I have been doing the glucometer Limbo since early October. I used to not be able to keep my average Glucometer readings below 160. When I added pregnenolone, I got glucometer readings of ~145. But when I started my Tuna Salad smoothies, it went back up.
A month ago, I started using R-ALA instead of ALA. No noticeable change in Glucometer readings.
On Dec 21, I noted that with a double dose of ALC, my blood glucose readings went down to ~140.
Yesterday (Dec.24) my 1 week average was down to 131. Today, my 1 week average is down to 130. My reading today was 124, which is lower than my previous recent record of 128. That is the lowest I have seen my glucometer reading in a long long time.
X
Current Music:Amorphous Androgynous - Mountain Goat (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and
About ninety minutes after docking with the Zarya module, astronauts aboard the Soyuz capsule opened the hatch into the International Space Station. Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency were greeted by Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Russian Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev.
In general, I see a lot more updates to my LJ f-list when people are at work. But I see a lot more updates to my FB f-list when people are not at work.
Tonight, X-mas eve, LJ is pretty quiet. My health related e-lists are silent. The health related and political activist newsletters are all wanting me to donate $$ (for example, "As you close out your financial records for 2009, please remember . . .").
Tonight, FaceBook is just chugging along, just like any other night.
Current Music:Sophie & Ives - Untie Me (featuring Sophie Moleta) (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out.
The wind chill drops from 50F to 39F in an hour at midnight, then drops down to 30F by dawn. Time to batten down the hatches, crank up the heat, and sleep under my blankets.
Current Music:Banco De Gaia - Last Train To Lhasa (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mi
On a grey, chill Sunday morning, December 13, 2009, Martha Conte, Theodora “Ted” de Soyza, Nora Freeman, Debbie Kair and I visited Holy Family Catholic Church in New Rochelle, NY, in the latest of our bannering visits to urge the religious community in Westchester County to become aggressive in opposing the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
We hit a rock, except for two parishioners.
The Holy Family congregation meets in a huge yellow brick ark of a building, Italian in architectural style. The nave of the church, where the congregation sits, has a low flat ceiling of natural wood panels and massive wooden beams, decorated with fine red and green lines and flowers, creating a sense of sanctuary. This feeling is enhanced by large, arched, extremely intricate, stained glass, windows.
On walls are bas-relief sculptures of various scenes leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion known as Stations of the Cross. In one of the walls next to the altar is a sculpture of Mary, Joseph and Jesus - the Holy Family – in a manger scene. On the altar were four, very tall candelabra, and over the altar is a crucifix with, as Nora pointed out, a nearly life-size, very life-like sculpture of Jesus in pain, spiked to a cross.
The sense of the building is that of ancient tradition, a feeling reinforced by the liberal use of incense during the ceremony. The church’s website says the building “is comparable to a basilica.” But the church is not ancient, although, like many, many ancient Catholic churches, it was built out of the devotion of working-class people.
“From the small group who gathered for the first Mass on August 10, 1913 in a store front that had been a butcher’s shop,” the church’s website says, “ we have grown into a large parish serving over 1,400 faithful each week.” The website’s message, signed by the pastor, Msgr. Ferdinando D. Berardi, goes on to caution:
“However, let us remember that we are not to rely on buildings or institutions but in the Spirit that unites us as a family and emboldens us to witness to the Gospel and so serve Our God and His people.”
On the morning we visited, there were about 200 parishioners, including about 20 African-Americans, participating in the 10:30 am Mass.
We sat on the right hand side of the church, close to the front. The choir of about 18 men and women sat directly across from us on the other side of the church.
Debbie suggested that we stand with the banner during the prayers of confession, early in the service, and that we remain standing when the prayers were completed.
We raised a banner that said:
4,371 US SOLDIERS KILLED-TENS OF THOUSANDS WOUNDED
1 MILLION IRAQIS KILLED-MILLIONS DISPLACED
Much of IRAQ and its CULTURE have been DESTROYED
The US has spent $3 TRILLION - $4 BILLION from Westchester
JOIN US TO HELP END THE WARS!!
We had been holding up the banner for about two minutes when an usher approached me and told us to leave. I asked my colleagues whether I should ask him if we could stay if we lowered the banner; it was agreed. “If your purpose is to worship, you can stay,” he said. We folded the banner and returned to our seats.
Marine tstm wind m43 mph, reported by ASOS. 37 knot gust at Lakefront Airport.
Public Information Statement
Statement as of 2:36 PM EST on December 24, 2009 the following information is preliminary and subject to change.
Weather records have been maintained in the New Orleans Metro area dating back to 1871. As of 100 PM CST... December 24th... the New Orleans International Airport has received 25.21 inches of monthly rainfall which breaks the all time wettest month record of 25.11 inches set in October 1937.
Current Music:Mad - Hollow (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-tempo electronica. [S
Is there a Guinness Book of World Records category for child molesters? Over 100 children. With their parents in the adjoining room. And the fucktrad recorded his crimes on video!!!
Delaware crime: Up to 100 kids molested, state says
Investigators sift through 11 years of evidence from doctor's office
Prosecutors' assertion Wednesday that as many as 100 children may have been sexually abused by Lewes pediatrician Earl Bradley over the last 11 years has consumed people in this quiet resort community with fears that someone they know may have been a victim.
Bradley had been entrusted with the well-being of children in the town, with a population just over 3,000, since 1995. But prosecutors say Bradley brutally betrayed that trust in the worst possible way, abusing infants and young children under the guise of giving them treats while their parents were in another room.
The number of potential victims has sent shudders through this close-knit community.
Cousins marrying and popping out chilluns are apt to concentrate flawed genes and made for kids with birth defects. It is not a serous danger since most families do not carry flawed genes. Bt it is a danger in some families. I suspect cousins do not need to prove they are not carrying flawed genes.
Same sex marriage has no such difficulty.
What surprises me is that Louisiana does not permit cousins to marry.
Current Music:David Caron - A Quiet Passing (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-temp
Below is the beginning of a Christmas tale. For the rest, go to the URL at end.
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The Fruitcake (AKA "A Lovecraft Christmas" A Lovecraft Christmas By Pete Sears
Journal Entry:Dec 2
I have returned home after a long time away. Time seems not to have touched Arkham very much. Oh you'll see the occasional cell phone on the street but the old-timers who sit around at the hardware store seem to be the same ones that sat there in my youth. I've spent so much time in diverse corners of the world seeking the strange and unusual that even my childhood home seems quaint and curious in the same way that Yoruba tribesmen do. I find myself having to bite my tongue whenever I get the urge to ask the natives to explain their customs. New England reticence is something I'm having to relearn.
For example. I'm staying at the old ancestral home and it's quiet enough to enable me to study. It's also remote enough to allow me to cast a spell or two in the back yard without being observed. But every time I venture into town i am struck by small changes there. Townsfolk, whom i suppose are trying to be friendly, keep asking me if I'm "Getting ready for the Holidays." I'm not aware of any particular holidays. Perhaps there's some sort of festival in the offing. I shall ask.
Journal Entry: Dec 4
It would seem that there is some sort of winter festival. When I inquired, I was looked at strangely and avoided, but finally I did get a straight answer. I've also noted some strange behavior in town. People seem to be smiling...a lot. They seem to be extremely busy and carrying a lot of suspicious parcels.
Journal Entry: Dec 13
I've observed a strange ritual. Last night, two husky men came onto the back of my property and cut down a pine tree. Taking up my shotgun to deal with the trespassers, I watched as they dragged the tree back to their car. Was that all they had come for? Had they broken the law merely to steal a tree? Fascinated and horrified, I followed them back to their home. They took the tree off their car and took it into their house. Watching from the bushes, I observed the tree thieves as they began to cover their ill-gotten foliage with strange blinking lights and odd icons of some sort. Is this some sort of odd cult activity? Perhaps some bizarre fertility ritual. (Shub?!?) Is the tree supposed to be an Altar? Sacrifice? Antenna? More study is required.
I just happened upon my first Thoth Tarot deck. It is the first edition of the Thoth deck ever printed. ~1972. Note the cards have no borders and the colors are very muted. Not a full deck. Not sure which cards are missing, but deck is not thick enough to hold all the cards.
When someone who has never played a violin is presented with a Stradivarius, I suspect she/he won't know how to make it sing, either. Sex, like most anything else, takes years of practice to become proficient.
Below from Thomas Edmonds on FaceBook.
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NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - Just days after tying the knot after years of abstinence, Kevin Jonas of the pop sensation the Jonas Brothers stunned his teenaged fans by announcing that "to be honest about it, sex was not worth the wait."
"After we did it, I was kind of like, that's it?" Mr. Jonas told reporters at a New York press conference.
As to whether Mr. Jonas' bride agreed with his "that's it?" assessment, Mr. Jonas remarked, "That's what she said."
Of course, high gusty winds on a night of heavy road travel and high alcohol consumption may reduce the population somewhat.
Statement as of 8:45 PM CST on December 23, 2009
... Very strong cold front expected to bring strong damaging winds and isolated tornadoes to the area...
A strong cold front will push across the region tomorrow during the midday and afternoon hours. A squall line is expected along the front mainly bringing the risk of damaging winds... possibly in excess of 70 mph. A tornado or two and hail will also be possible with the line. Additionally there is the risk of a few strong to severe storms ahead of the squall line during the early morning to midday hours. If any of these storms ahead of the line become severe the tornado risk would increase.
Outside of severe weather winds will be quite gusty. Southerly winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph will be possible starting early in the morning and this could pose hazardous driving conditions to high profile vehicles... especially along east-west highways. Also wind speeds associated with the squall line will be capable of causing dangerous driving conditions with the greatest risk over open roadways.
Christmas eve is normally a high volume travel day... if you have travel or outdoor plans for Christmas eve... please keep up with the latest weather forecasts and possible warnings for your area.
Current Music:Spacetime Continuum - Simm City (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-te
Back when I was a child, if any odd/strange/freakie kid got made the teacher's pet, the other kids hated him. In nature, freakie mutants get killed. So if Rudolph was teased by the other reindeer and not allowed to play reindeer games, then it goes to follow that if Rudolph was made the leader of all the other reindeer by Santa, the other reindeer would have just killed him when Santa was not around.
What's with "God save us all from Satan's power"? People see Satan as some sort of enemy of god. But nothing could be farther from the truth. According to the official book of Xian mythology (the bible) Satan works FOR god. His job is to test people. If they fail, god sends them to burn in hell. So, Satan is merely an obedient employee of god. I don't want to be saved from Satan. I want to be saved from Yahoo-Wahoo!
In Xmas music there are a gazillion references to royalty. Xmas carols must be a wet dream for royalists! I can see how Christianity was shaped by feudal Europe. But what has that to do with American Christians? Seems to me that Americans who sing Xmas carols are guilty of treason against the principles upon which this nation was founded.
Some people wandered thru the Square the other night, singing Xmas carols. Nothing unusual about that. But one was carrying a 3 foot cross attached to a pole. Sheesh! The kid ain't even born yet and people already want him tortured and murdered! Christians sure are gruesome!
Current Music:Steve Fisk - Express God (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-tempo ele
The American College of Physicians (ACP) issued a new policy statement last week endorsing medical marijuana use. The group is urging the government to reverse its ban on medical treatments using marijuana. "ACP encourages the use of non-smoked forms of THC (the main psychoactive element in marijuana) that have proven therapeutic value," the new policy statement said. The Philadelphia-based organization, the second largest doctors group in the United States, cited studies into marijuana’s medical applications such as treating severe weight loss associated with illnesses such as AIDS, and treating nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy for cancer patients.[i]
Medical marijuana is becoming more and more associated with anti-carcinogenic effects, which are responsible in preventing or delaying the development of cancer. This means that cannabinoids offer cancer patients a therapeutic option in the treatment of highly invasive cancers. Before we look at the hard medical science that sustains these statements go to http://www.youtube.com/chrychek to see a series of videos that will convince you of the validity of these statements on cancer. The American College of Physicians wants it made legal as do millions of other people. If you or one of your loved ones every get cancer you will be wishing that the government would begin to listen to this medical organization.
12 Million new cases of Cancer Diagnosed in 2007 in the US. In addition Cancer also killed 8 million people worldwide in 2007 - American Cancer Society
After reading the science and watching this video series I am certain that any sane person with cancer or any late stage chronic disease will want free and legal access to hemp oil with a maximum concentration of THC, the active ingredient that is illegal in most places in the world. [ii]
The medical science is strongly in favor of THC laden hemp oil as a primary cancer therapy, not just in a supportive role to control the side effects of chemotherapy. The International Medical Verities Association is putting hemp oil on its cancer protocol. It is a prioritized protocol list whose top five items are magnesium chloride, iodine, selenium, Alpha Lipoic Acid and sodium bicarbonate. It makes perfect sense to drop hemp oil right into the middle of this nutritional crossfire of anti cancer medicines, which are all available without prescription.
Hemp oil has long been recognised as one of the most versatile and beneficial substances known to man. Derived from hemp seeds (a member of the achene family of fruits) it has been regarded as a superfood due to its high essential fatty acid content and the unique ratio of omega3 to omega6 and gamma linolenic acid (GLA) - 2:5:1. Hemp oil, is known to contain up to 5% of pure GLA, a much higher concentration than any other plant, even higher than spirulina. For thousands of years, the hemp plant has been used in elixirs and medicinal teas because of its healing properties and now medical science is zeroing in on the properties of its active substances.
Both the commercial legal type of hemp oil and the illegal THC laden hemp oil are one of the most power-packed protein sources available in the plant kingdom. Its oil can be used in many nutritional and transdermal applications. In other chapters in my Winning the War on Cancer book we will discuss in-depth about GLA and cancer and also the interesting work of Dr. Johanna Budwig. She uses flax seed oil instead of hemp oil to cure cancer - through effecting changes in cell walls - using these omega3 and omega6 laden medicinal oils. ( Read more... )
Current Music:Higher Intelligence - Speedlearn (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-t
Some folks want to legalize hemp so it can be used to counter some of the devastating effects of chemo. But hemp oil when used with NO chemo can cure both Cancer and AIDS. Many more videos on this topic on Youtube.
Shawn AIDS Update #1 Rick Simpson Hemp Oil 4 26 09
Shawn stopped taking his HIV meds on April 20, 2009. He has been taking the Rick Simpson Hemp oil for 8 months. He no longer feel like he has AIDS. With his doctor's OK and supervision he has gone off his meds to see if the oil has cured him of AIDS
In this segment from our new video series, Rick Simpson discusses the dangers of using toxic chemicals without considering how they affect your health.
Permission to download, copy, and repost is granted and also encouraged so that it may be seen by the largest global audience possible.
There comes a time in every science writer’s career when one must write about glass duck vaginas and explosive duck penises.
That time is now.
To err on the side of caution, I am stuffing the rest of this post below the fold. My tale is rich with deep scientific significance, resplendent with surprising insights into how evolution works, far beyond the banalities of “survival of the fittest,” off in a realm of life where sexual selection and sexual conflict work like a pair sculptors drunk on absinthe, transforming biology into forms unimaginable. But this story is also accompanied with video. High-definition, slow-motion duck sex video. And I would imagine that the sight of spiral-shaped penises inflating in less than a third of second might be considered in some quarters to be not exactly safe for work. It’s certainly not appropriate for ducklings.
Below from chaoticerotic on FaceBook. Go to URL at end for audio link.
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How A Bone Disease Grew To Fit The Prescription
by Alix Spiegel December 21, 2009
Katie Benghauser had no concept of all the forces that combined to bring the box of pills to the bottom shelf of her medicine cabinet. All she knew was that three years ago she went in for a routine checkup and her doctor told her it was time for her to take a test.
Not that there was anything in particular about Benghauser that suggested sickness. At 54 she exercised every day and could outrun most 20-year-olds. She was a model of health.
Still, because Benghauser was thin, white, female, in her 50s and had a sister who had some bone problems, she says the doctor told her that she was concerned. "She felt like because my frame is slight and I'm female, that I was at risk for developing osteoporosis."
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become thinner, more porous and break more easily. It mostly affects elderly women, who can be devastated by a fall that breaks their hip. One in five elderly women who break a hip will die within a year. Still, just to make sure, Benghauser went in for a test that measured the density of her bones. Two weeks later a letter came in the mail with an unsettling message: Benghauser had a condition called osteopenia, and her doctor recommended medication.
Osteopenia is different from osteoporosis. In fact, though Benghauser is extremely health conscious, she wasn't familiar with it. "I'd heard of osteoporosis before, but I'd never heard of osteopenia," she says.
Osteopenia, it turns out, is a slight thinning of the bones that occurs naturally as women get older and typically doesn't result in disabling bone breaks. Still, Benghauser's doctor recommended that she go on treatment. As Benghauser asked around, it turned out that many of her peers were taking the pills. For example, she works in an office in Richmond, Va., with seven other women.
"Half the staff is younger, in their 20s and 30s, and then there are four of us that are over 50," she said. "Three of those four are on some kind of medication for osteopenia." ( Read more... )
Current Music:Elements Of Trance - A Taste Of Your Own Medicine (The Midi-Evil Mix) (Space Station Soma: Tune in,
When I check out links from LJ posts or FaceBook posts, I open the link in a new tab in Firefox. When I don't have a lot of time, to re-post into my LJ, I just leave the tabs open for "later". Well, tabs accumulate. I have no idea from whence I got the links from. So on a day lie today, I gather up the info and make posts here.
I have long known that High Fructose Corn Syrup was deadly, but I was unaware that the cheaper grades contain Mercury. And the FDA is doing NOTHING about it!
Sweetness and Blight Why is the FDA unwilling to study evidence of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup? 20 Feb 2009 3:25 PM by Tom Philpott
High-fructose corn syrup doesn’t just deliver a jolt of sweetness to thousands of processed food items consumed by tens of millions of Americans each day. It also may add a touch of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that may not be safe to consume at any level.
That’s the message of two separate studies published last month. The first, led by a former FDA researcher named Renee Dufault and published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Health Journal, found mercury in nearly half of high-fructose corn syrup samples collected in 2005. Dufault had alerted her superiors about the finding in 2005 and got no response, she told me in a recent interview. She began the process of publishing her research after retiring from the FDA last year.
The other study, conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy [PDF], found traces of the toxic heavy metal in one-third of HFCS-containing products its researchers pulled off of supermarket shelves last year.
I wrote about the studies when the first media reports came out. Since then, I’ve been shocked at the official silence. ( Read more... )
Current Music:Insect Jazz - Wildflower (Space Station Soma: Tune in, turn on, space out. Ambient and mid-tempo ele
I want to know just how people rip apart the dead as an "informal practice"?
I wonder how many Palestinians were murdered simply because they looked like they had healthy livers?
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Israel harvested organs in ’90s without consent Military confirms informal practice, claims it ‘does not happen anymore’
updated 8:03 p.m. CT,Sun., Dec . 20, 2009
JERUSALEM - Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.
The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.
Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said, "We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."
The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.
'We'd glue eyelid shut' In the interview, Hiss described how his doctors would mask the removal of corneas from bodies. "We'd glue the eyelid shut," he said. "We wouldn't take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids."
Many of the details in the interview first came to light in 2004, when Hiss was dismissed as head of the forensic institute because of irregularities over use of organs there. Israel's attorney general dropped criminal charges against him, and Hiss still works as chief pathologist at the institute. He had no comment on the TV report.
Hiss became director of the institute in 1988. He said in the interview that the practice of harvesting organs without permission began in the "early 1990s." However, he also said that military surgeons removed a thin layer of skin from bodies as early as 1987 to treat burn victims. Hiss said he believed that was done with family consent. The harvesting ended in 2000, he said.
Complaints against the institute, where autopsies of dead bodies are performed, at the time of Hiss' dismissal came from relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinians. The bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence, but there has been no evidence to back up the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians for their organs. Angry Israeli officials called the report "anti-Semitic."
The academic, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, said she decided to make the interview public in the wake of the Aftonbladet controversy, which raised diplomatic tensions between Israel and Sweden and prompted Sweden's foreign minister to call off a visit to the Jewish state.
Scheper-Hughes said that while Palestinians were "by a long shot" not the only ones affected by the practice in the 1990s, she felt the interview must be made public now because "the symbolism, you know, of taking skin of the population considered to be the enemy, (is) something, just in terms of its symbolic weight, that has to be reconsidered."
While insisting that all organ harvesting was done with permission, Israel's Health Ministry told Channel 2, "The guidelines at that time were not clear." It added, "For the last 10 years, Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law."
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