Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lego Set Trailer Debuts
It’s kind of weird when detailed information about a blockbuster film
is leaked in the form of Lego toys. And yet, the blocky figurines have
served as the source of several rumors and hints about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, from what characters may be appearing to the ships featured in the film.
Now, Lego finally gets its own spotlight. A trailer for the upcoming set of toys based on The Force Awakens has debuted. It offers a quick glimpse at some ships and figurines you can build and own, ahead of the merchandise blitz of Force Friday this coming week, although this set won’t be available until December presumably.
The Force Awakens Lego Set Trailer Debuts
Now, Lego finally gets its own spotlight. A trailer for the upcoming set of toys based on The Force Awakens has debuted. It offers a quick glimpse at some ships and figurines you can build and own, ahead of the merchandise blitz of Force Friday this coming week, although this set won’t be available until December presumably.
The Force Awakens Lego Set Trailer Debuts
Turmeric: Doctors Say This Spice Is a Brain Health Miracle
By Joshua Corn, Editor-in-Chief of the Live in the Now Natural Health Newsletter
Are you concerned about maintaining the health of your brain as you age? You're not alone. Losing one's memory and mental abilities to cognitive decline is something we all fear, and the current statistics on the prevalence of cognitive decline in this country are not pretty. By age 65, sadly 1 in 8 Americans will suffer from severe cognitive decline, and by age 80, an astonishing 1 in 2 will.[1]
Researchers have been working for years to develop an effective treatment. But one "miracle" drug after another has failed to live up to its promises, and it's becoming more and more apparent that pharmaceuticals are not the solution. Unfortunately, the medical establishment is so narrowly focused on finding an elusive "cure" that scientifically proven prevention strategies are often ignored.
Nature's Brain-Protecting Miracle
brain imageThere are a number of natural brain protectors out there, but did you know that one herb has shown more promise when it comes to supporting your neurological system than any other medical finding to date? It's a scientific fact that curcumin, an antioxidant compound found in the root of the turmeric plant, is one of the most powerful natural brain protecting substances? It continues to amaze scientists with its remarkable cognitive health benefits.
You may be familiar with turmeric as the bright yellow spice that is commonly found in curry powder. Turmeric has a long history as a healing herb and culinary spice in India. Interestingly, India has the highest per capita consumption of turmeric AND the lowest incidence of cognitive decline worldwide![2]
Your Brain on Curcumin
The hallmark process associated with certain types of cognitive decline is the formation in the brain of abnormal protein structures. Normally when malformed proteins are formed with the brain, the immune system sends out cells known as macrophages, which engulf and destroy the proteins. If this ordinary function fails, defective proteins accumulate in the brain and cognitive decline can follow.
Recent research is showing that curcumin encourages the immune system to send macrophages to the brain. A landmark clinical trial involving people with severe cognitive decline measured the effects of curcumin. Amazingly, the participants taking curcumin had significantly higher levels of dissolved abnormal proteins in their blood compared to those in the placebo group.
This study showed that curcumin has the ability to effectively pass into the brain, bind to beta-amyloid plaques and assist the body in their breakdown.[3] Curcumin is one of the only substances known to have such a profound protective effect on the brain.
Curcumin Combats Dangerous Inflammation
You may have heard about the dangers of "silent" chronic inflammation. It's been discussed by Dr. Oz and has made headlines in publications such as Newsweek and Time. It's important for you to know that low-grade inflammation is rapidly becoming recognized as the root cause of the development of cognitive decline, as well as a wide range of serious health problems.[4]
Unfortunately, most people don't do anything until the initial symptoms, such as muscle aches and joint discomfort, appear. When this happens, their gut reaction often is to go see a doctor, who is unlikely to correctly diagnose the problem, and more than likely will prescribe drugs that are far from safe and only provide short-term benefits.
But the initial symptoms of pain are just the beginning. If left unchecked, chronic inflammation can damage your body in many ways. One of the worst examples of this is cognitive decline, which can ravage your memory and severely impact your quality of life in what should be your golden years.
Are you concerned about maintaining the health of your brain as you age? You're not alone. Losing one's memory and mental abilities to cognitive decline is something we all fear, and the current statistics on the prevalence of cognitive decline in this country are not pretty. By age 65, sadly 1 in 8 Americans will suffer from severe cognitive decline, and by age 80, an astonishing 1 in 2 will.[1]
Researchers have been working for years to develop an effective treatment. But one "miracle" drug after another has failed to live up to its promises, and it's becoming more and more apparent that pharmaceuticals are not the solution. Unfortunately, the medical establishment is so narrowly focused on finding an elusive "cure" that scientifically proven prevention strategies are often ignored.
Nature's Brain-Protecting Miracle
brain imageThere are a number of natural brain protectors out there, but did you know that one herb has shown more promise when it comes to supporting your neurological system than any other medical finding to date? It's a scientific fact that curcumin, an antioxidant compound found in the root of the turmeric plant, is one of the most powerful natural brain protecting substances? It continues to amaze scientists with its remarkable cognitive health benefits.
You may be familiar with turmeric as the bright yellow spice that is commonly found in curry powder. Turmeric has a long history as a healing herb and culinary spice in India. Interestingly, India has the highest per capita consumption of turmeric AND the lowest incidence of cognitive decline worldwide![2]
Your Brain on Curcumin
The hallmark process associated with certain types of cognitive decline is the formation in the brain of abnormal protein structures. Normally when malformed proteins are formed with the brain, the immune system sends out cells known as macrophages, which engulf and destroy the proteins. If this ordinary function fails, defective proteins accumulate in the brain and cognitive decline can follow.
Recent research is showing that curcumin encourages the immune system to send macrophages to the brain. A landmark clinical trial involving people with severe cognitive decline measured the effects of curcumin. Amazingly, the participants taking curcumin had significantly higher levels of dissolved abnormal proteins in their blood compared to those in the placebo group.
This study showed that curcumin has the ability to effectively pass into the brain, bind to beta-amyloid plaques and assist the body in their breakdown.[3] Curcumin is one of the only substances known to have such a profound protective effect on the brain.
Curcumin Combats Dangerous Inflammation
You may have heard about the dangers of "silent" chronic inflammation. It's been discussed by Dr. Oz and has made headlines in publications such as Newsweek and Time. It's important for you to know that low-grade inflammation is rapidly becoming recognized as the root cause of the development of cognitive decline, as well as a wide range of serious health problems.[4]
Unfortunately, most people don't do anything until the initial symptoms, such as muscle aches and joint discomfort, appear. When this happens, their gut reaction often is to go see a doctor, who is unlikely to correctly diagnose the problem, and more than likely will prescribe drugs that are far from safe and only provide short-term benefits.
But the initial symptoms of pain are just the beginning. If left unchecked, chronic inflammation can damage your body in many ways. One of the worst examples of this is cognitive decline, which can ravage your memory and severely impact your quality of life in what should be your golden years.
Cutting-edge science is showing that curcumin is one of the most powerful, natural anti-inflammatories ever studied. Curcumin is so effective because it is a potent inhibitor of the body's most powerful inflammation-causing chemical, called Nf-kappa beta. Miraculously, curcumin has been shown in numerous studies to tame joint pain and muscle soreness, protect the brain, support cardiovascular health, bolster immunity and more.[5,6,7,8,9] If you have a lingering health problem that no doctor can resolve, you may be suffering from chronic inflammation and curcumin may be just the natural solution you've been looking for.
The High Protein Food You Aren't Eating Enough Of!
by Brandon Hall, for The Stack
It seems like more people are searching for “superfoods” to turbocharge their diets. Often, these are foods most Americans are unfamiliar with initially, but once they learn about their supposed nutritional and health benefits (often exaggerated), they start scarfing the stuff down like it’s going out of style.
Think about it: who was eating kale, acai berries and quinoa 15 years ago? No one. But nowadays you see those words on every menu in town.
The word “superfood” conjures up thoughts of exciting, colorful foods from far off lands that possess magical healing powers. But a food doesn’t have to be exotic to be healthy. In fact, there’s one superfood every American is familiar with, but few seem to eat.
Beans.
Beans don’t fit the typical image of a “superfood.” They aren’t as sexy as acai berries or activated charcoal smoothies. They're not new, lavish or exciting. In America, they're sometimes viewed as a staple for blue-collar people who can't afford much else. For these reasons, the majority of Americans might overlook beans as a smart food choice. But passing on beans is a big mistake. Beans possess a number of characteristics that make them an amazingly nutritious food, and their practicality is unmatched. Here’s why you should eat more beans.
The Forgotten Food Beans: the Forgotten Food
It seems like beans have been a part of the American diet forever. If you look at the old pictures of skyscraper construction workers eating their lunch atop steel beams, chances are you’ll see a fork stuck in a can of beans alongside them.
Nearly all Americans have eaten beans at some point in their lives. But chances are, beans don’t play a regular role in their diet. And that’s a shame.
According to Ryan Andrews, Nutrition Coach at Precision Nutrition, the average American eats roughly 216 pounds of meat and fish annually—compared to a measly 7 pounds of beans.
If that seems out of balance, it's because it is. Although beans can be used as a substitute for meat, it rarely happens in the American diet. And when it comes to side dishes, other foods—like rice, pasta and French fries—are more frequently eaten than beans.
The Magical Fruit Beans: the Magical Fruit
So, very few Americans are eating beans. But who cares? What’s so great about beans anyway?
Well, let’s start with their protein content. On average, a cup of cooked beans contains 15 grams of protein, which is a phenomenal amount for a plant-based food. Popular types such as black, navy, garbanzo, lima, pinto and white all have at least 14 grams of protein in a single cooked cup serving. The protein content of beans is much higher than that of most grains, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
True, a one-cup serving of cooked ground beef has more protein (22 grams) than a one-cup serving of cooked beans; but look what’s “coming along for the ride,” so to speak.
Let’s compare a cup of 80-percent ground beef with a cup of black beans.
The beef has 230 calories. The beans have 240.
The beef has 23% of your daily fat and 30% of your daily saturated fat. The beans? 0% and 1%.
The beef has 25% of your daily cholesterol. The beans have 0%.
The beef has just 7% of your daily potassium. The beans have 22%.
The beef has no fiber. The beans have 60% of your daily value.
As for vitamins, the beef has more B-12 and B-6, but the beans have more iron, magnesium and calcium.
With a similar amount of calories, beans bring more useful nutrients like fiber, potassium and vitamins. The beef brings saturated fat. The beans pack many of the nutrients you want.
For consuming roughly the same number of calories, the beans give you a lot of bang for your caloric buck. “Whole plant foods [such as beans] are very nutrient dense and contain a reasonable amount of calories,” Andrews says.
One especially useful attribute of beans is their high fiber content. Fiber is crucial to a healthy diet, yet the average American falls woefully short of the recommended daily value. According to the National Institutes of Health, teens and adults should eat between 20 and 38 grams of fiber each day, and men need more fiber than women. But the average American eats only 10 to 15 grams of fiber daily. For comparison, a single cup of cooked black beans delivers 15 grams of fiber.
Fiber helps break down foods for easier digestion, maintains good bowel health, lowers cholesterol levels and helps you feel fuller longer. High-fiber diets have been linked with positive outcomes such as a reduced risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Beans are also high in antioxidants and phytochemicals, which are abundant in nearly every plant-based food and are increasingly linked to health and longevity. Andrews says, “Diets built around plant foods may help reduce risk of heart disease, improve blood lipid profile, reduce blood pressure, reduce cancer rates and reduced rates of type 2 diabetes."
A Food You Can Use Beans: A Food You Can Use
Let’s say you go out and grab the newest hot superfood—goji berries, coconut oil, chia seeds or whatever. Chances are, these foods will cost you an arm and a leg. You might not even know how to use them. Should you eat them straight up? Put them in a recipe? How are they cooked?
These foods certainly have nutritional benefits, but their cost and unfamiliarity can be prohibitive. Such is not the case with good old beans. Beans are inexpensive, widely available, easily prepared, and—perhaps most important—they taste good.
No one wants to pinch his nose and force himself to eat something just because it’s healthy. With beans, that won’t be the case. They have a mild taste that agrees with nearly every type of palate. “Beans taste good, they’re inexpensive and they’re healthy,” Andrews says.
They’re also extremely diverse in the kitchen. Beans are tasty on their own, but you can also use them in salads, pastas, soups, rice dishes and chilis. You can even crush them up to create a delicious dip.
It’s worth noting that other legumes, such as peas and lentils, confer many of the same great nutritional and practical benefits as beans—and they are similarly underutilized in the typical American diet.
The UCONN College of Agriculture and Natural Resources has some awesome guidelines for how to cook different types of beans as well as several bean-based recipes.
It seems like more people are searching for “superfoods” to turbocharge their diets. Often, these are foods most Americans are unfamiliar with initially, but once they learn about their supposed nutritional and health benefits (often exaggerated), they start scarfing the stuff down like it’s going out of style.
Think about it: who was eating kale, acai berries and quinoa 15 years ago? No one. But nowadays you see those words on every menu in town.
The word “superfood” conjures up thoughts of exciting, colorful foods from far off lands that possess magical healing powers. But a food doesn’t have to be exotic to be healthy. In fact, there’s one superfood every American is familiar with, but few seem to eat.
Beans.
Beans don’t fit the typical image of a “superfood.” They aren’t as sexy as acai berries or activated charcoal smoothies. They're not new, lavish or exciting. In America, they're sometimes viewed as a staple for blue-collar people who can't afford much else. For these reasons, the majority of Americans might overlook beans as a smart food choice. But passing on beans is a big mistake. Beans possess a number of characteristics that make them an amazingly nutritious food, and their practicality is unmatched. Here’s why you should eat more beans.
The Forgotten Food Beans: the Forgotten Food
It seems like beans have been a part of the American diet forever. If you look at the old pictures of skyscraper construction workers eating their lunch atop steel beams, chances are you’ll see a fork stuck in a can of beans alongside them.
Nearly all Americans have eaten beans at some point in their lives. But chances are, beans don’t play a regular role in their diet. And that’s a shame.
According to Ryan Andrews, Nutrition Coach at Precision Nutrition, the average American eats roughly 216 pounds of meat and fish annually—compared to a measly 7 pounds of beans.
If that seems out of balance, it's because it is. Although beans can be used as a substitute for meat, it rarely happens in the American diet. And when it comes to side dishes, other foods—like rice, pasta and French fries—are more frequently eaten than beans.
The Magical Fruit Beans: the Magical Fruit
So, very few Americans are eating beans. But who cares? What’s so great about beans anyway?
Well, let’s start with their protein content. On average, a cup of cooked beans contains 15 grams of protein, which is a phenomenal amount for a plant-based food. Popular types such as black, navy, garbanzo, lima, pinto and white all have at least 14 grams of protein in a single cooked cup serving. The protein content of beans is much higher than that of most grains, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
True, a one-cup serving of cooked ground beef has more protein (22 grams) than a one-cup serving of cooked beans; but look what’s “coming along for the ride,” so to speak.
Let’s compare a cup of 80-percent ground beef with a cup of black beans.
The beef has 230 calories. The beans have 240.
The beef has 23% of your daily fat and 30% of your daily saturated fat. The beans? 0% and 1%.
The beef has 25% of your daily cholesterol. The beans have 0%.
The beef has just 7% of your daily potassium. The beans have 22%.
The beef has no fiber. The beans have 60% of your daily value.
As for vitamins, the beef has more B-12 and B-6, but the beans have more iron, magnesium and calcium.
With a similar amount of calories, beans bring more useful nutrients like fiber, potassium and vitamins. The beef brings saturated fat. The beans pack many of the nutrients you want.
For consuming roughly the same number of calories, the beans give you a lot of bang for your caloric buck. “Whole plant foods [such as beans] are very nutrient dense and contain a reasonable amount of calories,” Andrews says.
One especially useful attribute of beans is their high fiber content. Fiber is crucial to a healthy diet, yet the average American falls woefully short of the recommended daily value. According to the National Institutes of Health, teens and adults should eat between 20 and 38 grams of fiber each day, and men need more fiber than women. But the average American eats only 10 to 15 grams of fiber daily. For comparison, a single cup of cooked black beans delivers 15 grams of fiber.
Fiber helps break down foods for easier digestion, maintains good bowel health, lowers cholesterol levels and helps you feel fuller longer. High-fiber diets have been linked with positive outcomes such as a reduced risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Beans are also high in antioxidants and phytochemicals, which are abundant in nearly every plant-based food and are increasingly linked to health and longevity. Andrews says, “Diets built around plant foods may help reduce risk of heart disease, improve blood lipid profile, reduce blood pressure, reduce cancer rates and reduced rates of type 2 diabetes."
A Food You Can Use Beans: A Food You Can Use
Let’s say you go out and grab the newest hot superfood—goji berries, coconut oil, chia seeds or whatever. Chances are, these foods will cost you an arm and a leg. You might not even know how to use them. Should you eat them straight up? Put them in a recipe? How are they cooked?
These foods certainly have nutritional benefits, but their cost and unfamiliarity can be prohibitive. Such is not the case with good old beans. Beans are inexpensive, widely available, easily prepared, and—perhaps most important—they taste good.
No one wants to pinch his nose and force himself to eat something just because it’s healthy. With beans, that won’t be the case. They have a mild taste that agrees with nearly every type of palate. “Beans taste good, they’re inexpensive and they’re healthy,” Andrews says.
They’re also extremely diverse in the kitchen. Beans are tasty on their own, but you can also use them in salads, pastas, soups, rice dishes and chilis. You can even crush them up to create a delicious dip.
It’s worth noting that other legumes, such as peas and lentils, confer many of the same great nutritional and practical benefits as beans—and they are similarly underutilized in the typical American diet.
The UCONN College of Agriculture and Natural Resources has some awesome guidelines for how to cook different types of beans as well as several bean-based recipes.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Oldies Music Jukebox
If you like old music, check this site out. Unless I miss my guess, you will spend quite a bit of time here. There are a lot of videos I've never seen anywhere else.
Enjoy the audio ride.
Music Jukebox
Enjoy the audio ride.
Music Jukebox
Friday, August 21, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
A favorite quote of mine
Quote from the movie "The Sting":
Johnny Hooker: "He's not as tough as he thinks."
Henry Gondorf: "Neither are we."
I keep that in mind when I realize I'm getting an attitude.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Norway - All Muslims agree Stoning is OK
Excerpts from of a muslim "peace" conference in Norway, October, 2013.
Yes, it's the real thing boys and girls.
Yes, it's the real thing boys and girls.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Masked City
August 16, 2015 8:42 am
Masked city: The people who breathe Beijing's deadly air
Study finds Air pollution killing 4000 in China a day. About a month ago China was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics. Would you consider going?
Friday, August 14, 2015
What Happens 24 Hours After Drinking an Energy Drink
This is an interesting take on an old subject, courtesy of http://www.personalise.co.uk.
I used to drink things like this, but I don't anymore. A lot of people thrive on these, but I have to wonder if this is a good idea? Only their body knows for sure.
1. During the first 10 minutes of drinking an energy drink the
caffeine starts to be absorbed into your bloodstream, your body
responds by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure.
2. At some point during the first 15-45 minutes depending how fast you drink it the levels of caffeine will peak, you'll feel alert and find your concentration is improved, this is due to caffeine being a stimulant drug. This is when it's recommended to drink one if you are driving and feel you need to be more alert.
3. 30-50 minutes after you finish your drink and your body has now fully absorbed the caffeine, your liver will often then react by absorbing more sugar. It's during this time that your body has also absorbed most of the sugar initially in the drink as well.
4. An hour in and you'll likely be getting the dreaded 'sugar crash', this often is a mix of the sugar levels in your bloodstream dropping as well as the effects of the caffeine dying down.
5. Roughly 5-6 hours is the half life of caffeine, this means that it takes this many hours for your body to reduce the caffeine content in your bloodstream by 50%. For women who take an oral contraceptive this time is doubled.
6. 12 hours after finishing your energy drink for most people all the caffeine will have been removed from your bloodstream, the exact speed or time will vary from person to person.
7. For regular drinkers you'll find that between 12 and 24 hours is the time for when you'll start to feel withdrawal symptoms i.e. the urge for some caffeine, other affects of this include headaches, irritability and constipation.
8. 7-12 days, studies have shown that this is the time frame that your body will become tolerant of your daily caffeine dosage, one study found those who took a caffeine pill while others had a placebo, showed identical moods, alert levels and energy after 18 days, those who had the high dosage of caffeine had got used to the caffeine fix.
Guidelines for caffeine are 400mg per day and so having a can of this every day shouldn't pass this, yet the sugars and addiction that can be produced from doing this is something you should consider.
There has been research all over the world into the effects of energy drinks, in America, admissions to emergency departments which were energy drink related doubled from 2007-2014 according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Dawn Report.
Energy drink companies often compare their drinks to coffee with many coffee shops offering high caffeine drinks, take a Starbucks Venti Caffe Americano which contains 300 mg of caffeine which is nearly 4 times that of a 250ml can of Redbull.
I used to drink things like this, but I don't anymore. A lot of people thrive on these, but I have to wonder if this is a good idea? Only their body knows for sure.
2. At some point during the first 15-45 minutes depending how fast you drink it the levels of caffeine will peak, you'll feel alert and find your concentration is improved, this is due to caffeine being a stimulant drug. This is when it's recommended to drink one if you are driving and feel you need to be more alert.
3. 30-50 minutes after you finish your drink and your body has now fully absorbed the caffeine, your liver will often then react by absorbing more sugar. It's during this time that your body has also absorbed most of the sugar initially in the drink as well.
4. An hour in and you'll likely be getting the dreaded 'sugar crash', this often is a mix of the sugar levels in your bloodstream dropping as well as the effects of the caffeine dying down.
5. Roughly 5-6 hours is the half life of caffeine, this means that it takes this many hours for your body to reduce the caffeine content in your bloodstream by 50%. For women who take an oral contraceptive this time is doubled.
6. 12 hours after finishing your energy drink for most people all the caffeine will have been removed from your bloodstream, the exact speed or time will vary from person to person.
7. For regular drinkers you'll find that between 12 and 24 hours is the time for when you'll start to feel withdrawal symptoms i.e. the urge for some caffeine, other affects of this include headaches, irritability and constipation.
8. 7-12 days, studies have shown that this is the time frame that your body will become tolerant of your daily caffeine dosage, one study found those who took a caffeine pill while others had a placebo, showed identical moods, alert levels and energy after 18 days, those who had the high dosage of caffeine had got used to the caffeine fix.
So should you have energy drinks?
Most things in moderation and as part of a healthy balanced diet are fine and this goes for energy drinks, be careful though as there are often large amounts of sugar in many of the drinks.
Guidelines for caffeine are 400mg per day and so having a can of this every day shouldn't pass this, yet the sugars and addiction that can be produced from doing this is something you should consider.
There has been research all over the world into the effects of energy drinks, in America, admissions to emergency departments which were energy drink related doubled from 2007-2014 according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Dawn Report.
Energy drink companies often compare their drinks to coffee with many coffee shops offering high caffeine drinks, take a Starbucks Venti Caffe Americano which contains 300 mg of caffeine which is nearly 4 times that of a 250ml can of Redbull.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Scientology’s Worst Abuses Against a Journalist Revealed
This is a reprint from the August 12, 2015 eSkeptic edition.
By Jim Lippard
Paulette Cooper was harassed, tricked, sued, and lied to, but was not destroyed. The Church of Scientology’s “fair game” policy, originally written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1965 and elaborated in a series of policy letters over subsequent years, stated that “suppressive persons”—defined as anyone interfering with the Church's activities—are “fair game” for “any action” taken against them, including being “deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. [Such persons] May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” [1]
Paulette Cooper wrote an article for the December 1969 issue of the British magazine Queen titled “The Tragi-Farce of Scientology.” [2] The Church of Scientology responded by suing her in Great Britain in 1970. When she turned her article into a 1971 book entitled The Scandal of Scientology, they sued her again. And again. Repeatedly.
Scientology harassed Cooper over the telephone, put her telephone number on bathroom walls, distributed fliers to her neighbors accusing her of prostitution, and monitored her movements and telephone calls. They broke into her psychiatrist’s office and copied records of her college counseling sessions. They gained access to her apartment and copied embarrassing passages out of her teenage diary and delivered them to her adoptive father’s office. They moved undercover operatives into her apartment building, who then befriended her and continually kept the Church updated on her behavior and emotional state. They framed her for bomb threats against Scientology in an attempt to have her imprisoned or committed to a mental institution. Because they used stationery with her fingerprints and her typewriter to create a threatening note, she was indicted and under threat of prosecution for years. The Church planned “Operation Freakout” to frame her again for bomb threats, this time against the Embassy of a Middle Eastern country—plans that were not carried out before Scientology itself was raided by the FBI in 1977 and Cooper was finally cleared of the charges that had been hanging over her.
Most of the above details are parts of a fairly well-known narrative of Cooper’s battles with Scientology, which make her the poster child for “fair game” abuses against a critical journalist. The story has been told many times with varying levels of detail, in most books about the history of Scientology written in the past four decades. [3] But the story has, until now, been incomplete.
Journalist and blogger Tony Ortega, former editor of the Village Voice, executive editor of The Raw Story, and now executive editor at TheLip.tv, has written a new book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, which is a comprehensive account of Paulette Cooper’s story. By tracking down sources no previous investigator had interviewed, digging into neglected documents, and with some help from individuals who have left Scientology as well as from his subject, Ortega has written the definitive account of the lengths to which Scientology went in its ultimately failed attempts to destroy Paulette Cooper.
Ortega was ideally suited to write this book. His blog, The Underground Bunker, [4] is the most popular blog on Scientology. His daily posts document its decline, and he has cultivated numerous sources that include former senior officials in Scientology and even sources still inside the organization. Ortega followed Cooper’s path tracking down the sources she used to write her book and interviewing people who had been in her life—friends, family, and Scientologists operating covertly, such as Nancy Many and Len Zinberg, both of whom have now left the Church. Many’s own book revealed her refusal to break into Cooper’s psychiatrist’s office for Scientology’s Guardian Office (their covert operations and dirty tricks unit). [5] Zinberg, who joined Scientology as a teenager, was the person who delivered Cooper’s teen diary excerpts to her father, an action he now regrets and for which he has apologized to Cooper. [6]
The Unbreakable Miss Lovely contains three main narratives—Paulette’s life story, focusing on her interactions with the Church of Scientology; the story of her biological parents, who were murdered by the Nazis during WWII; and the story of the Scientology’s Snow White Program, a project to infiltrate government offices and obtain information about its plans regarding Scientology. Each of these stories contains previously unpublished information; even Paulette didn’t know the details of what had happened to her biological parents before she came to the U.S. from a Belgian orphanage in 1948 at the age of six, and was separated from her older sister who grew up in Belgium. The first narrative is the shortest, told in a prologue and part of a chapter mid-way through the book. The second, on the Snow White Program, is told in two chapters, while the third makes up the bulk of the book.
Ortega’s account of the Snow White Program uncovers new details about how the FBI discovered Scientology’s government office break-ins, because he was the first journalist to interview Special Agent Christine Hansen. Hansen was the one who cracked the case, when, after she obtained warrants for the arrests of two suspicious men using fake identification cards in government offices, she noticed one of the two men at the main IRS building in Washington D.C. and arrested Gerald Wolfe on June 30, 1976. A year later, on July 8, 1977, the FBI simultaneously raided the Church of Scientology’s offices in D.C. and Los Angeles, carting out truckloads of boxes of documents, including plans of covert operations against Paulette Cooper, the unexecuted “Operation Freakout,” and the earlier bomb threat frame-up, “Operation Dynamite.”
While the book is a highly sympathetic portrait of Paulette Cooper, it is not a hagiography. Cooper sometimes comes across as gullible, as she repeatedly falls into Scientology’s traps. This appearance is no doubt partly accounted for by hindsight bias—in the 1970s Cooper did not have the benefit of knowing the lengths to which Scientology was willing to go to attack and harass her that we’ve learned from the FBI raid documents and the growing literature exposing Scientology’s activities. But many may find her gullible [7] for signing a 1980 employment contract for a D.C. private investigator, Richard Bast, containing a clause that “expressly gives to the Employer her prior consent to intercept any of her wire/oral communications.” Bast, who claimed to be working for a wealthy Swiss man whose daughter had killed herself after joining Scientology, paid Cooper $2,000 a month to work for him, allowing her to quit freelance writing work and focus on researching Scientology.
In fact, Bast was working for Scientology, and therefore so was Cooper, unwittingly. Everything she uncovered was funneled to Scientology, giving them a heads-up on potential trouble and the ability to find out what their critics were up to. More recently, in 2011, former Scientology senior leader Marty Rathbun asserted that Vanity Fair writer John Connolly, who Ortega writes “regularly checked in with…Cooper” to discuss Scientology (p. 385), was also reporting back to the Church. Rathbun quoted the text of a 2006 Scientology document reporting a meeting by Connolly with Andrew Morton, purportedly to get details about the book Morton was working on about Tom Cruise.
More disturbing than the evidence of gullibility is the evidence of Cooper’s willingness to sometimes be ethically flexible about telling the truth, which comes out in the recordings Bast made of her. Ortega’s book recounts some of the more embarrassing excerpts, in which Cooper talks about planting drugs inside Scientology’s D.C. church and belittles her friend Nan McLean for her “stupid honesty” in paying a huge $800 bill for copying documents from the FBI raid while Cooper lied about how much she copied and paid only $89.50. She also criticized McLean for being unwilling to feign lapses of memory during depositions in Scientology legal cases. Ortega notes (p. 380) that some ex-Scientologists could not understand why he was writing a book about her, that they considered her to be unimportant and a “bad person.”
While the exposure of the Bast tapes damaged Cooper’s credibility, she still resolved her lawsuits with Scientology and received a substantial settlement before Hubbard’s death in 1986, and turned to writing about dogs and cats. Others have taken up writing about Scientology, but her book remains the earliest substantial critique of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, a classic of what is now becoming a well-populated genre. Ortega’s book, his first, now joins the ranks of the best of these, and Ortega has been on a speaking tour for the book, sometimes with the company of Paulette Cooper herself, often speaking to local skeptical groups. [8]
END
References
By Jim Lippard
Paulette Cooper was harassed, tricked, sued, and lied to, but was not destroyed. The Church of Scientology’s “fair game” policy, originally written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1965 and elaborated in a series of policy letters over subsequent years, stated that “suppressive persons”—defined as anyone interfering with the Church's activities—are “fair game” for “any action” taken against them, including being “deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. [Such persons] May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” [1]
Paulette Cooper wrote an article for the December 1969 issue of the British magazine Queen titled “The Tragi-Farce of Scientology.” [2] The Church of Scientology responded by suing her in Great Britain in 1970. When she turned her article into a 1971 book entitled The Scandal of Scientology, they sued her again. And again. Repeatedly.
Scientology harassed Cooper over the telephone, put her telephone number on bathroom walls, distributed fliers to her neighbors accusing her of prostitution, and monitored her movements and telephone calls. They broke into her psychiatrist’s office and copied records of her college counseling sessions. They gained access to her apartment and copied embarrassing passages out of her teenage diary and delivered them to her adoptive father’s office. They moved undercover operatives into her apartment building, who then befriended her and continually kept the Church updated on her behavior and emotional state. They framed her for bomb threats against Scientology in an attempt to have her imprisoned or committed to a mental institution. Because they used stationery with her fingerprints and her typewriter to create a threatening note, she was indicted and under threat of prosecution for years. The Church planned “Operation Freakout” to frame her again for bomb threats, this time against the Embassy of a Middle Eastern country—plans that were not carried out before Scientology itself was raided by the FBI in 1977 and Cooper was finally cleared of the charges that had been hanging over her.
Most of the above details are parts of a fairly well-known narrative of Cooper’s battles with Scientology, which make her the poster child for “fair game” abuses against a critical journalist. The story has been told many times with varying levels of detail, in most books about the history of Scientology written in the past four decades. [3] But the story has, until now, been incomplete.
Journalist and blogger Tony Ortega, former editor of the Village Voice, executive editor of The Raw Story, and now executive editor at TheLip.tv, has written a new book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, which is a comprehensive account of Paulette Cooper’s story. By tracking down sources no previous investigator had interviewed, digging into neglected documents, and with some help from individuals who have left Scientology as well as from his subject, Ortega has written the definitive account of the lengths to which Scientology went in its ultimately failed attempts to destroy Paulette Cooper.
Ortega was ideally suited to write this book. His blog, The Underground Bunker, [4] is the most popular blog on Scientology. His daily posts document its decline, and he has cultivated numerous sources that include former senior officials in Scientology and even sources still inside the organization. Ortega followed Cooper’s path tracking down the sources she used to write her book and interviewing people who had been in her life—friends, family, and Scientologists operating covertly, such as Nancy Many and Len Zinberg, both of whom have now left the Church. Many’s own book revealed her refusal to break into Cooper’s psychiatrist’s office for Scientology’s Guardian Office (their covert operations and dirty tricks unit). [5] Zinberg, who joined Scientology as a teenager, was the person who delivered Cooper’s teen diary excerpts to her father, an action he now regrets and for which he has apologized to Cooper. [6]
The Unbreakable Miss Lovely contains three main narratives—Paulette’s life story, focusing on her interactions with the Church of Scientology; the story of her biological parents, who were murdered by the Nazis during WWII; and the story of the Scientology’s Snow White Program, a project to infiltrate government offices and obtain information about its plans regarding Scientology. Each of these stories contains previously unpublished information; even Paulette didn’t know the details of what had happened to her biological parents before she came to the U.S. from a Belgian orphanage in 1948 at the age of six, and was separated from her older sister who grew up in Belgium. The first narrative is the shortest, told in a prologue and part of a chapter mid-way through the book. The second, on the Snow White Program, is told in two chapters, while the third makes up the bulk of the book.
Ortega’s account of the Snow White Program uncovers new details about how the FBI discovered Scientology’s government office break-ins, because he was the first journalist to interview Special Agent Christine Hansen. Hansen was the one who cracked the case, when, after she obtained warrants for the arrests of two suspicious men using fake identification cards in government offices, she noticed one of the two men at the main IRS building in Washington D.C. and arrested Gerald Wolfe on June 30, 1976. A year later, on July 8, 1977, the FBI simultaneously raided the Church of Scientology’s offices in D.C. and Los Angeles, carting out truckloads of boxes of documents, including plans of covert operations against Paulette Cooper, the unexecuted “Operation Freakout,” and the earlier bomb threat frame-up, “Operation Dynamite.”
While the book is a highly sympathetic portrait of Paulette Cooper, it is not a hagiography. Cooper sometimes comes across as gullible, as she repeatedly falls into Scientology’s traps. This appearance is no doubt partly accounted for by hindsight bias—in the 1970s Cooper did not have the benefit of knowing the lengths to which Scientology was willing to go to attack and harass her that we’ve learned from the FBI raid documents and the growing literature exposing Scientology’s activities. But many may find her gullible [7] for signing a 1980 employment contract for a D.C. private investigator, Richard Bast, containing a clause that “expressly gives to the Employer her prior consent to intercept any of her wire/oral communications.” Bast, who claimed to be working for a wealthy Swiss man whose daughter had killed herself after joining Scientology, paid Cooper $2,000 a month to work for him, allowing her to quit freelance writing work and focus on researching Scientology.
In fact, Bast was working for Scientology, and therefore so was Cooper, unwittingly. Everything she uncovered was funneled to Scientology, giving them a heads-up on potential trouble and the ability to find out what their critics were up to. More recently, in 2011, former Scientology senior leader Marty Rathbun asserted that Vanity Fair writer John Connolly, who Ortega writes “regularly checked in with…Cooper” to discuss Scientology (p. 385), was also reporting back to the Church. Rathbun quoted the text of a 2006 Scientology document reporting a meeting by Connolly with Andrew Morton, purportedly to get details about the book Morton was working on about Tom Cruise.
More disturbing than the evidence of gullibility is the evidence of Cooper’s willingness to sometimes be ethically flexible about telling the truth, which comes out in the recordings Bast made of her. Ortega’s book recounts some of the more embarrassing excerpts, in which Cooper talks about planting drugs inside Scientology’s D.C. church and belittles her friend Nan McLean for her “stupid honesty” in paying a huge $800 bill for copying documents from the FBI raid while Cooper lied about how much she copied and paid only $89.50. She also criticized McLean for being unwilling to feign lapses of memory during depositions in Scientology legal cases. Ortega notes (p. 380) that some ex-Scientologists could not understand why he was writing a book about her, that they considered her to be unimportant and a “bad person.”
While the exposure of the Bast tapes damaged Cooper’s credibility, she still resolved her lawsuits with Scientology and received a substantial settlement before Hubbard’s death in 1986, and turned to writing about dogs and cats. Others have taken up writing about Scientology, but her book remains the earliest substantial critique of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, a classic of what is now becoming a well-populated genre. Ortega’s book, his first, now joins the ranks of the best of these, and Ortega has been on a speaking tour for the book, sometimes with the company of Paulette Cooper herself, often speaking to local skeptical groups. [8]
END
References
- Wikipedia’s page on the fair game policy is quite comprehensive.
- Cooper first learned about Scientology from: Gardner, Martin. 1957. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (2nd ed).
- Cooper’s story is told in: Cooper, Paulette. 1971. The Scandal of Scientology: A chilling examination of the nature, beliefs, and practices of the “Now religion.” Online at http://bit.ly/1GdMR99; Reitman, Janet. 2011. Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion (pp. 116–117); Atack, Jon. 1990. A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (pp. 223–224); Corydon, Bent. 1992. L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (pp. 172–178); Lamont, Stewart. 1986. Religion Inc.: The Church of Scientology (pp. 71–72), and Wright, Lawrence. 2013. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (pp. 117–119, 140–141), among others.
- http://tonyortega.org/
- Many, Nancy. 2009. My Billion Year Contract: Memoir of a Former Scientologist.
- Tony Ortega, “The Scientology spy who came in from the cold: Len Zinberg, who apologized to Paulette Cooper,” The Underground Bunker, June 15, 2015,
- Skeptics may also wonder about Cooper’s gullibility in light of her work for the tabloid newspaper National Enquirer on celebrities, as well as her co-authorship (with her husband) of The 100 Top Psychics and Astrologers in America 2014 and 100 Top Psychics in America: Their Stories, Specialties—and How to Contact Them. Cooper also wrote two columns for the Huffington Post in 2014 about a psychic and a tarot card reader.
- Ortega’s speaking schedule is published at his blog; http://tonyortega.org/.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Facepalm time
I can't agree with him more. It's hard to believe in the 21st century, people still think and believe horseradish like this.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I originally produced this video to highlight the tragic perspective that many Christians have in regard to women, and to state clearly that this kind of patriarchal superiority cheats a woman out of her value, her equality as a human being, and out of the opportunities for a rich, full life on her own terms. - Seth Andrews
Read Seth's full text in the description box of the video.
10 Women Christian Men Shouldn't Marry
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
A long healthy life with exercise
I've made no secret about my having had a pretty ugly brain tumor in my past. It was a dark time in my life, but I got through it, and not just sort of, not just survived... I made the kind of changes that exceeded any expectations anyone ever had for me some nine years ago. If you're interested, you can find a revisit of it I wrote back in May of this year.
Once a survivor, you never forget it
Anyway, I was still not in the kind of shape I wanted to be in as I got older. I weighed too much to satisfy my liking (and my health) and my feeble attempts at working out were not making any significant changes.
That's when I found the trainer I'm working with now. Danny is not your boilerplate trainer, and if he had been, we would not still be working together now. We've been meeting steadily for a while now and I have to say he has physically turned me into a different person. I've lost about 15 lbs. so far and am on track to reach my original goal by this fall. I'm starting to shred the kind of fat so hard to get rid of and I am doing things I didn't think were possible for someone at my age.
Am I stoked? Yes, you could say I am. Danny (seriously) pushes me every time we meet, and it has encouraged me to do the same when he's away. Because of him, I've discovered I really don't know what my limits are anymore, because I've already surpassed the ones I had set for my self. Who knew!
Now, I want to use what I've done to encourage others. I still have what I feel is a long way to go to approach my "new" goals, but this journey has taught me that almost anything is possible if you believe in yourself, but also have the right person to help get you there.
If you've ever pondered anything like this, here are a couple sites to help get you inspired. Lifestyle changes are a big part of this, but push that popcorn away and get moving.
Every Minute Of Exercise Could Lengthen Your Life Seven Minutes
And...
A long healthy life with exercise
Sunday, August 09, 2015
20 amazing scientific discoveries that have already been made in 2015
At Futurism.co,
Alex Klokus created an infographic that highlights 20 of the most
impressive scientific advancements and discoveries this year so far.
We've republished the graphic here with permission, but you can check
out Futurism's interactive version to click through to a source for each story.
Friday, August 07, 2015
Thursday, August 06, 2015
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
10 Exercises That Burn More Calories Than Running
from The Stack
We’re huge fans of running. It allows you to get a stress-reducing, endurance-boosting workout with just a pair of shoes and an open road. t also burns calories, of course. At a 10-minute per mile pace—roughly the average guy’s marathon pace—you’ll fry about 10 calories a minute. Tat’s a solid number, and if you run faster, you can burn even more.
But if running isn’t your favorite activity, there are plenty of other modes of exercise that can help you torch calories at a lightning fast rate. "In general, you burn more calories by doing high-intensity weight training than you do running,” says Harold Gibbons, a trainer at Mark Fisher Fitness in New York City and the New York State Director of the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Most people don’t realize this, though. That’s often because the number of calories you’re told you just burned is typically estimated from The Compendium of Physical Activities, which calculates energy expended through aerobic metabolism. That works well for low- to medium-intensity exercise, but not so well for higher-intensity activities that rely on anaerobic metabolism.
In fact, when researchers at the University of Southern Maine used a more advanced method to estimate energy expenditure during exercise, they found that weight training burns up to 71 percent more calories than originally thought. Which suggests that a fast-paced circuit workout burns as many calories as running at a 6-minute per mile pace.
But resistance training isn’t your only option. There are also cardio exercises that can boost your burn. We found 10 exercises that will help you incinerate calories—without ever having to hit pavement.
Kettlebell Swings
This explosive exercise works the big, powerful muscles around your glutes and quads, and sends your heart into overdrive, according to research from the University of Wisconsin. In the study, participants burned 20.2 calories a minute and their average heart was 93 percent of its max for the course of a 20-minute workout.
“The kettlebell swing works you so hard because it’s not a movement you’re used to,” says Dan John, a strength coach in Salt Lake City and the author of Intervention. “You’re not super efficient at it, which taxes your body.”
Burpees
A 180-pound person burns about 1.43 calories per burpee, says exercise scientist and Spartan Coach Jeff Godin. So if you can hammer out at least seven a minute, you're in the double digits. But you should shoot to average at least 10 every 60 seconds, or a rate of 14.3 calories per minute. Why? Performing just 10 reps at a fast pace can rev your metabolism as much as a 30-second, all-out bike sprint, according to a study presented at the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting.
Indoor Rowing
A 185-pound guy can burn 377 calories during 30 minutes of vigorous rowing, or about 12.5 calorie per minute, reports a Harvard University study. And because you need to utilize the muscles in your arms, legs, and back for efficient strokes, it's a great total-body trainer.
AirDyne Bike Sprints
It sounds downright crazy, but Gym Jones manager Rob MacDonald proved that it's possible to blast 87 calories in one minute on this stationary bike that increases its resistance as you pedal harder. The key: Give everything you have in that 60 seconds.
Note: This was by no means a scientific experiment, and it relies on the accuracy of the built-in AirDyne monitor, which calculates calories by converting revolutions of the fan into physical work.
Jumping Rope
Moderate-intensity rope jumping—about 100 to 120 skips per minute—burns about 13 calories a minute, according to the Compendium of Physical Activities. This mode of exercise uses more muscle groups than jogging, and challenges your balance, and coordination—especially if you practice drills that require extra hand and foot skills.
Fat-Tire Biking
If you haven't tried this fast-growing cycling sport, you should. You can burn up to 1,500 calories an hour—or nearly 25 calories per minute—pedaling the heavy, hard-to-turn monster bikes and tackling all types of terrain, all year round, says Mike Curiak, record holder for the 1,000-mile Iditasport Impossible, a fat tire biking race. Reality check: That kind of calorie burn depends on your fitness and strength levels, and your skill. But regardless, it’s sure to be one hell of workout.
"Cindy"
This CrossFit Workout of the Day (WOD) burns an average 13 calories per minute, according to scientists at Kennesaw State University. It’s effective because it pairs three exercises—5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 air squats—that work different major muscle groups, and you do as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes.
So if you’re in amazing condition, you can go all-out for each one, without slowing down or stopping to recover in between. If you’re somewhat less than amazing (read: like most people), you simply rest when needed. For example, you don’t move on to the pushup until you’ve completed 5 reps of the pullup, even if you have to stop and start.
“Any routine that takes you from standing, down to the ground, and back up to standing again is an amazing calorie burner, because it really spikes the heart rate,” says John.
Cross-Country Skiing
Zipping along on skis delivers a better heart-pounding workout than running at about the same pace, thanks to the fact that the sport requires you to push with your lower-body and pull with your upper. In fact, a good cross-country ski session can burn more than 12 calories a minute, according to the Compendium of Physical Activities. That explains why Nordic Skiers consistently collapse in exhaustion at the finish line of Olympic races. (No fresh snow? Look for the new Concept2 SkiErg machine at your gym.)
Tabata Jump Squats
This four-minute miracle drill burns major calories both during a workout and after. In an Auburn University at Montgomery study, participants who did eight rounds of all-out jump squats—20 seconds of hard work, separated by 10 seconds of rest—burned 13.4 calories per minute and doubled their post-exercise metabolic rate for at least 30 minutes.
Battle Ropes
In a recent College of New Jersey study comparing various workout styles, battle-rope exercises showed well in terms of total oxygen consumption and an average calorie burn of 10.3 calories per minute.
This article originally appeared on MensHealth.com. The author, Amanda MacMillan, is a health and fitness writer whose work has appeared in Men's Health, SELF, O, Travel + Leisure, Time Out New York, Popular Science, ESPNW.com and National Geographic's The Green Guide.
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