.
The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns
.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket
.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid
.
There are more chickens than people in the world
.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance
.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men 

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Be bold





Not bland

In business and politics today many bosses and leaders are faceless and eminently forgettable

The best defence these faceless leaders can produce lies in the realm of public relations

Not their management or political skills

Through the use of public relations they are helping to defuse public anger at corporate and political excesses

But even here the case is weak because it is clear that not much has changed 

Few people pay any attention to these identikit people who keep popping up to hum their corporate and political tunes about 'doing the right thing' 

In politics so many leaders are more functionary than leader

Few have ideas other than cliches and platitudes

Spouting whatever they are told will win them a few points in the game of public opinion

What else do we have? 

A muted corporate and political media controlled by large organisations devoted to taking the corporate and state dollar

Muting anything that might jeopardize this stream of money and finance

Add them together and it is small wonder we have the mess we have today

Dumbed down

Stupid politically correct lies

Not a bold man in sight

Our times need some ideas

Some ideas about what to do and where to go

Not from this lot

Not a prayer

And yet it is times like these when at least there is the chance of something breaking loose

In more secure times the juggernaut rolls on

Flattening all those that get in it's way

Not for much longer

Too many variables in play

The unexpected will arise

Always does in times of crisis

And yes these times are of crisis

Bland will not suffice

But before bold can lead the log jam of vested interests must be broken

How will this occur?

Not sure yet

We can all feel the cool murmurs of breeze

No storm yet

Lies being found out more and more

Still being spun away

Not for much longer

Boldness will out one day

And in your own life are you bold?

Or do you hum the party line?

"And at the end of all my days I thought I had something more to say"

Really?

Monday, January 11, 2010

Sorry modern man




These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male
.
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
.
If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.
.
No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period
.
As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet
.
Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping
.
His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey
.
Fleet footed aboriginals, an analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge
.
Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics
.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph
.
We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal, he said.
.
But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.
.
We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks
.
It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood, he said
.
It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age
.
They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping
.
They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves
.
McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man
.
Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger's bulk at his peak in the 1970s
.
But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem, he said
.
Manthropology abounds with other examples:
.
* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment
.
* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
.
* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48)
.
McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added:
.
Given other evidence of Aboriginal man's superb athleticism you'd have to wonder whether they couldn't have taken out every modern javelin event they entered
.
Why the decline?
.
We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear, McAllister replied
.
These people were much more robust than we were.
.
We don't see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago
.
There's been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it's a different story
.
At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then
.
The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress
.
We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days
.
We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed
.
Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that.
.
We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from
.
Editing by Clare Fallon

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Ignorance


Ignorance

How to rid the world of ignorance?

Learn from those who know more than we do.

Then share with those who know less.

Now it is just a question of velocity.

This can be exponential if what you share is the truth 


The above is a quote

Simple little words with so much power in them

Can we learn?

Why not start a trend yourself?

Just follow the guidelines above

Practice this in your own life

Make it your business to find some who know more than you

Learn from them

Then share this with others

Caution though!

Make sure those you listen to really know something worthwhile

Then share with those who know less than you

If we all did this then we can change our world very quickly

Because the  velocity of change becomes exponential

Exponential change can be so powerful

When it contains the truth that is

That's how we will rid the world of ignorance

Saturday, January 09, 2010

So common




One does not even notice it

It is quiet silent

No noise

No smell

Just permeates the system

Then one day

One fine day you notice

You discover that all has changed

And what are we talking about?

What happens when you hold on to a point of view which is not objective

Not in reality

Not true

It seemed like it to us

We were so sure that we were right

Absolutely positive

Then came that day when whoops!

We understand that it was not like that at all

Depending on our level of consciousness

We either find excuses for why we had insisted that we were right

Or we say sorry

Or we quietly say nothing and adjust our memories or point of view accordingly

That is not that although we might want it to be

Some might even deny that it makes any difference that they were wrong all along

But it does because if you are smart you will stop being so sure

So sure that you are right

Just stop and think well if I got that wrong and I was so sure that I was right

What else should I look at?

What else am I fixating on?

Be smart if this happens to you and you are able to hold your hand up and say I was wrong

Then don't beat yourself up

Just accept that consciousness evolution is like an onion

There are layers and layers

A process

Accept that through good fortune or more likely because you are ready

That you have been given an insight into yourself

And that you will use this to grow

To move on

Peel another layer if you will

Spend time each day to wonder about your strongly held beliefs

Are they true?

Are they yours or have you just picked them up because everybody else thinks that way

Because everybody else says so

Find your own truth

No one else can find your truth for you

This is your work

Your life

Bon voyage!