Speedlinking 8/3/07

Quote of the day:

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."
~ Herbert Agar

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Exercise of the Week: Incline Bench DB Rows -- "The Bent-Over Barbell Row is a great exercise, but hardly anybody does it correctly. Most people look like they're having relations with a small farm animal when they do BB rows. Hence the Incline Bench Dumbbell Row."
~ The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About -- "Conspiracy theories don’t sit well with me. I’m already paranoid. I don’t want more paranoia swimming around in my head. So when Kevin Trudeau released The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About, he already had one strike against him in my book." Anything with Kevin Trudeau's name on it is PURE CRAP!
~ World's Largest Diet-Cancer Study Confirms Current Advice On Alcohol -- "Experts at the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) welcomed the latest results from the world's largest study on diet and cancer. The new results, published online at the International Journal of Cancer, link alcohol consumption to an increased risk of colon cancer. According to the study, those participants who reported consuming three or more alcoholic drinks per day had a 26 percent higher lifetime risk of colon cancers than non-drinkers."
~ Fat-burning defect in liver may cause obesity -- "Rats with a genetic predisposition to burn fat more slowly tend to put on weight more readily than rodents bred to resist becoming obese, a new study shows."
~ No proof probiotics aid athletic performance -- "Foods containing probiotics, live microbial ingredients that can provide health benefits, may be healthy, but athletes shouldn't count on them to boost their performance, a research review suggests. However, probiotics provide some indirect benefits."
~ Snack strategies: Eating between meals can work -- "When you snack, you can fill in nutritional gaps, boost your intake of fruits and vegetables, keep your mood on an even keel, and help with appetite and weight control."


PSYCHE
~ 10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain -- "The human brain—that three-pound mass of gray and white matter between your ears—is the most complex object in the universe."
~ Strategies to Slow Mental Decline -- "Although adults joke about memory lapses and “early Alzheimer’s”, the concern that we are losing our mental faculties becomes very real as we reach middle age and beyond."
~ Is American Culture is Bad For Mental Health? [The Corpus Callosum] -- " happened to run across a couple of articles pertaining to cultural influences on mental health. Neither presented modern first-world culture in a positive light."
~ How Men Grieve -- "Male grief is often conveyed differently."
~ Why Everyone Should “Pay It Forward” -- "Catherine Ryan Hyde suggests that the one thing that can be used to change the world is what every one of us has the capacity to experience: Gratitude. In order to truly benefit from the power of gratitude, though, we need to learn to abandon the traditional act of paying people back, and adopt the act of 'paying people forward.'" But DON"T see the movie of the book.
~ A study relates neural damage provoked by ecstasy with ambient temperature at which it is consumed -- "There exists a direct relationship between the consumption of MDMA, or Ecstasy, at a high ambient temperature and an increase in the neural damage which this drug provokes. This was the conclusion of the research carried out by Beatriz Goñi at the School of Pharmacy of the University of Navarra." Or you could just take a high dose of alpha lipoic acid prior to dropping and suffer zero neuronal damage, but you didn't read that here.


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Da Vinci's Last Supper: New conspiracy theory -- "New claims that Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper contains a hidden image of a woman holding a child are provoking a storm of interest on the internet."
~ Drinks men should just not order. What do you think? -- "There seem to be certain drinks that as a guy you should just not order at a bar - because if you do... no woman will ever sleep with you again (well unless she likes girly men *with Arnooolldd accent*). I found a link via fark with a list of all those forbidden drinks. Check them out and let us know if they are missing any or some of them are just bogus."
~ Religion puts some docs in quandary -- "More U.S. doctors are refusing to treat patients for religious reasons, causing a collision between religious freedom and discrimination laws."
~ The Notion: Now That's a Patriot Act -- "Progressives in Congress have introduced a measure that rewards corporations that don't screw their employees and move jobs offshore."
~ NEWSWEEK Poll: Will it Be Clinton vs. Giuliani? -- "The latest NEWSWEEK Poll finds that Hillary Clinton has widened her lead while Rudy Giuliani holds on to his advantage. Meanwhile, President Bush’s approval ratings remain in the basement." Head-to-head, I think Rudy wins, even though HC leads in mock polls.
~ E-Voting in California -- "California today decides whether to ban electronic voting machines that have been proven to be hackable, John Nichols reports." Until the machines are hack proof and provide a paper trail, they should be illegal.
~ Michael Vick dogfighting case opens racial divide -- "The difference between those sporting Michael Vick jerseys and those urging his swift conviction on dogfighting charges is glaring: Vick's supporters are mostly black; his critics are mostly white."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Loss of Habitat Threatens Indian Tiger -- "A bill to restore land rights to millions of poor tribal people in India could mean the end for India's endangered wild tigers, eliminating much of their protected habitat, conservationists warned Friday."
~ Aztec Leader's Tomb Found -- "Mexican archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar have detected underground chambers they believe contain the remains of Emperor Ahuizotl, who ruled the Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World. It would be the first tomb of an Aztec ruler ever found."
~ Stability and Diversity in Ecosystems -- "Is biodiversity important for predicting human impacts on ecosystems? If diverse ecosystems were as a consequence more stable, the answer would be yes."
~ Hungary uncovers 8 million-year-old trees -- "Hungary will spare no expense to preserve 16 cypress trees, estimated to be 8 million-years-old, recently uncovered in a northern lignite mine."
~ Pollution causes 40 percent of deaths worldwide, study finds -- "About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution, concludes a Cornell researcher. Such environmental degradation, coupled with the growth in world population, are major causes behind the rapid increase in human diseases, which the World Health Organization has recently reported. Both factors contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of 3.7 billion people, he says."
~ Crystals on meteorite hold a key to understanding building blocks of planets -- "A University of Toronto-led study has uncovered tiny zircon crystals in a meteorite originating from Vesta (a large asteroid between Mars and Jupiter), shedding light on the formation of planetesimals, small astronomical objects that form the basis of planets."
~ Legendary Burning Man festival gets an eco-conscience -- "Every summer, tens of thousands of revelers gather in the desert of Nevada to make art, music, and one heck of a mess. Despite efforts to curb the impact of Burning Man over the years, the event has not exactly learned how to lessen its big, burning footprint."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Wilberian -- "Have you noticed that Integral thinkers who choose a label for themselves call themselves Integral? And it's usually the loudest, shrillest, most incessently repetitive critics who use the label Wilberian ..."
~ Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- "Holy crap. This film is amazing." A video post.
~ Young Researchers: The Need of Our Times -- "Gone are the days when erudite Buddhist scholars( both from Buddhist clergy and the laity) spent long hours doing research into The Buddha Dhamma and imparting their scholarship for others with lesser experience, to study and understand the deep philosophy of The Buddha Word."
~ Gratitude Friday :: Simplicity, Shouts, and Sound -- "Every Friday is Gratitude Friday here at Monk at Work — a chance for me to express my gratitude to sources of richness I’m experiencing, with the intention of sharing the wealth."
~ Craig Photography.com is Launched -- "Please check out our new site: Feedback and reviews would be greatly appreciated."
~ What is orthodoxy? What is orthopraxis? -- "In my conception, orthodoxy and orthopraxis are both minor scales (specifically, lines of development) in a four scale/three axis model of Integral Spirituality. The three axes of this model are Subjective/Objective (x), Individual/Collective (y), and Transformative/Translative (z). Together with altitude, these three axes compose the four scales of the AQAL-based model."

Tags: orthodoxy and orthopraxis, Craig Photography, gratitude, Buddhism, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Wilberian, Burning Man, meteorites, pollution, 8 million-year-old trees, ecosystems, Aztec tomb, Indian Tiger, Michael Vick, racial divide, e-voting, 2008 presidential race, religion and doctors, keeping jobs in America, girly drinks, Da Vinci's Last Supper, ecstasy, pay it forward, male grieving, American culture and mental health, lowing mental decline, mysteries of the brain, snacks, probiotics, fat-burning defect, alcohol and cancer, Kevin Trudeau, weight training, speedlinking