EMPs were the subject of previous posts. They were mostly to explain what EMPs are and why they are a problem for you. I will repeat the basic information in this post as well for those who have not read the previous ones.
Electro Magnetic Pulses, or EMPs for short, are one of the side effects of nuclear bombs. They can also be caused by the sun when it does a large solar mass ejection. The latter has wiped out electrical grids in small areas of the earth.
Electronic devices are affected by EMPs. That includes such items as cell phones, televisions, microwaves and cars less than 30 years old. Most electrical grids are so dependent on electronics that areas affected by EMPs will lose their electricity.
Most experts seem to believe that it will take years to even get electricity going again in affected areas. Many experts think widespread EMPs will knock civilization back to the stone age permanently.
If you think the last is unlikely, remember that factories run on electricity and the power plants need electronics to make electricity.
Most people can not do much about general EMP problems. We can, however, do things to protect some of our own most important electronic devices. A Faraday Cage is the way for us normal people to do this. There are some very fancy versions of Faraday Cages. I am going to tell you how to make a simple Faraday Cage.
I can not guarantee you that the Faraday Cage I will tell you about will work. That is partly because nobody really knows what will happen with a really bad, widespread occurrence of EMPs. I will give you the best simple information that I could find.
The basic idea of a Faraday Cage is to surround your electronic device that you want to protect, by both insulation and metal. The electronic device needs insulation from contact with the metal. The metal needs to completely surround the electronic device.
Shredded paper, styrofoam and cardboard are some of the types of insulation that I have seen mentioned. I do not like styrofoam myself because I used to rub balloons on it to make them stick to things and that builds up static electricity. Some of the fancy Faraday Cages have elaborate devices to prevent static electricity.
One of the simplest ways to make a Faraday Cage is to put your electronic device in a cardboard box and cover the outside of the box with aluminum foil. It seems to be fairly important to make sure there are no gaps in either the foil or the insulation.
This post is getting too long, so I will continue this post.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Your Chance To Save The World
I asked Ken Salazar, Secretary,U.S. Department of the Interior in a modified form letter to not start WWIII by drilling in the US Arctic. I am posting a copy of the form letter sent to me along with my changes. The original is plain print. My changes are in italics.
I hope you will tell Salazar not to start WWIII also.
Salazar's address is included at the bottom of the letter, if you want to use it. I plan to add other forms of contact information as well.
Here is my letter along with the original from the Center for Biological Diversity.
http://www.doi.gov/public/contact-us.cfm
Phone: (202) 208-3100
E-Mail: feedback@ios.doi.gov
Web: Feedback form
People and Bureaus:
I hope you will tell Salazar not to start WWIII also.
Salazar's address is included at the bottom of the letter, if you want to use it. I plan to add other forms of contact information as well.
Here is my letter along with the original from the Center for Biological Diversity.
"The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental
groups have called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to say no to BP’s Liberty
project until proper environmental reviews can be completed. The decision about
whether to risk destroying the Arctic as BP has destroyed the Gulf is in
Secretary Salazar’s hands. Please tell the secretary not to let BP drill in the
Arctic.:
Subject: Don’t Let BP Oil the Arctic
Your Letter:
I request that you, as head of the Department of the
Interior, deny BP's application to drill for the Liberty production drilling
project, slated to begin this fall in the Alaskan Arctic." Pravda, the semi-official voice of Russian leadership, stated that they
believe that WWIII will begin over the rights to the North Pole and Arctic area.
I assume that the rush for drilling is occasioned by the Russians planting
their flag on the Arctic sea floor and filing for possession with the UN and
the Canadians superior claims to the area, due to having residents in the area,
unlike anyone else.
Having BRITISH
Petroleum drilling in the US Arctic area seems like a questionable plan,
considering that Canadians are part of the UK Commonwealth. Even worse is
getting the US into a shooting war with nuclear weapons over drilling in a
pristine wildlife refuge, without letting the US people in on the matter. If
you bear a large part of the responsibility for killing off most of the
populations of the USA, Russia, and who knows how many others, because of
getting us into a nuclear war, I wouldn't think there would be any hole you
could hide in on or off the planet to avoid the consequences. I do hope you will pause and reconsider.
I'm piggybacking my
two cents in with others who are mainly concerned for, and aware of the
environmental consequences of drilling, so far. I agree with them about those
aspects of this matter. It seems that getting us into a nuclear war kind of
supercedes the rest of it, however.
"The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has called into question
BP's assurances about safety and response capability. Interior should therefore
reject BP's current Liberty drilling plan and defer any future consideration of
the project until the federal government has completed a full environmental
review that realistically takes into account BP's response capabilities in the
Arctic.
I further request that you defer any future approval until
and unless you can ensure that BP can devote adequate resources to any incident
that might occur in the Arctic.
BP has described its Arctic Liberty project as “one of its
biggest challenges to date.” If the project goes forward, Liberty's
ultra-extended reach wells will be the longest ever attempted. In order to
drill these unprecedented wells, BP had to commission the building of the
largest drilling rig in the world. Once drilled, BP's horizontal wells will be
more prone than traditional wells to gas kicks, which are the most common cause
of blowouts.
Despite the inherent dangers in experimenting with this
untested technology, the Interior Department's environmental review of the
Liberty project was lax at best. BP in fact wrote its own environmental
assessment of the impacts of the Liberty project. Not surprisingly, BP found
that there would be no significant impacts from the project and that the
possibility of an oil spill was low.
If anything, the Arctic is even more vulnerable to an oil
spill than the Gulf of Mexico. There is no technology for cleaning oil in
broken ice conditions. The sea-ice environment is extremely dynamic, and the
Arctic is subject to dangerous weather conditions, including high winds and
storms, that could seriously complicate any response to a spill. What's more,
there isn't the infrastructure or capacity to respond. The nearest Coast Guard
station is more than 1,000 miles away in Kodiak, and much of the oil spill
response equipment in the Arctic is more than 20 years old. Until BP makes an
affirmative showing, verified by the Department of the Interior, that it is
capable and ready to respond to a significant oil spill in the Arctic, the Liberty
project should not move forward.
The Interior Department has the legal right, as well as the
responsibility, to deny BP's application to drill at Liberty this year and
defer future approvals until it can guarantee there will not be a BP disaster
in the Arctic. Lax environmental review of BP's drilling plans led to the worst
environmental catastrophe in the history of this country. The Department of the
Interior must not allow BP to take its chances in the Arctic." I don’t believe the Department of Interior
should allow BP to take everyone else’s chances in the Arctic either. I think
we could muster a dual party majority of the US citizens who would agree that
we are not prepared to begin WWIII at this time.
"Your letter will be sent to the following recipient(s):
Ken Salazar, Secretary
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20240"
http://www.doi.gov/public/contact-us.cfm
Phone: (202) 208-3100
E-Mail: feedback@ios.doi.gov
Web: Feedback form
People and Bureaus:
- Employee Directory - available by phone (202) 208-3100
- National Park Service
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife
- Bureau of Indian Affairs
- Bureau of Land Management
- Office of Surface Mining
- Minerals Management Service
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Bureau of Reclamation
DOI Social Media
The Department of the Interior's primary social media outlets
YouTube: USInterior - short videos- and your comments
Flickr: USInterior - feature photos- from Interior news events
Twitter: @Interior - hashtag #usdoi- Twitter: @USInteriorJobs -
- hashtags #jobs #usdoi
Facebook: USInterior - Our - Facebook page
- Facebook: SecretarySalazar - The
- Secretary's Facebook page
Here is a link to the original page on the
Center for Biological Diversity's site:
Please pass this on as much as you are
willing and able to do. This could be
your chance to save the world.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Make Your Own Hard Tack For Long Term Food Storage
One of the basics of preparedness is food. Some of the companies that sell
pre-packaged foods include pilot bread in their food. This is because it is very durable. It was used as food for soldiers and sailors for centuries, because of how well it lasted.
Another name for pilot bread is hard tack. It was usually soaked in some kind of liquid to soften it, since it is quite hard.
Sometimes hot liquid was used to cause bugs and maggots to float to the top where they could be skimmed off.
If the pilot bread is kept dry and prepared right it will stay preserved for a year or more. It is still popular in Alaska. Hawaii still uses an updated version without the longevity of the traditional pilot bread.
When the pilot bread was intended to last for long periods, it was kiln dried or baked as many as four times. Getting it very dry is how to make it last longer. Pilot bread is supposed to have been used when it was as much as 50 years old.
You can make your own pilot bread to save money on your preparedness supplies. A nail can be used to make the holes in it. There is disagreement as to whether the holes should go all the way through it. Most traditional pilot bread was cut into squares or rectangles, although Alaskan pilot bread is round.
Here is a recipe for pilot bread or hard tack.
pre-packaged foods include pilot bread in their food. This is because it is very durable. It was used as food for soldiers and sailors for centuries, because of how well it lasted.
Another name for pilot bread is hard tack. It was usually soaked in some kind of liquid to soften it, since it is quite hard.
Sometimes hot liquid was used to cause bugs and maggots to float to the top where they could be skimmed off.
If the pilot bread is kept dry and prepared right it will stay preserved for a year or more. It is still popular in Alaska. Hawaii still uses an updated version without the longevity of the traditional pilot bread.
When the pilot bread was intended to last for long periods, it was kiln dried or baked as many as four times. Getting it very dry is how to make it last longer. Pilot bread is supposed to have been used when it was as much as 50 years old.
You can make your own pilot bread to save money on your preparedness supplies. A nail can be used to make the holes in it. There is disagreement as to whether the holes should go all the way through it. Most traditional pilot bread was cut into squares or rectangles, although Alaskan pilot bread is round.
Here is a recipe for pilot bread or hard tack.
"Hardtack
Recipe by Kathy Kleiman (MCHA Co. E)
6 parts flour
1 part water
Knead dough until thoroughly mixed.
Roll out on a
floured surface until about
1/8 inch thick (or there abouts). Cut into
squares about 2 3/4 by 3
1/2
inches.
Pierce the hard tack 13 times with the
tip of a
knife, making sure hole goes all
the way through the dough. The
Tinsmiths
sutler makes a hardtack
"cookie" mold that is just great for this.
They advertise in the CW News." (A nail
can be used to make the holes in each
square. They were placed in four rows of
holes four high. They were about 1/2
inch apart.)
"Bake at 325 for at least an hour, turning
over the
hard tack once. Check to see
that it is cooked through completely.
Take out
& let cool overnight to get that
real hard & dry feeling. Some people
bake at 300 for a couple of hours, just to
get it real dry. The finished hard
tack
will still look pale."
I have not done this yet, but I believe
that a food dehydrator would substitute
for a kiln to help remove the excess
moisture that could cause spoilage.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Are You Voting For World War III?
Most of the people who read my blog are fairly well off financially. If you have a computer and are on the internet you are dealing with things that you can't eat. That probably means you have more than you absolutely need, probably quite a bit more.
Most of the people in the world who have more than they need are taking more than their fair share of what the world has in it and wasting it. If you do a lot of that, you are probably robbing other people of what they need to survive. You are also robbing yourself of a good future.
I think the worst example of this is with vehicles, personal vehicles. I live in the USA where I see people mostly driving around in heavy multiple passenger vehicles all alone. When I sit at bus stops I see almost every vehicle going by with only one person in it.
A lot of what we depend on for our daily lives comes from petroleum. One of those is plastics. We don't know how to make those without oil. Take a look around you at the plastics that you use every day. What happens if you can't replace them any more?
If you are tearing around in a heavy car or truck every day by yourself, you are guaranteeing that you will have to find out how life without plastics will be.
It takes millions of years to make oil and gas. We are using it up much faster than we can get more of it.
Some of you may have already heard the above about limited resources. If you understood how limited, you would not be using your cars the way you still are using them.
If you want to live out your normal life span without getting nuked, you will have to cut down on your energy use, especially for transportation. If you are working on the, "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die", theory - stop it. This will not work. You will still have time to have a cold, dark, hungry, and otherwise miserable time before you die.
Some readers already know about Hubbert's pimple theory of peak oil and the rapid decline of available oil and gas. Since he was off by about ten years in his graphs of what is happening with world oil and gas production, some people like to say he is discredited. I don't think so.
This is because our peak oil production in the world was delayed by about ten years. This was due to "advances" in oil and gas production methods, like fracking and cracking. Those technological advances only bought us another ten years, they didn't stop anything. We have already hit peak oil production in the world and are going into a decline.
That means for every gallon or liter of oil you use, somebody else will have that much less to use. Russia has expressed through Pravda, that they expect World War III to start over the North Pole and the oil, gas, and minerals there.
If Americans think Afghanistan and Iraq were hard on us, we had better pay attention to what is looming on the horizon.
Every time you drive alone to the store, in your van that seats nine, because you forgot to get toothpicks or soda pop you are voting for World War III.
That gas you are burning is something that other people want too.
Are you willing to fight for your "right" to drive around wasting gas? Are you willing to give your life for it? Are you willing to give the lives of your loved ones for it?
I think we can do better than we are doing now.
Most of the people in the world who have more than they need are taking more than their fair share of what the world has in it and wasting it. If you do a lot of that, you are probably robbing other people of what they need to survive. You are also robbing yourself of a good future.
I think the worst example of this is with vehicles, personal vehicles. I live in the USA where I see people mostly driving around in heavy multiple passenger vehicles all alone. When I sit at bus stops I see almost every vehicle going by with only one person in it.
A lot of what we depend on for our daily lives comes from petroleum. One of those is plastics. We don't know how to make those without oil. Take a look around you at the plastics that you use every day. What happens if you can't replace them any more?
If you are tearing around in a heavy car or truck every day by yourself, you are guaranteeing that you will have to find out how life without plastics will be.
It takes millions of years to make oil and gas. We are using it up much faster than we can get more of it.
Some of you may have already heard the above about limited resources. If you understood how limited, you would not be using your cars the way you still are using them.
If you want to live out your normal life span without getting nuked, you will have to cut down on your energy use, especially for transportation. If you are working on the, "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die", theory - stop it. This will not work. You will still have time to have a cold, dark, hungry, and otherwise miserable time before you die.
Some readers already know about Hubbert's pimple theory of peak oil and the rapid decline of available oil and gas. Since he was off by about ten years in his graphs of what is happening with world oil and gas production, some people like to say he is discredited. I don't think so.
This is because our peak oil production in the world was delayed by about ten years. This was due to "advances" in oil and gas production methods, like fracking and cracking. Those technological advances only bought us another ten years, they didn't stop anything. We have already hit peak oil production in the world and are going into a decline.
That means for every gallon or liter of oil you use, somebody else will have that much less to use. Russia has expressed through Pravda, that they expect World War III to start over the North Pole and the oil, gas, and minerals there.
If Americans think Afghanistan and Iraq were hard on us, we had better pay attention to what is looming on the horizon.
Every time you drive alone to the store, in your van that seats nine, because you forgot to get toothpicks or soda pop you are voting for World War III.
That gas you are burning is something that other people want too.
Are you willing to fight for your "right" to drive around wasting gas? Are you willing to give your life for it? Are you willing to give the lives of your loved ones for it?
I think we can do better than we are doing now.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Apology And Hope About Nukes
This blog post is an apology to readers who thought they would have a good chance to live through a nuclear war. For those of us in countries that have nuclear weapons and potential enemies that also have nuclear weapons, our chances are not nearly as good as I thought.
The worst countries in this regard are the United States of America and Russia. I had been reading older materials about nuclear shelters, etc. Some of them were updated, but none of them gave numbers about our chances of living through the use of nuclear weapons. They all emphasized how survivable nuclear war is. They lied.
The USA has over 5,000 nuclear weapons. That amount of weapons is estimated to be enough to wipe out about 54% of the USSR (former) population according to some good sources. I have been trying to deal with this shock as well as the one about how many nukes Russia has. It is estimated to be 70,000 to 80,000.
If 5,000 or so nukes is enough to kill off over half of the Russian people, then about 10,000 should be enough to entirely eliminate the American people. But, hey! if that didn't do it, there are another 60,000 to 70,000 extras to finish up. That should account for launching dangerous war canoes from Hawaii or Guam or American Samoa.
Now if we build very good shelters we can stay alive as long as we stay in them, but with that many nukes carpeting the country, we would not have much left to come back out to and be safe out there.
Russia might be a little better off, but since the USA has backed off of the nuclear disarmament treaty, that probably won't last.
I have been posting about using the spiritual gifts that each of us has for the last few days. The main reason why I began talking about our spiritual gifts is because of our nuclear situation. I think our spiritual gifts are the way out of this life-threatening mess.
Our governments all over the world have gotten away from the people they are meant to serve. The governments are in charge, instead of the people, and are not good bosses. If we use our spiritual gifts our governments can not run over all of us the way they are doing now. That includes nuclear weapons. If enough of us develop and use our spiritual gifts, nuclear war would be impossible.
Most of the people in the world do not want to die in a nuclear disaster, either accidental, like a power plant or deliberate, like nuclear weapons used in a war. If we are using our spiritual gifts, we do not have to let our politicians play with nuclear bombs. They can't be trusted with them and we should not have to put up with our politicians having them and being able to use them against the will of the people.
I would like to see this happen. We need to find, develop, and use our spiritual gifts and have good lives, free from worry about a nuclear war that will kill us or make us wish we were dead.
The worst countries in this regard are the United States of America and Russia. I had been reading older materials about nuclear shelters, etc. Some of them were updated, but none of them gave numbers about our chances of living through the use of nuclear weapons. They all emphasized how survivable nuclear war is. They lied.
The USA has over 5,000 nuclear weapons. That amount of weapons is estimated to be enough to wipe out about 54% of the USSR (former) population according to some good sources. I have been trying to deal with this shock as well as the one about how many nukes Russia has. It is estimated to be 70,000 to 80,000.
If 5,000 or so nukes is enough to kill off over half of the Russian people, then about 10,000 should be enough to entirely eliminate the American people. But, hey! if that didn't do it, there are another 60,000 to 70,000 extras to finish up. That should account for launching dangerous war canoes from Hawaii or Guam or American Samoa.
Now if we build very good shelters we can stay alive as long as we stay in them, but with that many nukes carpeting the country, we would not have much left to come back out to and be safe out there.
Russia might be a little better off, but since the USA has backed off of the nuclear disarmament treaty, that probably won't last.
I have been posting about using the spiritual gifts that each of us has for the last few days. The main reason why I began talking about our spiritual gifts is because of our nuclear situation. I think our spiritual gifts are the way out of this life-threatening mess.
Our governments all over the world have gotten away from the people they are meant to serve. The governments are in charge, instead of the people, and are not good bosses. If we use our spiritual gifts our governments can not run over all of us the way they are doing now. That includes nuclear weapons. If enough of us develop and use our spiritual gifts, nuclear war would be impossible.
Most of the people in the world do not want to die in a nuclear disaster, either accidental, like a power plant or deliberate, like nuclear weapons used in a war. If we are using our spiritual gifts, we do not have to let our politicians play with nuclear bombs. They can't be trusted with them and we should not have to put up with our politicians having them and being able to use them against the will of the people.
I would like to see this happen. We need to find, develop, and use our spiritual gifts and have good lives, free from worry about a nuclear war that will kill us or make us wish we were dead.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Saving Our Lives
I don't know whether readers will have already realized that I lived through the experience that killed Thomas Merton. A lot of other people have done the same thing - lived through such a strong spiritual experience that they received a massive energy/grace surge.
People have a low chance of living through this experience unless they have someone around who has survived it themselves.
I have helped several other people to make it through this experience. I dislike taking credit for doing this. I also dislike alienating people who do not believe in Gd.
You do not have to believe in Gd to get your spiritual gifts working and survive a large energy surge in the process. I happen to believe in Gd and because of this I attribute my success in helping other people to live through their large spiritual energy surge to Gd.
If someone who does not believe in Gd, or who has a different view of what Gd is than I do, wants my help in living through their first big energy surges, I will not try to foist my views on them.
I believe that Gd is beyond human understanding. My way of explaining the existence of different religions is the story of the blind men and the elephant.
Several religions already use this story in various ways, so some readers already know the story. I am going to tell it for the benefit of readers who do not already know it.
Once upon a time there were seven blind men who lived together. A visitor told the blind men about a very large and wondrous animal called an elephant. The seven blind men agreed that they would all like to find the elephant. They set out together to find the elephant.
Since this is my version of the story the blind men are scheduling a ride in a van to the zoo to find the elephant. The elephant keeper is waiting for them and they are permitted to go in the elephant yard and examine the elephant.
One blind man grasps the trunk of the elephant and says, "Aha! I know the elephant is like a snake."
Another blind man touches the tusk and says, "I am certain the elephant is like a spear."
Yet another blind man catches the tail and says, "The elephant is like a rope."
The blind man who grabs an ear says, "I tell you, the elephant is like a fan."
"The elephant is like a pillar," said the blind man with his arms around a leg.
"There is no doubt that the elephant is like a wall," proclaimed the blind man with his hands on the elephant's side.
The seventh blind man stepped in a big pile of elephant sh*t. He said, "Bring a wheelbarrow, we are taking the elephant home for our garden."
I like to think of this story as having the blind men representing different religions. Each one has clamped onto a part of Gd and refused to look at any other part. This is not a bad thing. Humans can not take in all of Gd. Gd is too much for us to comprehend. The bad part is insisting that other religions are wrong because they have a different part of Gd that they like.
All religions can be correct about Gd at the same time. We simply have different parts that we hold onto. I am not excepting people who insist that they do not have a religion. They, too have a different part of Gd.
Some people cling to random events, including the Big Bang theory to describe the universe. That is an elephant part as well as the other elephant parts.
I have not studied all religions, but I have studied a lot of them. I have a theory that one fast way to understand a religion is to see what the enemies of that religion say about it. They usually know all the weak spots and are happy to talk about them at great length.
I can not say for certain that there is no religion without weaknesses. I do not think so, however. I know that many of these weakness were planted deliberately. It is one of those nasty things people do to sabotage each other.
I do not think that a weakness invalidates a religion. I think it is a problem if a religion denies the existence of its weakness and lies to their members about them. I think most religions do this, however.
I think people usually do better with the structure of a religion to help them sort out what is going on in the universe. It is hard work to start from the beginning all by yourself.
It seems like only a matter of picking what religion suits your personality and likes and dislikes, to get the best one. I don't think any religion is superior to others.
I happen to like the Christian religion, but that is only my personal preference. I am aware of the weaknesses of the Christian religion and like it anyway. I don't think the Christian religion does any better than any other religion at explaining the universe and Gd.
I would like for people of different religions to get along and stop criticizing each other. Most religions have an unsavory incident in the past where the behavior of members was questionable. Most religions have had times when they were persecuted and have built-in grudges against those they think were responsible.
We urgently need to stop quarreling and work together to save our lives. That will happen by spreading the use of our spiritual gifts.
People have a low chance of living through this experience unless they have someone around who has survived it themselves.
I have helped several other people to make it through this experience. I dislike taking credit for doing this. I also dislike alienating people who do not believe in Gd.
You do not have to believe in Gd to get your spiritual gifts working and survive a large energy surge in the process. I happen to believe in Gd and because of this I attribute my success in helping other people to live through their large spiritual energy surge to Gd.
If someone who does not believe in Gd, or who has a different view of what Gd is than I do, wants my help in living through their first big energy surges, I will not try to foist my views on them.
I believe that Gd is beyond human understanding. My way of explaining the existence of different religions is the story of the blind men and the elephant.
Several religions already use this story in various ways, so some readers already know the story. I am going to tell it for the benefit of readers who do not already know it.
Once upon a time there were seven blind men who lived together. A visitor told the blind men about a very large and wondrous animal called an elephant. The seven blind men agreed that they would all like to find the elephant. They set out together to find the elephant.
Since this is my version of the story the blind men are scheduling a ride in a van to the zoo to find the elephant. The elephant keeper is waiting for them and they are permitted to go in the elephant yard and examine the elephant.
One blind man grasps the trunk of the elephant and says, "Aha! I know the elephant is like a snake."
Another blind man touches the tusk and says, "I am certain the elephant is like a spear."
Yet another blind man catches the tail and says, "The elephant is like a rope."
The blind man who grabs an ear says, "I tell you, the elephant is like a fan."
"The elephant is like a pillar," said the blind man with his arms around a leg.
"There is no doubt that the elephant is like a wall," proclaimed the blind man with his hands on the elephant's side.
The seventh blind man stepped in a big pile of elephant sh*t. He said, "Bring a wheelbarrow, we are taking the elephant home for our garden."
I like to think of this story as having the blind men representing different religions. Each one has clamped onto a part of Gd and refused to look at any other part. This is not a bad thing. Humans can not take in all of Gd. Gd is too much for us to comprehend. The bad part is insisting that other religions are wrong because they have a different part of Gd that they like.
All religions can be correct about Gd at the same time. We simply have different parts that we hold onto. I am not excepting people who insist that they do not have a religion. They, too have a different part of Gd.
Some people cling to random events, including the Big Bang theory to describe the universe. That is an elephant part as well as the other elephant parts.
I have not studied all religions, but I have studied a lot of them. I have a theory that one fast way to understand a religion is to see what the enemies of that religion say about it. They usually know all the weak spots and are happy to talk about them at great length.
I can not say for certain that there is no religion without weaknesses. I do not think so, however. I know that many of these weakness were planted deliberately. It is one of those nasty things people do to sabotage each other.
I do not think that a weakness invalidates a religion. I think it is a problem if a religion denies the existence of its weakness and lies to their members about them. I think most religions do this, however.
I think people usually do better with the structure of a religion to help them sort out what is going on in the universe. It is hard work to start from the beginning all by yourself.
It seems like only a matter of picking what religion suits your personality and likes and dislikes, to get the best one. I don't think any religion is superior to others.
I happen to like the Christian religion, but that is only my personal preference. I am aware of the weaknesses of the Christian religion and like it anyway. I don't think the Christian religion does any better than any other religion at explaining the universe and Gd.
I would like for people of different religions to get along and stop criticizing each other. Most religions have an unsavory incident in the past where the behavior of members was questionable. Most religions have had times when they were persecuted and have built-in grudges against those they think were responsible.
We urgently need to stop quarreling and work together to save our lives. That will happen by spreading the use of our spiritual gifts.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Having Help When You Need It Can Save Your Bacon
As I mentioned a couple of posts back, when you begin to develop your spiritual gifts you are a bit erratic about controlling them. This is why it is a good idea to have a little human backup with some experience in spiritual development.
This is what did Thomas Merton in. He was making big leaps in his spiritual development and he was working without a net. He did not have anyone who was closely advising him with this experience. He was acquainted with people who had this experience, but they were mostly, if not all, in other religions.
A couple of these people with the spiritual development experience were quoted in some of the information in the links I have provided for you. They said that he needed to delve into his own traditions to find out about spiritual development. That meant they were trying not to but into the business of his own religion. They were apparently assuming he was getting help, that he either was not receiving, or there was not enough help.
I also mentioned in previous posts that one of the side effects of beginning spiritual development is spraying energy or "grace" around the landscape. This can result in interference with communications equipment or even electrical power and batteries.
At the earliest stages of spiritual development, the amount of energy involved is usually low enough to not be very dangerous. As your spiritual development progresses, the amount of energy that you are dealing with increases enough to become dangerous.
It is like children with matches. You don't want them handling them until they learn how to strike them with the book or box closed, keep flammable materials out of the area, etc. There is an equivalent with spiritual development.
Thomas Merton did not get this safety training. He died of spontaneous combustion because he didn't have the training when he needed it.
It was a very good death for him. He probably didn't even notice that he was dying, because he was so happy. When people experience spontaneous combustion they are experiencing exstacy. This experience releases a lot of energy all at once. It can incinerate you before you know it.
It is not big deal if you are prepared to deal with it before it happens. I hesitated to write this because I do not want to frighten off people who might otherwise be interested in developing their spiritual gifts. Find an experienced mentor for your spiritual development and you will be safe.
I narrowly escaped getting killed by the C.I.A. and my spiritual development is not sufficient for me to not take that personally. I have also had numerous very unpleasant experiences due to them, and am not taking that well either.
I hope to advance sufficiently to overcome my distrust, among other negative emotions, regarding the C.I.A., but I have a ways to go on that.
I have not defended the C.I.A. out of concern for their well-being. I am afraid that if the wrong people are convinced the C.I.A. killed Merton, they might kill C.I.A. people. I am sure the C.I.A. would retaliate, and I don't want a nuclear war. Things are touchy enough already.
http://www.aprioryofscience.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=51 Spontaneous human combustion
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/09/spontaneous-human-combustion/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=WrQ1m0uiMgw
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=214688&st=30
http://monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=512&cn=0
http://www.ralphmag.org/FB/mertons-death.html
http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-of-thomas-merton.html
http://gaymystic.blogspot.com/2009/10/was-thomas-merton-assassinated.html
http://www.vedanticshorespress.com/death-of-merton-reviews.htm
Thursday, May 24, 2012
This Blog post is about Thomas Merton, sort of. It is also about your spiritual development.
A lot of my readers will have no idea who Thomas Merton was. He was the author of some very influential books. Part of the subject of his books was spiritual development.
I have not read a lot of the large library of books by and about Thomas Merton. I read enough to recognise some things that we had/have in common. Both of us were getting somewhere with our spiritual development.
Thomas Merton supposedly died Dec. 10, 1968 in an accident. Some people have writings on the internet that imply or state outright that they think the C.I.A. assassinated Thomas Merton.
Thomas Merton was probably on the sh*t list of the C.I.A., along with a lot of other people. People on that list do end up dead, but I am sure that Thomas Merton was not one of those.
I am almost certain that Thomas Merton died in an accident, but not the supposed one with an electric fan. The official cause of death was by electric shock and burns from contact with the fan when he was wet.
I guessed that Thomas Merton actually died of spontaneous combustion because of reading about his supposed death and what he wrote and said before he died. If you believe in Gd, you could say that Gd made me aware of how Merton really died.
I told some authorities in the Catholic Church that I knew Merton died of spontaneous combustion. They were shocked to hear me say that, and admitted it.
His death seems suspicious because it was suspicious. I believe some over-zealous Catholic fans of his did not like the looks of his death and tried to make it look nicer.
He had one of those "impossible" deaths by spontaneous combustion. Lots of church people tend to think if someone mysteriously bursts into flames, it has to be the hand of Gd smiting them, or the Devil claiming his own. Stories in the Bible make it easy for a church person to think this.
I can see why a Merton fan would be confused and dismayed by seeing their idol mostly burnt up in strange circumstances. They would not want their hero to be besmirched in the eyes of other fans, so would naturally want to protect them and his memory.
I collected a variety of internet information about Thomas Merton and his death to let you look into it yourself if you want to. I put links to the sites that have this information in this post.
This post is getting too long, so I will break it here. The explanation as to how Merton really died and the links to the Merton information, will be in tomorrow's post. I will also briefly explain why I am not fond of the C.I.A., and therefore have absolutely no reason to want to protect them, by what I am saying about Merton's death.
http://www.aprioryofscience.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=51 Spontaneous human combustion
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/09/spontaneous-human-combustion/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=WrQ1m0uiMgw
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=214688&st=30
http://monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=512&cn=0
http://www.ralphmag.org/FB/mertons-death.html
http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-of-thomas-merton.html
http://gaymystic.blogspot.com/2009/10/was-thomas-merton-assassinated.html
http://www.vedanticshorespress.com/death-of-merton-reviews.htm
A lot of my readers will have no idea who Thomas Merton was. He was the author of some very influential books. Part of the subject of his books was spiritual development.
I have not read a lot of the large library of books by and about Thomas Merton. I read enough to recognise some things that we had/have in common. Both of us were getting somewhere with our spiritual development.
Thomas Merton supposedly died Dec. 10, 1968 in an accident. Some people have writings on the internet that imply or state outright that they think the C.I.A. assassinated Thomas Merton.
Thomas Merton was probably on the sh*t list of the C.I.A., along with a lot of other people. People on that list do end up dead, but I am sure that Thomas Merton was not one of those.
I am almost certain that Thomas Merton died in an accident, but not the supposed one with an electric fan. The official cause of death was by electric shock and burns from contact with the fan when he was wet.
I guessed that Thomas Merton actually died of spontaneous combustion because of reading about his supposed death and what he wrote and said before he died. If you believe in Gd, you could say that Gd made me aware of how Merton really died.
I told some authorities in the Catholic Church that I knew Merton died of spontaneous combustion. They were shocked to hear me say that, and admitted it.
His death seems suspicious because it was suspicious. I believe some over-zealous Catholic fans of his did not like the looks of his death and tried to make it look nicer.
He had one of those "impossible" deaths by spontaneous combustion. Lots of church people tend to think if someone mysteriously bursts into flames, it has to be the hand of Gd smiting them, or the Devil claiming his own. Stories in the Bible make it easy for a church person to think this.
I can see why a Merton fan would be confused and dismayed by seeing their idol mostly burnt up in strange circumstances. They would not want their hero to be besmirched in the eyes of other fans, so would naturally want to protect them and his memory.
I collected a variety of internet information about Thomas Merton and his death to let you look into it yourself if you want to. I put links to the sites that have this information in this post.
This post is getting too long, so I will break it here. The explanation as to how Merton really died and the links to the Merton information, will be in tomorrow's post. I will also briefly explain why I am not fond of the C.I.A., and therefore have absolutely no reason to want to protect them, by what I am saying about Merton's death.
http://www.aprioryofscience.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=51 Spontaneous human combustion
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/09/spontaneous-human-combustion/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=WrQ1m0uiMgw
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=214688&st=30
http://monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=512&cn=0
http://www.ralphmag.org/FB/mertons-death.html
http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-of-thomas-merton.html
http://gaymystic.blogspot.com/2009/10/was-thomas-merton-assassinated.html
http://www.vedanticshorespress.com/death-of-merton-reviews.htm
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Save Yourself And The World With Heirloom Plants
If the importance of heirloom plants to your emergency preparedness is news to you, then you do not know the worst of it yet.
Heirloom plants come from seeds that are saved from the seeds that are planted that year. This is in order to have seeds to plant next year. Seed companies save people from needing to go to that trouble to save their own seeds for next year.
When seed companies sell hybrid seeds, the plants that grow from those seeds will often not produce very good seeds. Some varieties don't even have seeds. That means the people who buy those seeds cannot save their own seeds even if they want to. They always have to buy their seeds from the seed companies.
That situation is an even bigger advantage for seed companies that sell GMO seeds. The GMO seeds are produced in a laboratory and usually patented. Even if someone managed to find a good GMO seed, it would be illegal for them to grow that seed without permission from the patent holder.
Fewer and fewer seed companies are getting bigger and bigger and they are connected or owned by the labs that make the GMO seeds. This means that more and more of the world's agriculture is becoming dependent on very large agribusinesses that are becoming monopolies over seeds. These are seeds that the world depends on for food for survival.
This is not good for people who need to eat and do not own large agribusinesses and large seed and GMO labs.
It is a good idea to have some heirloom seeds in your preparedness supplies. It is an even better idea for you to know how to grow those heirloom seeds. It takes a while to learn to grow a garden, especially if you need to grow enough to survive on.
If you raise heirloom seeds, and save some seeds for next year, and pass some of your extra seeds along to others who will do the same thing, you are helping to fight monopolies on seeds that people of the world need to survive.
Even if you do not have a garden or a place for a garden, you can probably keep a pot or two on a windowsill and grow an heirloom seed or two and save the seeds from it. You will be helping yourself and everyone else as well. You should get a medal, because you would be a hero.
Heirloom plants come from seeds that are saved from the seeds that are planted that year. This is in order to have seeds to plant next year. Seed companies save people from needing to go to that trouble to save their own seeds for next year.
When seed companies sell hybrid seeds, the plants that grow from those seeds will often not produce very good seeds. Some varieties don't even have seeds. That means the people who buy those seeds cannot save their own seeds even if they want to. They always have to buy their seeds from the seed companies.
That situation is an even bigger advantage for seed companies that sell GMO seeds. The GMO seeds are produced in a laboratory and usually patented. Even if someone managed to find a good GMO seed, it would be illegal for them to grow that seed without permission from the patent holder.
Fewer and fewer seed companies are getting bigger and bigger and they are connected or owned by the labs that make the GMO seeds. This means that more and more of the world's agriculture is becoming dependent on very large agribusinesses that are becoming monopolies over seeds. These are seeds that the world depends on for food for survival.
This is not good for people who need to eat and do not own large agribusinesses and large seed and GMO labs.
It is a good idea to have some heirloom seeds in your preparedness supplies. It is an even better idea for you to know how to grow those heirloom seeds. It takes a while to learn to grow a garden, especially if you need to grow enough to survive on.
If you raise heirloom seeds, and save some seeds for next year, and pass some of your extra seeds along to others who will do the same thing, you are helping to fight monopolies on seeds that people of the world need to survive.
Even if you do not have a garden or a place for a garden, you can probably keep a pot or two on a windowsill and grow an heirloom seed or two and save the seeds from it. You will be helping yourself and everyone else as well. You should get a medal, because you would be a hero.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Importance Of Heirloom Plants For Emergency Preparedness
Why do heirloom plants matter to us for preparedness and even survival? And what are heirloom plants, anyway?
Heirloom plants are plants that have been passed down from generation to generation in a family. The heirloom plants may have been essentially unchanged for a very long time.
Most of the plants that people use for food are not heirloom plants, but are hybrids. Hybrids are plants that have been bred from different types of the same plant. The varieties that go into hybrids are usually different enough to make the hybrid unlikely to produce good seeds. The advantage of hybrids is that they usually produce bigger plants and may grow faster and require less care.
The plants that are used for the hybrids are often developed mostly for the benefit of the growers and middlemen who have the plants before they get to the consumer. This means the food plants will have tougher skins to make them ship easier without getting bruised or crushed. The plants may have a more uniform shape and size to make machine harvesting easier.
These characteristics of the food plants are often developed without regard for how nice it is to eat them. Taste and tenderness are often casualties of good shipping and storage qualities.
Hybrids are not necessarily GMO (Genetically Modified Organism), but GMO plants take hybrids' tendencies to a new level. GMO plants are developed for even more convenience of growers. Some of them have been developed to require less or no pesticides at all. GMO plants have had genes artificially inserted into them in laboratories to make them poisonous or unhealthy or unappealing to insects. Fortunately for large agribusinesses that like GMO plants, American consumers are often less discriminating about the foods they eat than insect pests. lol.
I used to live in a community dominated by a very large agricultural university. I took some agriculture classes there. This gave me some insights into how big agribusiness works, that most people never get. This is because most of the people in the world have little understanding or connection to what they eat.
Only a few generations ago most people made their living by some kind of agriculture. Only a few people did other things for a living. The people alive on Earth now have completely reversed this.
Most of us do other things for a living and only 14% of workers in the USA now do agriculture related work. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricultural-workers.htm#tab-6 The percentage is lower in many other countries, and higher in others.
The USA has some huge agricultural businesses, especially in the midwest. Most of these involve grains. They have giant farm equipment that a worker may drive in one direction for miles in one day, plowing, or planting or harvesting. The next day that worker will go back to that same piece of giant farm equipment and drive in the same direction for more miles before they even turn around and go back in the other direction. The owners of these huge agricultural businesses are often businessmen who look on this agriculture as another way to make money. They want a good investment that pays off well for the money they spend.
The healthiness and other benefits to the people who will eventually eat those plants, in those fields that run for miles, is not part of the business of agriculture for those business owners.
Even the possibility of losing a food crop that is vital to the survival of millions of people is not a consideration for those big agribusiness owners. This is a risk they take when they use GMO and hybrids for such huge monoculture and all of those agribusinesses use the same GMO or hybrid variety of food plant.
The world has come very close to losing wheat because of a disease that attacked most of the main varieties that were grown. It was a rare disease resistant heirloom wheat plant that saved wheat for us all.
The world has suffered through many famines due to diseases of important food crops. When we depend on a very few GMO and hybrid plants we risk a much worse famine.
This post is getting much too long, so I will break here and continue tomorrow.
Heirloom plants are plants that have been passed down from generation to generation in a family. The heirloom plants may have been essentially unchanged for a very long time.
Most of the plants that people use for food are not heirloom plants, but are hybrids. Hybrids are plants that have been bred from different types of the same plant. The varieties that go into hybrids are usually different enough to make the hybrid unlikely to produce good seeds. The advantage of hybrids is that they usually produce bigger plants and may grow faster and require less care.
The plants that are used for the hybrids are often developed mostly for the benefit of the growers and middlemen who have the plants before they get to the consumer. This means the food plants will have tougher skins to make them ship easier without getting bruised or crushed. The plants may have a more uniform shape and size to make machine harvesting easier.
These characteristics of the food plants are often developed without regard for how nice it is to eat them. Taste and tenderness are often casualties of good shipping and storage qualities.
Hybrids are not necessarily GMO (Genetically Modified Organism), but GMO plants take hybrids' tendencies to a new level. GMO plants are developed for even more convenience of growers. Some of them have been developed to require less or no pesticides at all. GMO plants have had genes artificially inserted into them in laboratories to make them poisonous or unhealthy or unappealing to insects. Fortunately for large agribusinesses that like GMO plants, American consumers are often less discriminating about the foods they eat than insect pests. lol.
I used to live in a community dominated by a very large agricultural university. I took some agriculture classes there. This gave me some insights into how big agribusiness works, that most people never get. This is because most of the people in the world have little understanding or connection to what they eat.
Only a few generations ago most people made their living by some kind of agriculture. Only a few people did other things for a living. The people alive on Earth now have completely reversed this.
Most of us do other things for a living and only 14% of workers in the USA now do agriculture related work. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Farming-Fishing-and-Forestry/Agricultural-workers.htm#tab-6 The percentage is lower in many other countries, and higher in others.
The USA has some huge agricultural businesses, especially in the midwest. Most of these involve grains. They have giant farm equipment that a worker may drive in one direction for miles in one day, plowing, or planting or harvesting. The next day that worker will go back to that same piece of giant farm equipment and drive in the same direction for more miles before they even turn around and go back in the other direction. The owners of these huge agricultural businesses are often businessmen who look on this agriculture as another way to make money. They want a good investment that pays off well for the money they spend.
The healthiness and other benefits to the people who will eventually eat those plants, in those fields that run for miles, is not part of the business of agriculture for those business owners.
Even the possibility of losing a food crop that is vital to the survival of millions of people is not a consideration for those big agribusiness owners. This is a risk they take when they use GMO and hybrids for such huge monoculture and all of those agribusinesses use the same GMO or hybrid variety of food plant.
The world has come very close to losing wheat because of a disease that attacked most of the main varieties that were grown. It was a rare disease resistant heirloom wheat plant that saved wheat for us all.
The world has suffered through many famines due to diseases of important food crops. When we depend on a very few GMO and hybrid plants we risk a much worse famine.
This post is getting much too long, so I will break here and continue tomorrow.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Reasons Why It Will be Better To Train People For Spiritual Gifts In Remote Areas
We need to be using our spiritual gifts to survive. This is true for the human race as a whole as well as for individuals. We do not have to have everyone using their spiritual gifts to keep the human race alive, but we need a lot more than we have now.
This post is mostly about beginning stages of starting to use spiritual gifts. I hope at least some readers of this blog post want to do this.
When people start learning something that is new to them, they usually have a period of awkwardness. This is true of every beginning user of spiritual gifts that I have observed.
One of the signs of this awkwardness is lack of control of the energy involved in use of spiritual gifts. Christians may call this energy, "grace". This usually takes the form of draining nearby batteries and causing strange things to happen to nearby machinery or electronics.
This can be highly inconvenient for the people who want to use the batteries, machinery, or electronics. This problem can cause another problem for the beginning spiritual gifts user. It can cause people to be annoyed or very angry at them.
These unintended effects on things and people around beginning spiritual gifts users can be disturbing and distracting to the beginner.
People who are not familiar with the concept of spiritual gifts may be suspicious of others who are using their spiritual gifts. This suspiciousness can cause upleasant or dangerous behavior toward the beginning spiritual gifts user.
It is easier to work on spiritual gifts if you can talk and be around other people who are doing the same thing or have already done it.
When there are not many people who are using their spiritual gifts yet, it might not be pleasant for spiritual gifts users to be around the ones who are not using their own spiritual gifts.
Use of your spiritual gifts changes you. It makes you a better and more healthy person. Being around other people who have not been changed by using their spiritual gifts can be unpleasant and even painful, in a way, after you are using your spiritual gifts.
Here is the most important part of using your spiritual gifts: humans are in a dangerous situation and we need to be using our spiritual gifts to survive. People who want to do this need to get together and get to work on it soon.
This post is mostly about beginning stages of starting to use spiritual gifts. I hope at least some readers of this blog post want to do this.
When people start learning something that is new to them, they usually have a period of awkwardness. This is true of every beginning user of spiritual gifts that I have observed.
One of the signs of this awkwardness is lack of control of the energy involved in use of spiritual gifts. Christians may call this energy, "grace". This usually takes the form of draining nearby batteries and causing strange things to happen to nearby machinery or electronics.
This can be highly inconvenient for the people who want to use the batteries, machinery, or electronics. This problem can cause another problem for the beginning spiritual gifts user. It can cause people to be annoyed or very angry at them.
These unintended effects on things and people around beginning spiritual gifts users can be disturbing and distracting to the beginner.
People who are not familiar with the concept of spiritual gifts may be suspicious of others who are using their spiritual gifts. This suspiciousness can cause upleasant or dangerous behavior toward the beginning spiritual gifts user.
It is easier to work on spiritual gifts if you can talk and be around other people who are doing the same thing or have already done it.
When there are not many people who are using their spiritual gifts yet, it might not be pleasant for spiritual gifts users to be around the ones who are not using their own spiritual gifts.
Use of your spiritual gifts changes you. It makes you a better and more healthy person. Being around other people who have not been changed by using their spiritual gifts can be unpleasant and even painful, in a way, after you are using your spiritual gifts.
Here is the most important part of using your spiritual gifts: humans are in a dangerous situation and we need to be using our spiritual gifts to survive. People who want to do this need to get together and get to work on it soon.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Safe Substitute Oils For Preparedness
This is something that I wrote to somebody and it is good information for people who want to be able to afford to eat and don't want a lot of awful stuff in your food. I am posting it to give me more research time, and still give you good information to read.
There is a site that reverse engineers foods and tells you how to make things yourself. They did Twinkies already, I believe. You can request your favorites, but most likely it has already been done and they have it. I don't remember or have the internet address, but you can find it with a search engine.
Canola is one of the 4 main GMO crops. I just found out after I bought a gallon of the sh*t. (Insert deleted expletive here.) The other 3 are: corn, soy, and cotton. The 5 GMO companies are: Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont, Syngenta(spelling?), and Dow. Monsanto is the big guns here. They are trying to wipe out any seeds they don't have a patent on or have engineered to commit suicide at the end of the year.
If they were to succeed, I don't think things would be too good for anybody else. Sigh. Get and save heirloom seeds!! Share them and pass them on as much as you can manage and afford, too.
Heirloom plants are much more flavorful than hybrid and GMO, also more tender. They don't ship or handle as well because of their tenderness/softness and their yields are less predictable. I am trying for nothing but heirloom seeds now, anyway.
I substitute oil for shortening all the time. It does not work for making your own mixes, however. You can just make up the rest of the mix and add the oil when you prepare the food.
Olive oil has a low melting point and is not so good to use in anything with a medium to high cooking temp. Coconut oil has a very high melting point, so it will even work for stir fry.
I looked up some canola oil substitutes and two that I found were sunflower oil and safflower oil. Both of those have a melting point the same as canola and don't have saturated fats either. They seem to have additional health benefits as well. I'm going to check prices next time I shop. Coconut oil is pretty pricey and I want some cheaper ones, like I hope sunflower oil and safflower oil might be.
Popcorn cooked in coconut oil is really good.
Yummies!
There is a site that reverse engineers foods and tells you how to make things yourself. They did Twinkies already, I believe. You can request your favorites, but most likely it has already been done and they have it. I don't remember or have the internet address, but you can find it with a search engine.
Canola is one of the 4 main GMO crops. I just found out after I bought a gallon of the sh*t. (Insert deleted expletive here.) The other 3 are: corn, soy, and cotton. The 5 GMO companies are: Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont, Syngenta(spelling?), and Dow. Monsanto is the big guns here. They are trying to wipe out any seeds they don't have a patent on or have engineered to commit suicide at the end of the year.
If they were to succeed, I don't think things would be too good for anybody else. Sigh. Get and save heirloom seeds!! Share them and pass them on as much as you can manage and afford, too.
Heirloom plants are much more flavorful than hybrid and GMO, also more tender. They don't ship or handle as well because of their tenderness/softness and their yields are less predictable. I am trying for nothing but heirloom seeds now, anyway.
I substitute oil for shortening all the time. It does not work for making your own mixes, however. You can just make up the rest of the mix and add the oil when you prepare the food.
Olive oil has a low melting point and is not so good to use in anything with a medium to high cooking temp. Coconut oil has a very high melting point, so it will even work for stir fry.
I looked up some canola oil substitutes and two that I found were sunflower oil and safflower oil. Both of those have a melting point the same as canola and don't have saturated fats either. They seem to have additional health benefits as well. I'm going to check prices next time I shop. Coconut oil is pretty pricey and I want some cheaper ones, like I hope sunflower oil and safflower oil might be.
Popcorn cooked in coconut oil is really good.
Yummies!
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Why It Will Be Good For People To Use Their Spiritual Gifts
It is probably not necessary to have a lot of people interested in developing and using their spiritual gifts to get started. I have not covered the uses of spiritual gifts at all thoroughly. This aspect of spiritual gifts will probably take a very long time to thoroughly explore as more and more people start using theirs.
I have not mentioned a special application of some spiritual gifts. Some spiritual gifts allow the people who have them to see things that are happening that are far away and not visible to ordinary sight. This kind of ability is already known about in some circles, at least theoretically. Other spiritual gifts would allow one to travel and take one's body or even other people along. This could include travel off of Earth and out of our solar system. I don't think distance is a factor in some spiritual gifts, so travel to places out of reach by using rockets, etc. is possible. Time does not seem to be a factor in travel using spiritual gifts, or if so, it is almost negligible.
It is also possible to repair some ecological damage by using spiritual gifts. Once enough people are using their spiritual gifts, new damage to the environment of the Earth would stop. Some people would be sure to choose to use their spiritual gifts for reversing and repairing damage to the Earth and the environment.
Some Christian churches teach that spiritual gifts are only possible to develop by members of their congregation. Since I have said repeatedly that this is not true and even people who are not Christian or who do not believe in any Gd have spiritual gifts, most members of those churches will not want to pay attention to what I say.
One of the tactics that people who have power use is to tell the people they have power over things that will keep them from paying attention to anyone else. If feel a little sad that a lot of people may never find their spiritual gifts, let alone use them, because of this problem with power.
I know that some people have noticed that I implied that people in some churches that believe in spiritual gifts will never learn to use them.
If those churches were very effective in getting their congregation members to use their spiritual gifts, the world would not be in the mess it is now in. One of the things such churches tell their members is that people who are not in their church who seem to have spiritual gifts are faking them or getting them from the Devil. I think this is for the purpose of keeping power and control over their members.
People who are using their spiritual gifts will usually have a big survival/preparedness advantage over people who do not even know what their spiritual gifts might be. This is one reason why I wish to encourage and help as many people as possible, to learn what their spiritual gifts are and to use them.
Here is a short version of why it will be good for more or all people to use their spiritual gifts. People who use their spiritual gifts are much more likely to survive disasters or even to prevent a disaster. The world will be a better, happier, and healthier place with a lot of people's spiritual gifts being used.
The human race is much more likely to kill itself off without a lot of use of our spiritual gifts. We can repair some damage to the Earth with our spiritual gifts. We can stop from doing more damage to the Earth and what is on it.
People will not have the sickness that comes from not using their spiritual gifts and will be much happier when they start using them.
Friday, May 18, 2012
What Can We Do For Disaster Prevention With Spiritual Gifts?
I intend to tell you in this blog post about what I know or think can be done with your spiritual gifts for disaster risk reduction. My first focus is on nuclear war prevention.
If enough people develop their spiritual gifts it could make a nuclear war impossible. One of the gifts that could do this is moving things without touching them. I do not believe there are any distance limitations on this ability at all. Nuclear weapons could even be moved off of the Earth. I am not sure this is a good idea, but that is another matter.
There are other spiritual gifts that could also act to prevent a nuclear war, but since draconian laws were passed in the USA, I do not feel safe talking any more about them.
Extra sensory perception (ESP) could be used to find people who are lost or buried in disasters like earthquakes. Moving people would be possible with telekinesis when they are trapped under debris in earthquakes or landslides, etc. This could eliminate risk to other rescuers.
The communications aspect of ESP could be used in emergencies when nothing else was available.
Rescue and disaster work could be begun when a relatively small number of people have developed their spiritual gifts.
Once there are more people using their spiritual gifts, the gifts could be used in more mundane applications. I think transportation could be done by using telekinesis. This could start with urgent shipments and gradually cut down on non-renewable fuel use and pollution, as more telekinesis transport was phased in.
Many lives could be saved by the spiritual gift of healing. It could be especially useful when people have illnesses that can not be cured by regular or alternative medicine.
Every child could be taught by teachers who are using their spiritual gifts. That one spiritual gift in use could be enough to make a huge change in society worldwide.
It is possible that the growing things and green thumb sort of spiritual gift, is a sub-category of healing. That one could mean an end to hunger.
If you look back at the list of spiritual gifts in the last three posts, you can think about what it might mean to have everyone in the world doing what they are really good at and doing an excellent job of it.
I am not sure whether this can happen in my lifetime, but I would like to try for it. Whatever progress can be made in that direction will be good. Once it is well started, it should keep spreading.
If enough people develop their spiritual gifts it could make a nuclear war impossible. One of the gifts that could do this is moving things without touching them. I do not believe there are any distance limitations on this ability at all. Nuclear weapons could even be moved off of the Earth. I am not sure this is a good idea, but that is another matter.
There are other spiritual gifts that could also act to prevent a nuclear war, but since draconian laws were passed in the USA, I do not feel safe talking any more about them.
Extra sensory perception (ESP) could be used to find people who are lost or buried in disasters like earthquakes. Moving people would be possible with telekinesis when they are trapped under debris in earthquakes or landslides, etc. This could eliminate risk to other rescuers.
The communications aspect of ESP could be used in emergencies when nothing else was available.
Rescue and disaster work could be begun when a relatively small number of people have developed their spiritual gifts.
Once there are more people using their spiritual gifts, the gifts could be used in more mundane applications. I think transportation could be done by using telekinesis. This could start with urgent shipments and gradually cut down on non-renewable fuel use and pollution, as more telekinesis transport was phased in.
Many lives could be saved by the spiritual gift of healing. It could be especially useful when people have illnesses that can not be cured by regular or alternative medicine.
Every child could be taught by teachers who are using their spiritual gifts. That one spiritual gift in use could be enough to make a huge change in society worldwide.
It is possible that the growing things and green thumb sort of spiritual gift, is a sub-category of healing. That one could mean an end to hunger.
If you look back at the list of spiritual gifts in the last three posts, you can think about what it might mean to have everyone in the world doing what they are really good at and doing an excellent job of it.
I am not sure whether this can happen in my lifetime, but I would like to try for it. Whatever progress can be made in that direction will be good. Once it is well started, it should keep spreading.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Disaster Risk Reduction - Part 3 Of List Of Your Spiritual Gifts
If you are new to this blog or have not been here for a while, this post is part of a series on Spiritual Abilities. Everyone has them, even though some church people like to lay exclusive claim to them. Each individual has one or more spiritual ability or gift.
This post is part of a list of possible spiritual gifts that you may have. Finding and developing your complete set of spiritual gifts is essential to real disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction. I will explain more about why and how these spiritual gifts might be used in the next post.
- Tongue - This is usually called Tongues by church people. The non-church version might be someone who has a remarkable flair for linguistics or any form of communications.
- Interpretation of Tongues - I can not think of a non-church version of this one at the moment. When I do I will edit this and add it.
- Voluntary poverty - Some people are really not into possessions. People belonging to the Jain religion are the most extreme example of this that I know of. People with the non-religious version can inspire others with excess possessions to free themselves.
- Martyrdom - People who think they have this one can be extremely annoying. People who really have activated and developed the spiritual gifts version can be enormously inspiring and start or end wars with it.
- Exorcism - Yes, Virginia, there are things around that we might describe as demons. This is usually paired with discernment of spirits. It does not have to be exclusively religious.
- Celibacy - It is easier to dedicate oneself to any worthy cause if a family or significant others are not a part of one's life. This is not limited to churches.
The two links below are primarily for Christians who must have Bible citations to accept information about Spiritual Gifts.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Disaster Risk Reduction - Part 2 Of List Of Your Spiritual Gifts
The post for today is a continuation of the list of spiritual gifts that you might have. You, along with every other person, have one or more spiritual gift or ability. Most people are not using these. Learning what they are and how to use them is not dependent on belonging to a particular church or even belief in Gd. Knowing that these spiritual gifts exist because you learned about them in a church is helpful to get started, however.
If you do not belong to a church, you can still find and develop your spiritual gifts. Please do not be angry if you belong to a church and have thought that your church had a patent on spiritual gifts. There are enough spiritual gifts to go around. Everyone has them.
- Mercy - People with this gift are often drawn to jobs like hospice work or orphanages, etc. Those who have this spiritual gift in use and developed are quietly and brilliantly effective.
- Wisdom - People can have the regular version of this gift and demonstrate wisdom, but the spiritual version is turbo-charged by comparison.
- Knowledge/Word of knowledge - This can be in a specific area or more general. The spiritual gift version would most likely be paired with exhortation or one or more other gifts.
- Faith - This gift is not exclusive to religious types, oddly enough. I have met atheists who had a very strong spiritual gift of faith. It often comes with the spiritual gift of leadership.
- Helps - Someone with this gift can be your friend who just happens to show up when your car broke down on your way to an important meeting. They are there just in time with whatever is needed. The spiritual version of this is a little eerie at times. My youngest brother had this one.
- Administration/Leadership - The spiritual version of this is extraordinary leadership/administration. I think President Kennedy is an example of this gift in action.
- Evangelist - This is not limited to religious versions either. An enthusiastic and successful multi-level marketer may be using this spiritual gift.
- Pastor - This also has non-religious manifestations. Someone who has this spiritual gift at all developed will gravitate to some position of authority where they will excel at a more friendly and nurturing version of leadership than someone with the spiritual gift version of leadership.
- Hospitality - Someone with this spiritual gift active always has guests and visitors underfoot and their home will usually be set up for making others welcome and comfortable. The jobs that people with this gift activated are attracted to are things like party organizing, hotel or transportation jobs dealing with people. They have a way of making people feel warm and happy and appreciated when they arrive and during a stay.
- Intercession - Church types claim this one exclusively for their own. It exists independently of Churches as well. Intercession can be invaluable for situations where people are feeling or actually powerless and need help dealing with those who have perceived or actual power.
- Healing - People with this one often go into medical field where the people they help seem to get well faster and better than expected. It usually is paired with the spiritual gift of service and perhaps other spiritual gifts as well.
- Miracles - This spiritual gift is similar to healing, but is still different. Miracles is healing things that are considerably beyond the norm. An example is that healing might help someone to build up their legs muscles enough to walk again. Miracles would be if the leg muscles were too withered to ever make walking possible again and the person walked anyway. It would be miracles if a cancer patient was sent home to die and they got well anyway. It can get fancier than that, but it is much better to see it than to talk about it. This also happens outside of churches, but if people are really convinced the manifestations of this spiritual gift are impossible, they are not likely to find and develop this gift, so it is more rare.
- Discerning of Spirits - Like it or not, beings that do not occupy living bodies do exist. People with this gift can sense the presence of these beings. This gift usually comes with others, so it doesn't amount to only seeing things. It has practical applications. This one of those, you have to be there, kind of things.
This list is getting too long again, so I will continue tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Disaster Risk Reduction - A Partial List Of Your Possible Spiritual Gifts
If you are not a Christian, please bear with me when I am speaking of Christian beliefs. I do not know a lot of terminology to speak of some aspects of spiritual abilities or gifts that does not sound Christian. The subject of spiritual gifts applies to you whether you are Christian or not and even whether you believe in Gd or not.
I would like to ask Christians to bear with me if I say something that you are not used to hearing or accepting either.
We are in a crisis situation and do not have the luxury of dealing only with people who believe the same as we do. We need to put aside our prejudices and get along, to handle our emergency.
I am using Christian lists of spiritual gifts first because that is the most organized listing and definition of some of them that I know of.
List of Spiritual Gifts:
I would like to ask Christians to bear with me if I say something that you are not used to hearing or accepting either.
We are in a crisis situation and do not have the luxury of dealing only with people who believe the same as we do. We need to put aside our prejudices and get along, to handle our emergency.
I am using Christian lists of spiritual gifts first because that is the most organized listing and definition of some of them that I know of.
List of Spiritual Gifts:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)