Quote of the day:
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
~ Mark Twain
Image of the day:
BODY~
The importance of a spotter -- "When you are in the gym and attempting to lift as heavy as possible, whether going after your one rep max’s or otherwise, it is important to have a spotter with you. A spotter is someone who is going to stand by while you do your lifting in case something happens and you are starting to falter on the lift."
If I need a spot, I generally ask the strongest guy around, not necessarily the biggest.
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The Essential 8 Mobility Drills -- "Finally, a warm-up routine that even people who hate warming up can handle! This short series of drills will not only make you feel better, but the increased mobility you'll gain will help you make unprecedented gains in the gym."
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How to Lose 20lbs Fat in 30 Days -- "I found this on
Timothy Ferris‘ blog: How to Lose 20lbs of Fat in 30 days. I was familiar with this method. I’ve been eating like this for years. However I didn’t know this diet had a name.
The Slow Carb Diet."
I don't think you'll lose 20 lbs of fat in that short a time, but this is a good fat loss diet -- it's essentially how I eat all the time.
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Are you an apple or a pear? -- "Find out how to determine your shape and what it has to do with your health."
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Tips To Get Fit After Forty: You Are Only Over The Hill If You Choose To Be -- "It is our lot in life to get older, and wither away until we hit the old nursing home... Right? WRONG! I will show you how you can maintain a healthy energy with the following tips - Life doesn't end at 40! Learn more."
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MRSA: Experts Answer Your Questions -- "MRSA, the superbug that is resistant to many antibiotics, has been making headlines recently. This month, a CDC report said there were more deaths from MRSA in 2005 than from AIDS."
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Healers share their favorite natural cures -- "In search of our era's consummate healers, we've screened the worlds of both natural and conventional medicine. Here, these modern masters share their personal strategies for maintaining good health, high energy, and mental clarity."
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Not 'Junk DNA' After All: Tiny RNAs Play Big Role Controlling Genes -- "PiRNAs, a recently discovered class of tiny RNAs, play an important role in controlling gene function. Derived mostly from so-called "junk DNA," piRNAs had escaped the attention of generations of geneticists and molecular biologists until last year when Yale scientists discovered them in mammalian reproductive cells, and named them."
PSYCHE/SELF~
Brain's 'Reward Chemical' May Help Spur Obesity (HealthDay) -- "A new study provides more evidence that dopamine -- a brain chemical associated with reward, pleasure, movement and motivation -- plays a role in obesity."
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Drug-craving region of brain identified -- "Chilean scientists have made a discovery in the brains of rats that they say may help treat drug addiction and ease the side effects of some medications."
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A Third Of Americans Extremely Stressed, New Survey -- "A new national survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) suggests that one third of Americans are living with extreme stress while nearly half believe stress is damaging their health, their relationships, and work productivity, and that it has got worse in the last 5 years."
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Philosophy and cognitive science archive launches -- "Two important new cognitive science resources have just been launched:
Online Papers on Consciousness is a huge database of full-text papers and articles on consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and
MindPapers is a much larger index that contains entries for both open and closed access work."
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16 Tips to Survive Brutal Criticism (and Ask for More) -- "Everyone encounters criticism, whether it is a boss pointing out falling performance, a bad review for your book, or even self-criticism after an embarrassing slip-up. Your ability to digest that criticism and make use of it says a lot about your character. Even better is to be the kind of person who can take a sharp, verbal critique, stand up and ask for more."
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The Emotional Power of Smell -- "What sense of smell has to do with emotional disorders."
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The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Fathers -- "A great father makes all the difference in a kid’s life. He’s a pillar of strength, support and discipline. His work is never-ending and, oftentimes, thankless. But in the end, it shows in the sound, well-grounded children he raises."
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Wake Up to the Important Things in Life -- "I’m sure you have experienced a wake up call at some point in your life. Events such as a divorce, a new baby, a firing, a terrorist attack, or a near-death experience tend to hit us like a ton of bricks and are not easily forgotten."
CULTURE/POLITICS~
Books: The Musical Mystique -- "The discourse supporting classical music so reeks of historical blindness and sanctimonious self-regard as to render the object of its ministrations practically indefensible. Belief in its indispensability, or in its cultural superiority, is by now unrecoverable, and those who mount such arguments on its behalf morally indict themselves. Which is not to say that classical music, or any music, is morally reprehensible. Only people, not music, can be that. What is reprehensible is to see its cause as right against some wrong. What is destroying the credibility of classical music is an unacknowledged or misperceived collision of rights. The only defense classical music needs, and the only one that has any hope of succeeding, is the defense of classical music (in the words of T.W. Adorno, a premier offender) against its devotees."
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Somewhere Deep Down, We Still Care. Don't We? -- "I've been in the news business for a long time. I remember as a young editor being deeply affected by certain stories I'd see, often involving abject human misery and cruelty, only to hear the older guys on the desk cracking tasteless jokes and laughing about those same stories. I put this down to the "cop mentality" that a lot of reporters and editors develop. Constant exposure to the seamy underbelly of human existence, which pervades certain aspects of our business, forces you grow a thick skin. Some of it is bravado, for sure, but not all of it."
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Boo! One in three people believe in ghosts -- "It was bad enough when the TV and lights inexplicably flicked on at night, Misty Conrad says. When her daughter began talking to an unseen girl named Nicole and neighbors said children had been murdered in the house, it was time to move."
No comment.
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Q&A: John Updike on Reviewing -- "Twenty-four years ago John Updike won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for "
Hugging the Shore." This week as "
Due Considerations," his sixth volume of assorted criticism, landed in stores, I caught up with him by phone to talk about poetry, learning on the job, his next novel, and his attempts to learn a foreign language."
~ Politics: The Kids Aren't Alright -- "President Bush's neglect of government-sponsored childcare programs has a steep price. Children are paying."
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Bruce Sprinsteen -The MAGIC is back -- "Springsteen's first album with the E Street Band since 2002 is filled with the epic guitars-and-sax and pounding drums that exemplify their classic style. While Magic doesn't pull any punches, its rage is manifested in half a dozen songs that address obliquely – in metaphors rather than with acid rhetoric – the fallout of George W. Bush's presidency, the occupation of Iraq, the devaluation of heroism and national pride, and a future so bleak it's actually painful to hear."
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House OKs health bill under veto threat (AP) -- "The House passed a revised children's health proposal Thursday, but not by the two-thirds margin that supporters will need if President Bush vetoes the measure as promised."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY~
Gene Alters Sex Orientation in Worms -- "Once the gene switch was made, the female worms were attracted to other females."
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Deep Inside Planet Earth, Interplay Of Temperature, Pressure, Chemistry -- "Seismologists in recent years have recast their understanding of the inner workings of Earth from a relatively benign homogeneous environment to one that is highly dynamic and chemically diverse. This new view of Earth's inner workings depicts the planet as a living organism where events that happen deep inside can affect what happens at its surface, like the rub and slip of tectonic plates and the rumble of the occasional volcano."
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Biodiversity Of Southernmost Forests And Tundra Ecosystems -- "Taxonomists, ecologists and philosophers explored the world's southernmost forest and tundra ecosystems to estimate the diversity of the dominant vegetation, namely tiny bryophytes and lichens. Much of today's conservation strategies focus on "charismatic mega fauna" such as pandas, tigers, and whales; or on vascular plants such as giant redwoods and orchids."
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New Population Of Iberian Lynx Raises Hope For Species' Survival -- "Spanish authorities have announced they have discovered a previously unknown population of Iberian lynx, triggering hope for one of the world's most endangered cat species. At present, the exact numbers and location of the newly discovered population are being kept confidential, but the population is thought to be made up of both adults and cubs."
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Possible Cosmic Defect, Remnant From Big Bang, Discovered -- "An unusual cold spot in the oldest radiation in the universe, the cosmic microwave background, may be caused by a cosmic defect created just after the Big Bang. If confirmed, this discovery will provide dramatic new insight into how the universe evolved following the Big Bang. The existence of cosmic defects, called textures was proposed over a decade ago."
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Nokia Launches Free Indie Music Download Site -- "Nokia has just launched the Independent Artists Club (IAC), a Web site (http://web-iac.nokia-asia.com) where anyone can go to listen to and download free songs submitted by independent musicians."
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Microsoft paying Facebook premium to thwart Google: analysts -- "Microsoft is paying a premium to keep Facebook from the clutches of rival Google in a deal that puts an inflated 15 billion dollar price tag on the red-hot startup, analysts said Thursday."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST~
More on God not not-existing -- "
Continued from yesterday’s post. So here’s my understanding of how the non dogmatic, philosophical, and reasoned argument for God not not existing works (as presented by Mortimer Adler
here). It requires two terms, two concepts, and four propositions. If one understands the terms, understands the concepts, and finds no reason to find error with the four propositions, then one is compelled to acknowledge the God (about which we know next to nothing) cannot not exist. And therefore exists."
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Necessarily Contigent -- "Adler goes through two classic arguments–one from logic and one from the effects of nature (plus some metaphysics)–attempting to prove the existence of a God. Or rather a Supreme Being."
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Our Teachers -- "Below, we have included excerpts from some of the responses to the question we posed on these pages last week. Feel free to use this post to add any new responses to the meme."
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Magical Awareness: Remembering Details Both Big and Little -- "A Pagan teacher of mine once caught us students off guard by asking, “How many stairs did you climb to get to the door of my house?” Of course, no one could give an accurate count. I don’t think that he even knew - he just wanted to make the point that
we didn’t!"
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Open Letter To Rational Pundits -- "Note: Some time ago, I wrote an open letter to Rational Pundits. Admittedly, it was harsh. Inflammatory. I came across a copy of it on the net, and it gave me the willies. I don't stand behind the tone of that previous letter. I wanted to take the opportunity to revisit that letter, and frame it in a tone that is much more in line with my heart, and my wish to participate in a useful way in this discussion. We're all on the same team, after all. So, below is my re-written version of what I wanted to say, and if you do circulate this blog, please reference this version, not the earlier one."
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Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar -- "After scattered demonstrations erupted against sharp increases in fuel prices in August, thousands of monks protested the junta’s economic mismanagement and political repression. The military responded with batons and bullets. The guns have prevailed over mantras, at least for now."
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Integral Embrace: A Plea for Solidarity -- "In a recent letter to the readers of the Integral World website, author and Now & Zen founder Steve McIntosh sounded the call for solidarity among the diverse community of people interested in the Integral Movement. Steve suggests attempting 'to build cohesion within the integral movement and to exhibit a sense of ownership and commitment to this emerging new worldview.'"
Tags:
integral embrace, Steve McIntosh, Buddhism, Burma, Stuart Davis, Rational Pundits, magical awareness, teachers, Mortimer Adler, God, Microsoft, Facebook, Nokia, cosmic defect, Iberian lynx, biodiversity, Seismology, genes, sex orientation, children's health proposal, Bruce Springsteen, childcare programs, John Updike, ghosts, empathy, classical music, waking up, Fathers, scent and emotions, surviving criticism, online psychology archives, stress, drugs addiction, dopamine, RNA, natural cures, MRSA, fit after forty, body shape, Slow Carb Diet, mobility drills, spotters, speedlinking
