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News Briefs 15-03-2005

By Katon

As it does every morning, humanity will yawn and drink it’s cuppa on the day it decides the time has come to wrest the future of civilization from the grip of malignant complacency.

  • Experts Find 12th Century Church in Aberdeen.
  • Neanderthals had strong, high-pitched, voices.
  • Bones of contention.
  • Cleopatra was a thinker not a lover, contends author of Egyptology The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt In Medieval Arabic Writings. Amazon US.
  • Early universe was a zoo.
  • The rock-and-roll galaxies of the early universe.
  • Amazon founder, Bezos, wants “an enduring human presence in space,” and a spaceport in Texas.
  • Space transports: We don’t know as much as we think we do.
  • Space Scientists Angry Over Program Terminations. V’Ger to develop bad attitude toward carbon-based units.
  • Martian devil gives Spirit new life.
  • Charity begins at Homo sapiens.
  • New link to the article: The End of Poverty, by Jeffery D. Sachs, author of the newly published book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Amazon US, with reviews. (Expletive deleted regarding Time moving this article to ‘premium content‘.)
  • Why is it hard to share the wealth?
  • Trusting strangers on the Internet: German firm does eBay one better.
  • Are Nanobacteria Making Us Ill?
  • Artificial antenna helps ‘cockroach robot’ scurry along walls.
  • So, is there more to men than sex and cars? Dream on.
  • Face to face – in realistic 3D.
  • U.S. Government Clamping Down on Access to Info. Across U.S., Citizens Fight for Records.
  • Writer pays price for Bush tapes.
  • Fingerprint food.
  • Understanding biological foundation of human behavior critical to improving laws.
  • The link between brain histamine, anxiety and alcoholism.
  • What are little boys made of?
  • Russian man lives without a tell-tale heart.
  • Why low-carb diets produce fast results.
  • Unique weather a factor in record 2004 Midwest crop yields. The good side of global warming?
  • Europe Under Snow. The bad side of global warming?
  • Ancient Icelandic sagas linked to climate changes.
  • A Tale of Two El Ninos.
  • Protestants begin saying, ‘Hail, Mary‘.
  • Significance of Jerusalem in Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
  • Downfall: The Human Face of Evil.
  • Narcissistic Leaders.
  • Local and international politics are stark raving bonkers because so many leaders are deranged.
  • More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. Amazon US.
  • Crowley, Aliens and The Book of Thoth: second part of a series which began last week with ‘Extraterrestrials and the Occult Connection‘.
  • The Connection between Crowley and Wicca. By someone who may have an ax or two to grind.
  • Family of necromancers: John Napier’s wizard roots.
  • The Brahan Seer: Scotland’s Nostradamus.
  • Revenge of the Sith: Scare Them It Will.
  • “The Grim, my dear, the Grim! The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen … the worst omen … of death!”*

*Quote from Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Quote of the Day:

I thought it might have a practical use in something like neon signs.

Harold C. Urey, 1934 Nobel laureate, on developing heavy water, vital to the atomic bomb.

Kat
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16 Comments

  1. WOW! some great stuff!
    WOW Kat, you’re getting better ‘n better.

    You want spooky?
    How about a neanderthal with a strong high-pitched voice?
    Uggghh.

    I read about the low-carb diet and put back the pasta I had dished up and cut myself another slice of meat.
    Convinced me.

    The article about the crazy leaders is by my old mate Phillip Adams.He’s in good form here, although he can be very skeptical about the smallest things.
    The thought of Hill and Billiary climaxing together covered with mud and screaming is going to give me nightmares.
    Who’d a thought.

    I had a book on the Brahan Seer years ago, might still have it somewhere.It was fascinating.
    We must do a blog on precognition.

    Terrific links Kat.Thanks,

    shadows

    1. Geez do you think so Arch?
      That would be lovely!

      Don’t tell Hairball about the Kung Fu story.Kat wouldn’t want to be resonsible for 2 of you carking it.

      shadows

    2. Kat and links…
      >>going back to half-dead after your Kung Fu link though!

      Shadows told me I’d just kilt you deader’n a doornail when I posted that one in yesterday’s Yowie thread. I dared not put it in today’s news — too many people would be keeling over at work after reading it. haha

      Glad you’re still strong enough to type after the shock. 😉

      Kat

      2. Against all odds!
        Thanks for your confidence in my ability to overcome near death experiences (maybe I’ll share these with the TDG crew some time :), ).

        Don’t worry, should one of Kat’s future posts eventually sends me knocking on St Peter’s door, Hairball will fill in for me – I’m now sure he can type as well.

        The ‘dake

        1. well that’s a relief!
          I think Hairball is very intelligent and we would love to have him here posting with his little paws.
          In future I think you need to have a good strong drink Arch before you read anything at all posted by Kat.
          I’m still recovering too.
          Sweet dreams Hairball and God bless.

          shadows

  3. Low Carbo diet
    Thanks for posting something positive about this diet. I have been following the Atkins diet for several years, and it works perfectly. It has made me healthier, not less. I am 46, now surf 2-3 days a week better and harder than I did when I was 30, am extremly active physically, and my health and blood tests are great. I do not at all experience lack of energy and I am quite sure my weight loss is not from water loss, as the skeptics love to claim. I am a vegetarian to boot, and yes, the diet can be done this way. Atkins was ridiculed and dissed by the big food companies who profit from carbo rich junk foods, and they have succeeded in conning a lot af people, who could really benifit from this diet, into thinking it is harmful.

    1. How?
      Dash how on earth can you do the Atkins diet if you are a vegetarian?I would love to be a vegetarian but if I go for 3 weeks without meat my blood count drops and I get all weak and weepy.
      How long do you do the diet for each time and can you give me an idea of what you eat?
      Hope it isn’t too much trouble.

      shadows

      1. atkins for veggies
        Shadow, as you know, (but I will say it anyway for others who may read) the Atkins diet means adjusting your carbohydrate intake so that you have plenty of carbs for the energy you need, but no excess carbs, which insulin turns into fat. The ideal carbo intake level varies enormously from person to person. The diet is designed to help you find what that level is for you, and then you stick to it. The diet is in no ways a “no carbohydrate” diet, despite attempts to portray it as such.

        Limiting carbs leaves only fats and protien to eat otherwise, and yes, it is obviously harder for a vegetarian.

        For vegetarians, as long as you eat eggs, dairy products, tofu, and other vegetable derived protien foods you can do it, providing: 1. your particular limit of how many carbs you can eat without putting on weight is at least 150 grams a day or so. 2. The carbos you do eat come from low glycemic level foods, like whole wheat bread instead of the white fluffy gooey stuff.

        I lost 25 pounds that daily workouts in the gym, endless situps, jogging, etc, could not get rid of even after years of trying. One month on the diet, and away they went, effortlessly.

        Dashour

        1. Thanks Dash
          I couldn’t even imagine how it could be done, but that sounds sensible.I will try it.I know that people who do the Atkins diet properly lose weight very quickly, but I have low blood sugar and can only usually survive on it a couple of days.
          I will try the way you said.
          Thanks heaps,

          shadows

  4. Crowley and Wicca
    Hi Kat,
    Thanks for this, an interesting addition to the research various people ahve done on the subject. There is little doubt that Crowley was intimately involved in the forming of Gardnerian Wicca, from which all other modern forms of Wicca derive. (Show me someone who claims to be a hereditary witch from a line before Gradner and I will ask them to provide their non-existant witch Grandmother as proof – they don’t exist.) However, he is not soley responsible. Ive always found it ironic that the two “orthodox” strains of Wicca, a Goddess-oriented path – were named after two men, Gerald Gardner and Alex Saunders. They should have been called after their partners, Doreen Valiente and Maxine Saunders, who if truth be told were the real powerhouses behind the spread of modern Wicca and offtimes the originators of the best of what Wicca has to offer in both words and spirit.

    However, if the author of this piece thinks just because he has Gardner’s OTO charter he should be some kind of King of the Witches then he has just as long a wait for recognition as the charlatan Carlyon does 🙂

    “The natural unit of witchcraft is one. Two is a crowd, three an argument” – Terry Pratchett

    Regards, Cernig

  5. The Wizardry of Science
    John Napier did 7 million math calculations by hand!

    “Napier called his mathematical works a hobby even though his findings were seen as historic breakthroughs. A contemporary of Galileo, Napier conceived the idea of logarithms in 1594, although the name he used was “artificial numbers”. He spent the next 20 years doing seven million calculations by hand – including introducing decimal equivalents to fractions – before he perfected his system. He published his results – including a table of logarithms – in 1614, giving the world a method of quickly solving complex mathematical problems.

    His work opened the doors to resolving many scientific questions, particularly in astronomy and navigation. The results, demonstrated by German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, showed that the Earth was not at the centre of the universe but revolved around the sun. Kepler, a contemporary of Napier’s, was able to reduce his observations and make his breakthrough which then underpinned Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation.”

    Yet it is not a matter for wonder that Napier came to be looked upon as a warlock. The tenantry on the Merchiston estate knew that their master passed long hours alone in the lofty chamber in the tower; they saw him come forth at dusk in his flowing gown, and pace up and down in the quiet evening air; and it was difficult for them not to believe that his pet black cock was a familiar spirit. These hours of seclusion, which neighbors believed John Napier spent with the Prince of Darkness, were given to an erudite work on the Revelation of St. John., and to the epoch-making Canon of Logarithms.

    But what is much stranger is that Napier himself apparently had faith in his powers of divination. That a man of ourstanding genius who had a profound knowledge of mathematics, classics, theology, and history should have a belief in necromancy seems incredible, but in Napier’s day there was a systematised philosophy of magic which had not yet fallen into disrepute, and he took a deep interest in this as in other branches of science.

    When John Napier died the mantle of philosophy fell to his third son, Robert. This last wizard of the house of Merchiston was an eminent mathematician, and was the author of a book on alchemy, which contains a very curious preface. “But above all things you, my son, or whoever he be of my posterity who chance to see and read this book, I adjure by the most holy Trinity, and under pains of the curse of Heaven, not to make it public, not communicate it to a living soul, unless it be to a child of the art, a good man fearing God, and one who will cherish the secret of Hermes under the deepest silence.”

    Robert’s eldest son was raised to the Peerage as Lord Napier of Merchiston; but since the lairds have been ennobled, the family has not produced any magicians. The chief seat of the descendant of this family of wizards is now Thirlestane Castle, in Ettrick, but Merchiston is still the property of Lord Napier, thought the family has not resided inteh Castle for the greater part of [two] centuries.

    Trust The Scotsman to bury the most interesting parts on pages two and three. Above, I’ve retyped part of a nearly unreadable photocopy of the wavy 1910 issue (page three) for those of you who might otherwise have had difficulty reading it.

    Kat

    1. That Wizard was Good.
      Thank you for posting that, it was very interesting. I am into numbers.
      XC

      Dr. Colette M. Dowell ND
      Circular Times
      Moving Forward Publications

  6. Crowley’s Aliens, Old Curses and Family Heritage
    Crowley, Aliens and The Book of Thoth: second part of a series which began last week with ‘Extraterrestrials and the Occult Connection’.

    OOOOHHHH, I just read that and the hair on my arms stood straight up.
    When I was a child I saw entities. I drew them with large heads and bald heads like that one, Crowley had supposedly drawn when he would be “in contact” with the “others.”

    In 1989 I drew picures of the entities I would see, they resemble the Greys…..THose picures were used on that program CLose Encounters and Unsolved Mysteries and people had taken them to re illustrate what an alien looked like. What is weird about all of this is I had just written about the very old books I had about the occult and talking about the Snake Race and aliens in Mt. shasta and such on an earlier blog….Well, I have a deck of tarot cards that Crowley designed. My mother told me to never open them up and use them as they were evil. I still have them , 35 years later, and I have never opened them to set the cards. In those books I have they speak of Crowley, they speak of many things that Crowley and Madam Blavatsky wrote…some of these books date baack to early turn of the century and the early 1900s.I have some of his original writings and the old books origianally published by Blavatsky….My mother, and her granmother, which would be my great grandmother and all of the women on that side (maternal) of my blood line were Rosecrucians, Metaphysicains and witches….
    My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was not involved in anything of the sorts, kind of like a generation skip….

    On my fathers side, he was not into metaphysics, but his mother was, his grand mother and all the way down the line…I have many books from my family that have been passed down to me. When I read this modern stuff on Aliens and all it freaks me out. When I read articles about Crowley or others, I remember about my books. Some books my mother said I should never open. I asked her why she had them if they were so bad. SHe told me just for the collection of the library….So some books I have not opened even though I have had htem for eons, but there is that far thought of being told never to do so. It is like there is a curse or something that will happen if I were to open the books. I don’t know why I am afraid, but, I am scared to open the books I have from some of these people. I always wonder if there are truths to curses . I do not know.

    Yeah the news is always far out…

    I don’t know yet to read it before I go to sleep at night or in the morning to start my day…..either way it begins the future there after what you read with…whoah, that was weird…now what?

    I have this other book titiled X-Raying the Pharoahs. It is downstairs, I don’t have it in front of me, but I will post the info on it. That book is not so old, maybe 30 years or so..I am not quite sure….but it has photographs of the x-rays that were performed on the sarchaphaguses ( heck I can’t spell that word) of many Eyptian Mummies..THey were the hierarchy of the groups of mummies. Pharaohs, Queens and all….These x-rays are so bloody weird. The heads of the Egyptians are elongated and really out of proportion. THey look like the skulls of aliens .I swear….The forehead and upper mantle of the skull is qute enlarged and the face narrows to a very small and thin chin. In many cases there are problems with dental deformities because of the inbreeding of the royal blood lines….I had wondered if the heads, as deformed as they are, and I swear to you they do not look human, if they were diseased or down syndrome or that one chromosone disorder that causes a very enlarged head and upper mantle of the skull ( I forget the term)…I mean it is really bazarr looking….These X-rays even show a baboon in one of the encasings as opposed to a human, when the encasement was that of a pharoah. No kidding…There was no explanation for this.
    XC

    Dr. Colette M. Dowell ND
    Circular Times
    Moving Forward Publications

  7. How low-carb works
    Low carbohydrate diets work because they control the production of insulin. Glucose causes the pancreas to pump insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin causes the muscles, liver, and fat cells to store away as much glucose as they can, burn the remaining carbohydrates, and save the dietary fat for later use – i.e. it gets tucked away in fat cells. Insulin causes the cells to reduce fat burning and to bum carbohydrates instead. Second, insulin has a long half-life in our bloodstream. The half-life is longer than it takes the body to store away the glucose. This causes us to run out of blood sugar and to get tired – and hungry – sooner.

    Years of excessive insulin stimulation eventually bums out the cell’s insulin receptors so that it takes more insulin for the cells to react normally. This “insulin resistance” is a condition where the cells of your body do not effectively receive the insulin your body produces. Therefore your cells trigger your brain to produce even more insulin thinking there is not enough. The end result is an overproduction of insulin, which then causes “low blood sugar” and the snack-attacks that usually accompany it, reinforcing this bad cycle.

    Excessive amounts of insulin have been linked to many serious health problems. It stimulates the growth of the muscle lining in arteries, which causes the arteries to harden. Insulin signals the kidneys to retain salt which increases hypertension. Higher levels of insulin will directly increase the production of the male androgens like testosterone, which for females translates to more abdominal fat, increased facial hair, and a pattern of hair loss similar to male-pattern baldness. Insulin also stimulates cholesterol synthesis which can lead to heart disease.

    Saturated fats and High-Glycemic carbs cause Insulin Resistance.

    Switch to good fats and limit saturated fats. The saturated fats cause blood to be sticky, they cause vessels to constrict, and they have long term negative effects on insulin sensitivity and sugar metabolism. The good fats actually help prevent heart attack and stroke and they also improve insulin and sugar metabolism long term.

    Good fats include olive oil (Omega -9), vegetable oils like canola and safflower (Omega -6) , coldwater fish oils (Omega -3), and the oil in nuts – preferably obtained by eating a few of the nuts themselves, since a one-third cup serving of nuts eaten five times a week has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease by over 40 percent.
    The good fats help prevent heart attack and stroke and actually help weight loss — and they make our diets palatable and enjoyable. All these mono- and poly- unsaturated fats, especially Omega -3 oils, are necessary for hormone production — not just the major endocrine hormones, but also ‘eicosanoids’, the micro-hormones which individual cells produce to communicate with each other and the body as a whole, and good prostaglandins, which reduce inflammation. So if you are not a fish lover, or want to keep your intake of mercury, etc. to a minimum, you need to take omega-3 fish oil supplements. I like Carlson’s Salmon Oil with GLA.

    A little about that “GLA”. The good fats we eat contain ‘linoleic acid’, which the body must convert to ‘Gamma Linoleic Acid’, i.e. GLA. A little known fact is that some people have a genetic problem which limits or prevents this conversion, and they need GLA supplements to be healthy.

    Saturated fats include meat fat, dairy fat, tropical oils like palm oil, and hydrogenated oils (transfats), which are artificially created by adding hydrogen atoms to unsaturated oils to lengthen the shelf life of foods which contain them.

    There’s still a lot of debate over the best way to combine all this information into a healthy diet that’s enjoyable and easy to stick with over the long term. Individual personality traits are probably the biggest factor in determining which ‘popular’ low-carb diet people choose. I like The Zone Diet, but it requires you to pay close attention to the exact number of grams of everything you eat – protein, carbs, and fats. I’m not as familiar with The Adkins Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Sugar Busters Diet, etc., so you’d have to find detailed info about those elsewhere. But…

    The basic rules of low-carb are:

    Every meal or snack you eat must have a balance of protein, low-glycemic index carbs, and good fats. And no meal should contain over 500 calories.

    With The Zone Diet, that translates to 40% of the calories from carbs, 30% of calories from protein, and 30% from fats. Protein and carbs both have 4.5 calories per gram. Fats have 9 calories per gram. So for example, for the largest meal of the day you might have a baked chicken breast (30 grams of protein = 135 calories) and a whole heaping plate-full of very low-index veggies like broccoli, squash, red peppers, etc. (180 calories) stir-fried in 15 grams olive oil (135 calories). And you might wash that down with unsweetened iced tea, containing all those good antioxidants. That’s a total of 450 calories, and if all those veggies are low on the glycemic index, you’ll have difficulty eating all of that, and you won’t be hungry again for 4 hours. You’re supposed to eat every four hour or so, so you have breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and believe it or not, another snack before bed. A snack might be an ounce of reduced fat cheddar cheese (7 grams of protein = 32 calories; 5 grams of fat = 45 calories) and a cup of grapes, a small apple, or some other fruit.

    How do you know which carbs are low on the glycemic index? Hunt around on the web by doing a search for ‘glycemic index’. Here’s one good one:
    Understanding Carbohydrates and their effect on blood sugar and insulin production.

    I highly recommend you read at least one good book on the subject. My personal fave is Enter The Zone by Barry Sears, PhD, which you can buy from amazon for as little as $1.43 USD.

    Kat

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