Church attendance is related to America's warmongering!

The author of this article definitely has a point...

America’s Wars Are Way Up; Church Attendance Is Way Down
By Chuck Baldwin, April 26, 2019

I realize that the vast majority of Christian conservatives will choose to totally ignore this column (just as they do most of my columns), but the stark reality is that under so-called Christian conservative presidents G.W. Bush and Donald J. Trump, America’s wars are way up, while church attendance is way down. And, yes, I absolutely believe there is a direct link between these two trends.

That wars increased exponentially under Bush is not debatable. The ramifications of Bush’s illegal and immoral military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are still strongly reverberating around the world to this very day. Much of the ongoing “war on terror” in the Middle East is a direct result of the Bush/Cheney military adventurism (putting it mildly) almost two decades ago. And Trump has escalated America’s missile wars to unprecedented levels.

As I have noted several times in this column:

    Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Trump’s rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries during his first term of office—which would equal the number of bombs and missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.

Here’s more perspective:

    The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year. The Pentagon’s data show that during George W. Bush’s eight years he averaged 24 bombs dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama’s time in office, his military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.

Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush—which included military invasions of two countries.

We also know that Trump expanded America’s wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America’s war machine against Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has given Benjamin Netanyahu’s raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia taking the lead) in Yemen.

Then there is Somalia:

    In the age of Donald Trump, wasn’t that [the Battle of Mogadishu—Black Hawk Down] a million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all about? I couldn’t have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S. intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those troops and end the disastrous mission — and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned. Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its hands of the whole thing.

    And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably didn’t even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century after that incident, American airstrikes in… yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.

    Last year’s 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016 (themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they’re already on pace to double again, while Somali civilians — not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices or cares — are dying in significant and rising numbers.

    And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress hasn’t uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest attention.

    So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once called): the U.S. military just can’t get enough of Somalia. And if that isn’t off the charts, what is? Maybe it’s even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.

    And now that I’ve started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it comes to the U.S. military, it’s not faintly just Somalia. It’s all of Africa.

    After all, this country’s military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the continent, north to south, east to west — air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts, staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM’s outgoing commanding general, Thomas Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it’s bound to be a forever outfit — because, shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! (“Russia is also a growing challenge and has taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.”)

    And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn’t meant to be a piece about either Somalia or Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it regularly digests.

And, while America’s wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is way down:

    As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively, Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.

    U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade.

Most interesting is this Gallup observation:

    Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church, synagogue or mosque.

    The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all contributing to the accelerating trend.

Obviously, America’s Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this century (2000)—when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.

I tried to warn readers— and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show—that due to his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people’s minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America’s churches began in earnest.

Enter Donald Trump.

As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush’s war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel’s wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Don’t get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush’s “war on terror” was nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump. (Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu’s concentration-style occupation nicely.)

So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush’s wars of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump’s wars of aggression for the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance and church affiliation in U.S. history.

The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump’s radical pro-Israel, pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.

The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception. Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed; the attempts by Israel’s toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of Zionism as being “anti-Semitic” is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel. Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people (including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.

Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn’t die in vain after all.

From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class; and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering nation.

Let’s be clear: God is not building a “Greater Israel.” God is not building a third Jewish temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine calling to Trump’s pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel’s belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists without becoming one himself.

After Trump finishes this term in office, two-thirds of this young century will have seen a “Christian” warmonger in the White House. It is no coincidence that during this same period of time, wars are way up and church attendance is way down.

Reason Airplane Windows Are Round

Stress builds up most at the sharp corners of a square window and therefore, eventual cracking of windows. British-built Comet aircrafts went through this problem in the early days of this discovery. This problem was consequently rectified by installing rounded windows.

This Is the Important Reason All Airplane Windows Are Round
Joanie Faletto

The round windows on airplanes aren't a frivolous design choice. It's a life-saving engineering innovation. If commercial plane windows were square like the ones in your house, the whole plane would disintegrate mid-flight, and no one wants to deal with any of that on their way to Cancún.

Don't Be a Square
Around the mid-twentieth century, commercial airlines started flying their planes at higher altitudes. This plan was ultimately a money-saving move, as lower air density means less drag on the plane, and less drag means less fuel is wasted. Flying in the upper atmosphere means a smoother ride, too.

To make planes suitable for flying at higher altitudes, airlines had to make some design changes. First, the plane cabin had to be pressurized so passengers could, well, breathe. Secondly, the plane had to be cylindrical in order to withstand the newly increased internal pressure. Voila! The perfect plane — or so you'd think. In the 1950s, three airplanes crashed when the fuselage was ripped to shreds because engineers overlooked one crucial design flaw: They used square windows.

Square windows are problematic for high-flying planes because of a slight difference in atmospheric and cabin pressure. This difference causes the cabin to expand very slightly, which puts stress on the material — in this case, the window frames. That stress builds most at the sharp corners of a square window, and when the stress becomes too great, crrrack! With an oval window, however, the stress flows more smoothly around the whole thing, avoiding a potentially destructive buildup of stress.

Get in Line

Since we're on the topic of airplane windows, you may have noticed another quirk about them: They're often not aligned with the rows of seating. Don't blame the airplane manufacturers; this issue is solely up to the airline that purchases the plane. It's their property, after all. The manufacturers build the planes with row positioning, legroom, and window placement in mind, and pass their recommendations along to the airline. They're rarely followed, however. Depending on the airline, different planes stack more rows together than others. Once the number of rows changes, the window alignment gets — sorry — thrown right out the window.

The Physics of Productivity

[Newton's laws of motion reveal insights that tell you pretty much everything you need to know about how to be productive.

1. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Find a way to get started in less than 2 minutes.

2. It's not just about working hard, it's also about working on the right things. You have a limited amount of force and where you apply it matters.

3. Your productivity is a balance of opposing forces. If you want to be more productive, you can either power through the barriers or remove the opposing forces. The second option seems to be less stressful.]

The Physics of Productivity: Newton’s Laws of Getting Stuff Done
From James Clear

In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published his groundbreaking book, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which described his three laws of motion. In the process, Newton laid the foundation for classical mechanics and redefined the way the world looked at physics and science.

What most people don't know, however, is that Newton's three laws of motion can be used as an interesting analogy for increasing your productivity, simplifying your work, and improving your life.

Allow me to present this analogy as Newton's Laws of Productivity.

Newton's First Law of Productivity

First Law of Motion: An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. (i.e. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.)

In many ways, procrastination is a fundamental law of the universe. It's Newton's first law applied to productivity. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.

So, what's the best way to get started when you are stuck procrastinating?

In my experience, the best rule of thumb for getting started is the 2-Minute Rule. 3

Here's the 2-Minute Rule adjusted for productivity: To overcome procrastination, find a way to start your task in less than two minutes.

Notice that you don't have to finish your task. In fact, you don't even have to work on the primary task. However, thanks to Newton's first law, you'll often find that once you start this little 2-minute task, it is much easier to keep moving.

Here are some examples…

•     Right now, you may not feel like going for a run. But if you put your running shoes on and fill up your water bottle that small start might be enough to get you out the door.
•     Right now, you might be staring at a blank screen and struggling to write your report. But if you write random sentences for just two minutes, then you may find that useful sentences start to roll off your fingers.
•     Right now, you might have a creative block and be struggling to draw something. But if you draw a random line on a sheet of paper and turn it into a dog, then you might get your creative juices flowing.

Motivation often comes after starting. Find a way to start small. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

Newton's Second Law of Productivity

Second Law of Motion: F=ma. The vector sum of the forces on an object is equal to the mass of that object multiplied by the acceleration vector of the object. (i.e. Force equals mass times acceleration.)

Let's break down this equation, F=ma, and how it can apply to productivity.

There is one important thing to note in this equation. The force, F, is a vector. Vectors involve both magnitude (how much work you are putting in) and direction (where that work is focused). In other words, if you want to get an object accelerating in a particular direction, then the size of the force you apply and the direction of that force will both make a difference.

Guess what? It's the same story for getting things done in your life.

If you want to be productive, it's not merely about how hard you work (magnitude), it's also about where that work is applied (direction). This is true of big life decisions and small daily decisions.

For example, you could apply the same skill set in different directions and get very different results.

To put it simply, you only have a certain amount of force to provide to your work and where you place that force is just as important as how hard you work.

Newton's Third Law of Productivity

Third Law of Motion: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. (i.e. Equal and opposite forces.)

We all have an average speed that we tend to perform at in life. Your typical levels of productivity and efficiency are often a balance of the productive and unproductive forces in your life — a lot like Newton's equal and opposite forces.

There are productive forces in our lives like focus, positivity, and motivation. There are also unproductive forces like stress, lack of sleep, and trying to juggle too many tasks at once.

If we want to become more effective and more productive, then we have two choices.

The first option is to add more productive force. This is the “power through it” option. We gut it out, drink another cup of coffee, and work harder. This is why people take drugs that help them focus or watch a motivational video to pump themselves up. It's all an effort to increase your productive force and overpower the unproductive forces we face.

Obviously, you can only do this for so long before you burn out, but for a brief moment the “power through it” strategy can work well.

The second option is to eliminate the opposing forces. Simplify your life, learn how to say no, change your environment, reduce the number of responsibilities that you take on, and otherwise eliminate the forces that are holding you back.

If you reduce the unproductive forces in your life, your productivity will glide forward naturally. It's like you magically remove the hand that has been holding you back. (As I like to say, if you eliminated all of the things distracting you from being productive, you wouldn't need tips on how to become more productive.)

Most people try to power through and hammer their way past the barriers. The problem with this strategy is that you're still dealing with the other force. I find it to be much less stressful to cut out the opposing forces and let your productivity naturally flow forward.

The U.S. Penny Costs More Than 1 Cent to Produce

Many countries of the world have gotten rid of coins with monetary value of 1; so should USA.

The U.S. Penny Costs More Than 1 Cent to Produce
Ashley Hamer
July 28, 2015


The U.S. penny is worth one cent, but it costs the U.S. Mint about 1.5 cents to make. And think about it — how often do you really use them? Is it time to get rid of this coin once and for all?

The Penny's Days May Be Numbered

The United States started producing pennies in 1787. Since their creation, they have always been worth one cent, but the composition of the coin has changed. Pennies were originally all copper, but as the value of copper climbed, the value of the penny sank, leading the U.S. Mint to alter the composition to what it is today: 2.5 percent copper and 97.5 percent zinc. But even this new formulation hasn't fixed that value imbalance. In 2016, the penny still cost 1.5 cents to make. (The nickel, by the way, costs 8 cents to make.)

But even if it didn't cost the country more than one cent to create their one-cent pieces, there are other reasons to abandon the penny. Consider the fact that in 1915, the penny was worth about 25 cents in today's money. Since the penny was the smallest form of currency, they didn't have today's buying equivalent of a penny (or a nickel, or a dime), and they got along just fine. So why do we need it today? There's also the issue of the time it takes to fish for pennies and the fact that so many are left in dishes at the cash register and jars on the dresser. Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw says, "The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange. The penny no longer serves that purpose. When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful."

Reasons to Keep the Penny

In the din of people crying to abandon our smallest form of currency, there are a view voices praying to keep it. One is professor Brian Domitrovic, who wrote a piece for Forbes arguing his case. In essence, he says that coins were first adopted based on the value of the metal they were made of. If coins were made of something that was worth less than they were traded for, a government could overproduce money and tank the economy (Are things starting to sound familiar?). But with the rise of legal tender laws and the Federal Reserve, the U.S. government can now make its citizens use the money it mints, and control how much of it flows out into the economy at any time. Domitrovic says this led to the Great Recession, "the era of the most gargantuan episode of state-sponsored monetary creation in the history of the world.

What does this have to do with the penny, exactly? "This money, this petty change, actually costs something to make," Domitrovic concludes. "Which would be precisely why we should insist that the United States keep making it. It can remind the country of how properly to conduct monetary policy."

11 Unproductive Habits You Want to Quit

The sooner I quits these bad habits the better it is...

11 Unproductive Habits You Want to Quit
Darius Foroux
 
The reason I study productivity is because I’m an unproductive person. I truly am. If it wasn’t for my productivity system, I wouldn’t get anything done. I wouldn’t even write this article. But if you browse social media, all you see is super productive, healthy, and wealthy people.

The reason I study productivity is because I’m an unproductive person. I truly am.

I sleep too much. I talk too much. I read too much. I listen to music all day. I watch movies. I buy gadgets that turn me into a zombie.

If it wasn’t for my productivity system, I wouldn’t get anything done. I wouldn’t even write this article. But if you browse social media, all you see is super productive, healthy, and wealthy people. Is that really the case?

I don’t know. I just know this: You can’t be productive 24/7. And a big part of being productive is about getting rid of unproductive habits we all have.

What follows is a list of eleven unproductive habits that I learned to do less, or eliminate. Do you have a few of these habits? Don’t worry, we’re all unproductive at times. But if you have five or more, it might be time to change.

Let’s start.

    Overworking
    Some days I can work 12 or 13 hours straight. I just take a break for exercising and eating. And I can keep that up for a few days. But after a few days, there always comes a crash. Big time. I struggle. I can’t get stuff done. I don’t even want to get stuff done. It’s not good. So I learned to be more calculated with how much I work. Like Ernest Hemingway, stop working at the height of your day.

    Worrying
    What if I go broke? What if I lose my job? What if she doesn’t love me? What if I get cancer? What if this plane crashes? What if I lose my sight? What if I…? You got your head so far in the sand like an ostrich that you can’t see how self-absorbed that way of thinking is. Here’s the thing: YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DIE RIGHT THIS SECOND. Get over yourself. Stop worrying. And do something useful.

    Stubbornness
    We deal with people all the time. Do you ever think: “Why should I listen to this guy?” Or: “What does she know?” I don’t know. Maybe more than you do? We just don’t know until we listen to others. When you’re always cynical and stubborn, you’re actually sabotaging yourself.

    Ignoring Your Health
    The way you feel determines the quality of your work. If you’re always tired and feel bad, how do you expect to do great work? When you’re in good shape and eat well, your work will reflect that.

    Checking Things
    What are you doing? We often say something like “I was just checking Instagram,” or something like that. But “checking” is not a useful activity. It might be a verb, but it’s not a real action. When I started blogging, I always checked my stats for no reason. Then I thought: What’s the outcome of checking? Nothing. So stop doing it.

    Not Having Goals
    Every time successful people say, “I don’t have goals,” I know they are full of shit. Who can be successful at anything without aiming for it. Don’t believe the stories. People just want to make you believe they became successful without effort. Set a goal, and then work towards it.

    Saying Yes
    Most people are afraid to say no. Maybe you don’t want to let people down. Maybe you are uncomfortable with the word no. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, really. What matters is this: If you keep saying yes, you’re living someone else’s life. Think about it. Deep down, we all know that it’s true. We’re not even in control of our own time. Want to be in full control of your life? Say no to a million things and yes to a few things that matter.

    Relying On Your Memory
    Not writing down your thoughts, ideas, tasks, etc, is insane. Why? Because you’re wasting a lot of brain power when you rely on your memory. When you write everything down, you can use your brainpower for other things. Like solving problems. That’s actually useful and advances your career.

    Neglecting Your Personal Education
    “Woohoo! I finished college. Goodbye lame old books!” Who learns one thing and stops forever? I don’t even know why we have that idea planted in our brain. I always thought that learning stops when you get out of school. But the truth is: Your life stops when learning stops. Invest in yourself. Learn something. Read books. Get courses. Watch videos. Do it from home or go places. It doesn’t matter. Just learn new things. You’ll be more productive and more excited about life.

    Complaining
    We all know, and yet, we all do it. Complaining is one of those habits we always try to quit. But it never lasts. I’m no different. That’s why I always remind myself that complaining is a waste of effort. Just the awareness of that will help you to stop.

    Lack Of Focus
    Many successful people say that the ability to focus is the number one reason they’ve made it big. And it’s no surprise. The people who are all over the place never seem to get anywhere.

Often, people don’t understand why I focus on what not to do. The reason is that I like to learn by inverting. It’s the same strategy Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger used to become the most well-known investors of the world.

When you want to become successful or productive, look at how you become the opposite. Turn things upside down. That’s what we’ve done in this article too.

By simply avoiding these unproductive habits, you’ll automatically become more productive. When you combine this with a handful of productivity tips (see here), you have a reliable system.

And I always rely on my system to work smarter, better, happier, and effectively. It took me years to figure out that having a system is a good thing, and a few more years to create one, but it was worth it.

Because now, I get to be a productive person.

Not bad for an unproductive person, right?

Darius Foroux writes about productivity, habits, decision making, and personal finance. His ideas and work have been featured in TIME, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Observer, and many more publications.

The Three Purposes of Russiagate

Former economics advisor to Ronald Reagan spells out the reasons in plain English...

The Three Purposes of Russiagate
Paul Craig Roberts
April 23, 2019

Russiagate has three purposes.

One is to prevent President Trump from endangering the vast budget and power of the military/security complex by normalizing relations with Russia.

Another, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, is “to conceal the criminal conduct of US government officials meddling in the 2016 election in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign,” by focusing all public and political attention on a hoax distraction.

The third is to obstruct Trump’s campaign and distract him from his agenda when he won the election.

Despite the inability of Mueller to find any evidence that Trump or Trump officials colluded with Russia to steal the US presidential election, and the inability of Mueller to find evidence with which to accuse Trump of obstruction of justice, Russiagate has achieved all of its purposes.

Trump has been locked into a hostile relationship with Russia. Neoconservatives have succeeded in worsening this hostile relationship by manipulating Trump into a blatant criminal attempt to overthrow in broad daylight the Venezuelan government.

Hillary’s criminal conduct and the criminal conduct of the CIA, FBI, and Obama Justice (sic) Department that resulted in a variety of felonies, including the FBI obtaining spy warrants for partisan political purposes on false pretexts from the FISA court, were swept out of sight by the Russiagate hoax.

The Mueller report was written in such a way that despite the absence of any evidence supporting any indictment of Trump, the report refused to clear Trump of obstruction and passed the buck to the Attorney General. In other words, Mueller in the absence of any evidence kept the controversy going by setting up Attorney General Barr for cover-up charges.

It is evidence of Mueller’s corruption that he does not explain just how it is possible for Trump to possibly have obstructed justice when Mueller states in his report that the crime he was empowered to investigate could not be found. How does one obstruct the investigation of a crime that did not occur?

As Kunstler puts it, “The Special Prosecutor’s main bit of mischief, of course, was his refusal to reach a conclusion on the obstruction of justice charge. What the media refuses to accept and make clear is that a prosecutor’s failure to reach a conclusion is exactly the same thing as an inability to make a case, and it was a breach of Mr. Mueller’s duty to dishonestly present that failure as anything but that in his report — and possibly an act of criminal prosecutorial misconduct” on Mueller’s part.

But this is not the only dishonesty in Mueller’s report. Although Mueller’s report clearly obliterates the Russiagate conspiracy theory peddled by the military/security complex, the Democrats, and the presstitutes, Mueller’s report takes for granted that Russia interfered in the election but not in collusion with Trump or Trump officials. Mueller states this interference as if it were a fact without providing one drop of evidence. Indeed, nowhere in the report, or anywhere else, is there any evidence of Russian interference.

Mueller simply takes Russian interference for granted as if endless repeating by a bunch of presstitutes makes it so. For example, the Mueller report says that the Russians hacked the DNC emails, a claim for which no evidence exists. Moreover, it is a claim that is contradicted by the known evidence. William Binney and other experts have demonstrated that the DNC emails were, according to their time stamps, downloaded much more quickly than is possible over the Internet. This fact has been carefully ignored by Mueller, the Democrats and the presstitutes.

One reason for ignoring this undisputed fact is that they all want to get Julian Assange, and the public case concocted against Assange is that Assange is in cahoots with the Russians who allegedly gave him the hacked emails. As there is no evidence that Russia hacked the emails and as Assange has said Russia is not the source, what is Mueller’s evidence? Apparently, Mueller’s evidence is his own political indictment of Russian individuals who Mueller alleged hacked the DNC computers. This false indictment for which there is no evidence was designed by Mueller to poison the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin and announced on the eve of the meeting.

Indictments do not require evidence, and Mueller had none. Moreover, Mueller could not possibly know the identities of the Russian intelligence agents who allegedly did the hacking. This was of no concern to Mueller. He knew he needed no evidence, because he knew there would be no trial. The indictment was political propaganda, not real.

The myth of Russian interference is so well established that even Glenn Greenwald in his otherwise careful and correct exposition of the Russiagate hoax buys into Russian interference as if it were a fact. Indeed, many if not most of Trump’s supporters are ready to blame Russia for trying, but failing, to ensnare their man Trump.

The falsity of Russiagate and the political purposes of the hoax are completely obvious, but even Trump supporters tip their hats to the falsehood of Russian interference so that they do not look guilty of excessive support for Trump. In other words, Russiagate has succeeded in constraining how far Trump’s supporters can go in defending him, especially if he has any remaining intent to reduce tensions with Russia.

Russiagate has succeeded in criminalizing in the American mind any contact with Russia. Thus has the military/security complex guaranteed that its budget and power will not be threatened by any move toward peace between nuclear powers.

The Democratic Party and the presstitutes cannot be bothered by facts. They are committed to getting Trump regardless of the facts. And so is Mueller, and Brennan, and Comey, and a slew of other corrupt public officials.

A good example of journalistic misconduct is James Risen writing in Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept of all places, “WILLIAM BARR MISLED EVERYONE ABOUT THE MUELLER REPORT. NOW DEMOCRATS ARE CALLING FOR HIS RESIGNATION.” Quoting the same posse of “hang Trump high” Democrats, Risen, without questioning their disproven lies, lets the Democrats build a case that Mueller’s report proves Trump’s guilt. Then Risen himself misrepresents the report in support of the Democrats. He says there is a huge difference between Barr’s memo on the report and the report itself as if Barr would misrepresent a report that he is about to release.

Length is the only difference between the memo and the report. This doesn’t stop Risen from writing: “In fact, the Mueller report makes it clear that a key reason Mueller did not seek to prosecute Trump for obstruction was a longstanding Justice Department legal opinion saying that the Justice Department can’t indict a sitting president.” This is something Mueller threw in after saying he didn’t have the evidence to indict Trump. It is yet another reason for not indicting, not the reason. Risen then backs up his misreport with that of a partisan Democrat, Renato Mariotti who claims that Mueller could have indicted Trump except it is against US Justice Department policy. Again, there is no explanation from Risen, Mariotti, or anyone else how Mueller could have indicted Trump for obstructing what Mueller concludes was a crime that did not happen.

Just as Mueller indicted Russian intelligence agents without evidence, he could have indicted Trump without evidence, but a case against a president that is without evidence is not one a prosecutor wants to take to court as it is obviously an act of sedition.

That the Democrats and the presstitutes want Trump indicted for obstructing a crime that did not occur shows how insane they have been driven by their hatred of Trump. What is operating in the Democratic Party and in the American media is insanity and hatred. Nothing else.

Risen also alleges that the unproven Russian hacks were passed over by Barr in his memo on the report. Not only is this incorrect, but also Risen apparently has forgot that the investigation was about Trump’s collusion with Russia to do something illegal and the investigation found that no such thing occurred. Risen, like the rest of the presstitutes and even Greenwald himself, takes for granted that the unproven Russian hacks happened. Again we see that the longer a lie is repeated the more it becomes true. Not even Greenwald can detect that he has been bamboozled.

At one time James Risen was an honest reporter. He won a Pulitzer prize, and he was threatened with prison by the Department of Justice when he refused to reveal his source for his reporting on illegal actions of the CIA. But Risen discovered that in the new world of journalism, telling the truth is punished while lying is rewarded. Risen, like all the others, decided that his income was more important than the truth.

Journalists who lie for the Establishment have no need of the First Amendment. Perhaps this is why they have no concern that Washington’s attack on Julian Assange will destroy the First Amendment. They are helping Washington destroy Assange so that their self-esteem will no longer be threatened by the fact that there is a real journalist out there doing real journalism.

Why are most planes painted white?

The Reasons Are Scientific and Economical.

Why Are Most Planes White?
Joanie Faletto

White airplanes are the norm. (Save for the rebellious Southwest, but we digress.) This color conformity isn't without reason. Science and economics provide plenty of solid reasons why your airplane shouldn't look like a kaleidoscope. Too bad.

It's Gettin' Hot in Herre

The main reason for snow white planes? Thermal science. MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics professor R. John Hansman told Business Insider that the color best reflects sunlight, which keeps the cabin of the craft cool (kind of like how long white clothing is your best bet in the desert). Shielding the plane's plastic parts (usually the nose cone) and composite materials from the sun is especially important. White paint also lets potentially dangerous solar radiation bounce right off. Think of white paint like airplane sunblock.

According to a 2011 study published in Human-Wildlife Interactions, birds appreciate a bright white plane in the sky too. The study, conducted by researchers from Purdue University and the National Wildlife Research Center, found that white airplanes experienced fewer bird collisions than deep blue and light blues planes. This research suggests that our feathered friends can most easily pick white planes out of the sky, and swerve accordingly.

The white paint helps humans visually too. It's not a matter of collision though, thank goodness. The whiteness makes cracks, dings, and divots stick out like a sore thumb to the human eye. And, you know, being able to detect damage on an aircraft is kind of important.

Show Me the Money

Science is one half of the white plane story, and economics makes up the other. Even airlines gotta save that dough where they can, okay? When it takes 65 gallons of paint to coat a single airplane, you need to be smart about what you're doing. White is a standard, cheap color: simple as that. If you did want to get funky with your plane (you do have an airplane, right?), whatever color you chose to paint it will oxidize and basically fade to white over time anyway. To keep it nice and brightly colored would require more painting more often — which, of course, means more money.

Here's a radical idea: No paint. Nothin' but raw metal fuselage slicing through the clouds, baby. That's been thought about too, sorry. Polishing an airplane actually requires more maintenance, thus more time and money, than a painted one. Go figure. And just in case this actually applies to you, white planes will also sell quicker than colored or unpainted planes.

Anna's love & marriage to Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the summer of 1865, just after he began writing Crime and Punishment, the greatest novelist of all time hit rock bottom. Recently widowed and bedeviled by epilepsy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821–February 9, 1881) had cornered himself into an impossible situation.

Anna Dostoyevskaya on the Secret to a Happy Marriage
From Brain Pickings by Maria Popova

In the summer of 1865, just after he began writing Crime and Punishment, the greatest novelist of all time hit rock bottom. Recently widowed and bedeviled by epilepsy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821–February 9, 1881) had cornered himself into an impossible situation. After his elder brother died, Dostoyevsky, already deeply in debt on account of his gambling addiction, had taken upon himself the debts of his brother’s magazine. Creditors soon came knocking on his door, threatening to send him to debtors’ prison. (A decade earlier, he had narrowly escaped the death penalty for reading banned books and was instead exiled, sentenced to four years at a Siberian labor camp — so the prospect of being imprisoned was unbearably terrifying to him.) In a fit of despair, he agreed to sell the rights to an edition of his collected works to his publisher, a man named Fyodor Stellovsky, for the sum of his debt — 3,000 rubles, or around $80,000 in today’s money. As part of the deal, he would also have to produce a new novel of at least 175 pages by November 13 of the following year. If he failed to meet the deadline, he would lose all rights to his work, which would be transferred to Stellovsky for perpetuity.

Only after signing the contract did Dostoyevsky find out that it was his publisher, a cunning exploiter who often took advantage of artists down on their luck, who had purchased the promissory notes of his brother’s debt for next to nothing, using two intermediaries to bully Dostoyevsky into paying the full amount. Enraged but without recourse, he set out to fulfill his contract. But he was so consumed with finishing Crime and Punishment that he spent most of 1866 working on it instead of writing The Gambler, the novel he had promised Stellovsky. When October rolled around, Dostoyevsky languished at the prospect of writing an entire novel in four weeks.

His friends, concerned for his well-being, proposed a sort of crowdsourcing scheme — Dostoyevsky would come up with a plot, they would each write a portion of the story, and he would then only have to smooth over the final product. But, a resolute idealist even at his lowest low, Dostoyevsky thought it dishonorable to put his name on someone else’s work and refused.

There was only one thing to do — write the novel, and write it fast.

On October 15, he called up a friend who taught stenography, seeking to hire his best pupil. Without hesitation, the professor recommended a young woman named Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. (Stenography, in that era, was a radical innovation and its mastery was so technically demanding that of the 150 students who had enrolled in Anna’s program, 125 had dropped out within a month.)

Twenty-year-old Anna, who had taken up stenography shortly after graduating from high school hoping to become financially independent by her own labor, was thrilled by the offer — Dostoyevsky was her recently deceased father’s favorite author, and she had grown up reading his tales. The thought of not only meeting him but helping him with his work filled her with joy.

The following day, she presented herself at Dostoyevsky’s house at eleven-thirty, “no earlier and no later,” as Dostoyevsky had instructed — a favorite expression of his, bespeaking his stringency. Distracted and irritable, he asked her a series of questions about her training. Although she answered each of them seriously and almost dryly, so as to appear maximally businesslike, he somehow softened over the course of the conversation. By the early afternoon, they had begun their collaboration on the novel — he, dictating; she, writing in stenographic shorthand, then transcribing at home at night.

For the next twenty-five days, Anna came to Dostoyevsky’s house at noon and stayed until four. Their dictating sessions were punctuated by short breaks for tea and conversation. With each day, he grew kinder and warmer toward her, and eventually came to address her by his favorite term of endearment, “golubchik” — Russian for “little dove.” He cherished her seriousness, her extraordinary powers of sympathy, how her luminous spirit dissipated even his darkest moods and lifted him out of his obsessive thoughts. She was touched by his kindness, his respect for her, how he took a genuine interest in her opinions and treated her like a collaborator rather than hired help. But neither of them was aware that this deep mutual affection and appreciation was the seed of a legendary love.

In her altogether spectacular memoir of marriage, Dostoevsky Reminiscences (public library), Anna recounts a prescient exchange that took place during one of their tea breaks:

    Each day, chatting with me like a friend, he would lay bare some unhappy scene from his past. I could not help being deeply touched at his accounts of the difficulties from which he had never extricated himself, and indeed could not.

    […]

    Fyodor Mikhailovich always spoke about his financial straits with great good nature. His stories, however, were so mournful that on one occasion I couldn’t restrain myself from asking, “Why is it, Fyodor Mikhailovich, that you remember only the unhappy times? Tell me instead about how you were happy.”

    “Happy? But I haven’t had any happiness yet. At least, not the kind of happiness I always dreamed of. I am still waiting for it.”

Little did either of them know that he was in the presence of that happiness at that very moment. In fact, Anna, in her characteristic impulse for dispelling the darkness with light, advised him to marry again and seek happiness in family. She recounts the conversation:

    “So you think I can marry again?” he asked. “That someone might consent to become my wife? What kind of wife shall I choose then — an intelligent one or a kind one?”

    “An intelligent one, of course.”

    “Well, no… if I have the choice, I’ll pick a kind one, so that she’ll take pity on me and love me.”

    While we were on the theme of marriage, he asked me why I didn’t marry myself. I answered that I had two suitors, both splendid people and that I respected them both very much but did not love them — and that I wanted to marry for love.

    “For love, without fail,” he seconded me heartily. “Respect alone isn’t enough for a happy marriage!”

Their last dictation took place on November 10. With Anna’s instrumental help, Dostoyevsky had accomplished the miraculous — he had finished an entire novel in twenty-six days. He shook her hand, paid her the 50 rubles they had agreed on — about $1,500 in today’s money — and thanked her warmly.

The following day, Dostoyevsky’s forty-fifth birthday, he decided to mark the dual occasion by giving a celebratory dinner at a restaurant. He invited Anna. She had never dined at a restaurant and was so nervous that she almost didn’t go — but she did, and Dostoyevsky spent the evening showering her with kindnesses.

But when the elation of the accomplishment wore off, he suddenly realized that his collaboration with Anna had become the light of his life and was devastated by the prospect of never seeing her again. Anna, too, found herself sullen and joyless, her typical buoyancy weighed down by an acute absence. She recounts:

    I had grown so accustomed to that merry rush to work, the joyful meetings and the lively conversations with Dostoyevsky, that they had become a necessity to me. All my old activities had lost their interest and seemed empty and futile.

Unable to imagine his life without her, Dostoyevsky asked Anna if she would help him finish Crime and Punishment. On November 20, exactly ten days after the end of their first project, he invited her to his house and greeted her in an unusually excited state. They walked to his study, where he proceeded to propose marriage in the most wonderful and touching way.

Dostoyevsky told Anna that he would like her opinion on a new novel he was writing. But as soon as he began telling her the plot, it became apparent that his protagonist was a very thinly veiled version of himself, or rather of him as he saw himself — a troubled artist of the same age as he, having survived a harsh childhood and many losses, plagued by an incurable disease, a man “gloomy, suspicious; possessed of a tender heart … but incapable of expressing his feelings; an artist and a talented one, perhaps, but a failure who had not once in his life succeeded in embodying his ideas in the forms he dreamed of, and who never ceased to torment himself over that fact.” But the protagonist’s greatest torment was that he had fallen desperately in love with a young woman — a character named Anya, removed from reality by a single letter — of whom he felt unworthy; a gentle, gracious, wise, and vivacious girl whom he feared he had nothing to offer.

Only then did it dawn on Anna that Dostoyevsky had fallen in love with her and that he was so terrified of her rejection that he had to feel out her receptivity from behind the guise of fiction.

Is it plausible, Dostoyevsky asked her, that the alleged novel’s heroine would fall in love with its flawed hero? She recounts the words of literature’s greatest psychological writer:

    “What could this elderly, sick, debt-ridden man give a young, alive, exuberant girl? Wouldn’t her love for him involve a terrible sacrifice on her part? And afterwards, wouldn’t she bitterly regret uniting her life with his? And in general, would it be possible for a young girl so different in age and personality to fall in love with my artist? Wouldn’t that be psychologically false? That is what I wanted to ask your opinion about, Anna Grigoryevna.”

    “But why would it be impossible? For if, as you say, your Anya isn’t merely an empty flirt and has a kind, responsive heart, why couldn’t she fall in love with your artist? What if he is poor and sick? Where’s the sacrifice on her part, anyway? If she really loves him, she’ll be happy, too, and she’ll never have to regret anything!”

    I spoke with some heat. Fyodor Mikhailovich looked at me in excitement. “And you seriously believe she could love him genuinely, and for the rest of her life?”

    He fell silent, as if hesitating. “Put yourself in her place for a moment,” he said in a trembling voice. “Imagine that this artist — is me; that I have confessed my love to you and asked you to be my wife. Tell me, what would you answer?”

    His face revealed such deep embarrassment, such inner torment, that I understood at long last that this was not a conversation about literature; that if I gave him an evasive answer I would deal a deathblow to his self-esteem and pride. I looked at his troubled face, which had become so dear to me, and said, “I would answer that I love you and will love you all my life.”

    I won’t try to convey the words full of tenderness and love that he said to me then; they are sacred to me. I was stunned, almost crushed by the immensity of my happiness and for a long time I couldn’t believe it.

Fyodor and Anna were married on February 15, 1867, and remained besotted with one another until Dostoyevsky’s death fourteen years later. Although they suffered financial hardship and tremendous tragedy, including the death of two of their children, they buoyed each other with love. Anna took it upon herself to lift the family out of debt by making her husband Russia’s first self-published author. She studied the book market meticulously, researched vendors, masterminded distribution plans, and turned Dostoyevsky into a national brand. Today, many consider her Russia’s first true businesswoman. But beneath her business acumen was the same tender, enormous heart that had made loving room within itself for a brilliant man with all of his demons.

Anna Dostoyevskaya by Laura Callaghan from The Who, the What, and the When

In the afterword to her memoir, Anna reflects on the secret to their deep and true marriage — one of the greatest loves in the history of creative culture:

    Throughout my life it has always seemed a kind of mystery to me that my good husband not only loved and respected me as many husbands love and respect their wives, but almost worshipped me, as though I were some special being created just for him. And this was true not only at the beginning of our marriage but through all the remaining years of it, up to his very death. Whereas in reality I was not distinguished for my good looks, nor did I possess talent nor any special intellectual cultivation, and I had no more than a secondary education. And yet, despite all that, I earned the profound respect, almost the adoration of a man so creative and brilliant.

    This enigma was cleared up for me somewhat when I read V.V. Rozanov’s note to a letter of Strakhov dated January 5, 1890, in his book Literary Exiles. Let me quote:

    “No one, not even a ‘friend,’ can make us better. But it is a great happiness in life to meet a person of quite different construction, different bent, completely dissimilar views who, while always remaining himself and in no wise echoing us nor currying favor with us (as sometimes happens) and not trying to insinuate his soul (and an insincere soul at that!) into our psyche, into our muddle, into our tangle, would stand as a firm wall, as a check to our follies and our irrationalities, which every human being has. Friendship lies in contradiction and not in agreement! Verily, God granted me Strakhov as a teacher and my friendship with him, my feelings for him were ever a kind of firm wall on which I felt I could always lean, or rather rest. And it won’t let you fall, and it gives warmth.”

    In truth, my husband and I were persons of “quite different construction, different bent, completely dissimilar views.” But we always remained ourselves, in no way echoing nor currying favor with one another, neither of us trying to meddle with the other’s soul, neither I with his psyche nor he with mine. And in this way my good husband and I, both of us, felt ourselves free in spirit.

    Fyodor Mikhailovich, who reflected so much in so much solitude on the deepest problems of the human heart, doubtless prized my non-interference in his spiritual and intellectual life. And therefore he would sometimes say to me, “You are the only woman who ever understood me!” (That was what he valued above all.) He looked on me as a rock on which he felt he could lean, or rather rest. “And it won’t let you fall, and it gives warmth.”

    It is this, I believe, which explains the astonishing trust my husband had in me and in all my acts, although nothing I ever did transcended the limits of the ordinary. It was these mutual attitudes which enabled both of us to live in the fourteen years of our married life in the greatest happiness possible for human beings on earth.

Emotional Intelligence

You’re taught about history, science, and math when you’re growing up. Most of us, however, aren’t taught how to identify or deal with our own emotions, or the emotions of others. These skills can be valuable, but you’ll never get them in a classroom.

Emotional Intelligence: The Social Skills You Weren't Taught in School
From Lifehacker by Eric Ravenscraft

You’re taught about history, science, and math when you’re growing up. Most of us, however, aren’t taught how to identify or deal with our own emotions, or the emotions of others. These skills can be valuable, but you’ll never get them in a classroom.

Emotional intelligence is a shorthand that psychological researchers use to describe how well individuals can manage their own emotions and react to the emotions of others. People who exhibit emotional intelligence have the less obvious skills necessary to get ahead in life, such as managing conflict resolution, reading and responding to the needs of others, and keeping their own emotions from overflowing and disrupting their lives. In this guide, we’ll look at what emotional intelligence is, and how to develop your own.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Measuring emotional intelligence is relatively new in the field of psychology, only first being explored in the mid-80s. Several models are currently being developed, but for our purposes, we’ll examine what’s known as the “mixed model,” developed by psychologist Daniel Goleman. The mixed model has five key areas:

    Self-awareness: Self-awareness involves knowing your own feelings. This includes having an accurate assessment of what you’re capable of, when you need help, and what your emotional triggers are.
    Self-management: This involves being able to keep your emotions in check when they become disruptive. Self-management involves being able to control outbursts, calmly discussing disagreements, and avoiding activities that undermine you like extended self-pity or panic.
    Motivation: Everyone is motivated to action by rewards like money or status. Goleman’s model, however, refers to motivation for the sake of personal joy, curiosity, or the satisfaction of being productive.
    Empathy: While the three previous categories refer to a person’s internal emotions, this one deals with the emotions of others. Empathy is the skill and practice of reading the emotions of others and responding appropriately.
    Social skills: This category involves the application of empathy as well as negotiating the needs of others with your own. This can include finding common ground with others, managing others in a work environment, and being persuasive.

You can read a bit more about these different categories here. The order of these emotional competencies isn’t all that relevant, as we all learn many of these skills simultaneously as we grow. It’s also important to note that, for our purposes, we’ll only be using this as a guide. Emotional intelligence isn’t an area that most people receive formal training in. We’ll let psychologists argue over the jargon and models, but for now let’s explore what each of these mean and how to improve them in your own life.

Self-Awareness

Before you can do anything else here, you have to know what your emotions are. Improving your self-awareness is the first step to identifying any problem area you’re facing. Here are some ways to improve your self-awareness:

• Keep a journal: Career skill blog recommends starting by keeping a journal of your emotions . At the end of every day, write down what happened to you, how you felt, and how you dealt with it. Periodically, look back over your journal and take note of any trends, or any time you overreacted to something.
• Ask for input from others: As we’ve talked about before when dealing with your self-perception, input from others can be invaluable . Try to ask multiple people who know you well where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Write down what they say, compare what they say to each other and, again, look for patterns. Most importantly, don’t argue with them. They don’t have to be correct. You’re just trying to gauge your perception from another’s point of view.
• Slow down (or meditate): Emotions have a habit of getting the most out of control when we don’t have time to slow down or process them . The next time you have an emotional reaction to something, try to pause before you react (something the internet makes easier than ever, if you’re communicating online). You can also try meditating to slow your brain down and give your emotional state room to breathe.

If you’ve never practiced intentional self-awareness, these tips should give you a practical head start. One strategy I personally use is to go on long walks or have conversations with myself discussing what’s bothering me. Often, I’ll find that the things I say to the imaginary other end of the conversation can give me some insight into what’s really bugging me. The important aspect is to look inwards, rather than focusing solely on external factors.

Self-Management

Once you know how your emotions work, you can start figuring out how to handle them. Proper self-management means controlling your outbursts, distinguishing between external triggers and internal over-reactions, and doing what’s best for your needs.

One key way to manage your emotions is to change your sensory input. You’ve probably heard the old advice to count to ten and breathe when you’re angry. Speaking as someone who’s had plenty of overwhelming issues with depression and anger, this advice is usually crap (though if it works for you, more power to you). However, giving your physical body a jolt can break the cycle. If you’re feeling lethargic, do some exercise. If you’re stuck in an emotional loop, give yourself a “snap out of it” slap. Anything that can give a slight shock to your system or break the existing routine can help.

Lifehacker alum Adam Dachis also recommends funneling emotional energy into something productive. It’s alright to let overwhelming emotions stew inside you for a moment, if it’s not an appropriate time to let them out. However, when you do, rather than vent it on something futile, turn it into motivation instead:

I recently started playing tennis for fun, knowing that I’d never become exceptional because I began too late in life. I’ve become better and have a very minor talent for the game, so when I play poorly I now know and I get down on myself. When up against an opponent with far more skill I find it hard to do much else than get angry. Rather than let that anger out, I take note of it and use it to fuel my desire to practice more. Whether in sports, work, or everyday life, we can get complacent with our skill and forget that we always have some room for improvement. When you start to get mad, get better instead.

You can’t always control what makes you feel a certain way, but you can always control how you react. If you have some impulse control problems, find ways to get help when you’re feeling calm. Not all emotions can be vented away. My struggle with depression taught me that some emotions persist long after the overflow. However, there’s always a moment when those feelings feel a little less intense. Use those moments to seek help.

Motivation

We talk about motivation a lot . When we’re talking about motivation as it relates to emotional intelligence, however, we don’t just mean getting up the energy to go to work. We’re talking about your inner drive to accomplish something. That drive isn’t just some feel-goody nonsense, either. As Psychology today explains, there’s a section of your prefrontal cortex that lights up at the mere thought of achieving a meaningful goal.

Whether your goal is building a career, raising a family, or creating some kind of art, everyone has something they want to do with their life.When your motivation is working for you, it connects with reality in tangible ways. Want to start a family? Motivated people will start dating. Want to improve your career? Motivated people will educate themselves, apply for new jobs, or angle for a promotion.

Daniel Goleman suggests that in order to start making use of that motivation, you first need to identify your own values. Many of us are so busy that we don’t take the time to examine what our values really are. Or worse, we’ll do work that directly contradicts what we value for so long that we lose that motivation entirely.

Unfortunately, we can’t give you the answer for what it is you want in life, but there are lots of strategies you can try . Use your journal to find times when you’ve felt fulfilled. Create a list of things you value. Most of all, accept the uncertainty in life and just build something. Fitness instructor Michael Mantell, Ph.D suggests that using lesser successes you know you can accomplish. Remember, everyone who’s accomplished something you want to achieve did it slowly, over time.

Empathy

Your emotions are only one half of all your relationships. It’s the half you focus on the most, sure, but that’s only because you hang out with yourself every day. All the other people that matter to you have their own set of feelings, desires, triggers, and fears. Empathy is your most important skill for navigating your relationships . Empathy is a life-long skill, but here are some tips you can use to practice empathy:

• Shut up and listen: We’re gonna start with the hardest one here, because it’s the most important. You can’t experience everyone else’s lives to fully understand them, but you can listen. Listening involves letting someone else talk and then not countering what they say. It means putting aside your preconceptions or skepticism for a bit and allowing the person you’re talking to a chance to explain how they feel. Empathy is hard, but virtually every relationship you have can be improved at least marginally by waiting at least an extra ten seconds before you retake the conversation.
• Take up a contrary position to your own: One of the quickest ways to solidify an opinion in your mind is to argue in favor of it. To counter this, take up a contrary position. If you think your boss is being unreasonable, try defending their actions in your head. Would you find their actions reasonable if you were in their shoes? Even asking the questions of yourself can be enough to start empathizing with another’s point of view (though, of course, getting real answers from others can always help).
• Don’t just know, try to understand: Understanding is key to having empathy. As we’ve discussed before, understanding is the difference between knowing something and truly empathizing with it. If you catch yourself saying, “I know, but,” a lot, take that as an indicator that you should pause a bit more. When someone tells you about an experience that’s not your own, take some time to mull over how your life might be different if you experienced that on a daily basis. Read about it until it clicks. It’s okay if you don’t spend all your time devoted to someone else’s life, but putting in just some time—even if it’s idle thought time while you work—can be beneficial.

By definition , empathy means getting in the emotional dirt with someone else. Allowing their experiences to resonate with your own and responding appropriately. It’s okay to offer advice or optimism, but empathy also requires that you wait for the right space to do that. If someone’s on the verge of tears, or sharing some deep pain, don’t make light of it and don’t try to minimize the hurt. Be mindful of how they must feel and allow them space to feel it.

Social Skills

Summing up all social skills in one section of an article would do about as much justice to the topic as if we snuck in a brief explainer on astrophysics. However, the tools you develop in the other four areas will help you resolve a lot of social problems that many adults still wrestle with. As Goleman explains, your social skills affect everything from your work performance to your romantic life:

Social competence takes many forms – it’s more than just being chatty. These abilities range from being able to tune into another person’s feelings and understand how they think about things, to being a great collaborator and team player, to expertise at negotiation. All these skills are learned in life. We can improve on any of them we care about, but it takes time, effort, and perseverance. It helps to have a model, someone who embodies the skill we want to improve. But we also need to practice whenever a naturally occurring opportunity arises – and it may be listening to a teenager, not just a moment at work.

You can start with the most common form of social problems: resolving a disagreement. This is where you get to put all your skills to the test in a real-world environment. We’ve gone into this subject in-depth here , but we can summarize the basic steps:

• Identify and deal with your emotions: Whenever you have an argument with someone else, things can get heated. If someone involved is emotionally worked up, deal with that problem first. Take time apart to vent, blow off steam on your own, then return to the problem. In a work environment, this may just mean complaining to a friend before you email your boss back. In a romantic relationship, remind your partner that you care about them before criticizing.
• Address legitimate problems once you’re both calm: Once you’re in your right headspace, identify what the conflict is. Before you jump to solutions, make sure you and the other person agree on what the problems really are . Propose solutions that are mutually beneficial and be sympathetic to any concessions the other person may be unwilling to make (but be sure to stand firm on your own).
• End on a cooperative note: Whether in business or pleasure, relationships work best when everyone involved knows that they’re on the same page. Even if you can’t end on a positive note, make sure that the last intention you communicate is a cooperative one. Let your boss/coworker/significant other know that you want to work towards the same goal, even if you have different views.

Not every type of interaction with another person will be a conflict, of course. Some social skills just involve meeting new people , socializing with people of different mindsets , or just playing games . However, resolving conflict can be one of the best ways to learn how to apply your emotional skills. Disputes are best resolved when you know what you want, can communicate it clearly, understand what someone else wants, and come to favorable terms for everyone. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that this involves every other area of the emotional intelligence model.

Iodized Salt Increases IQ

Blessing in disguise!



How Iodized Salt (Accidentally) Increased the American IQ
Reuben Westmaas

Sometimes a solution to one problem solves a problem you didn't even know you had. That's especially true when the problem is a nutrient deficiency. In the 1920s, the addition of iodine to our table salt had a brain-boosting side effect.

Improving SA(L)T Scores

In the 1920s, the United States had a serious goiter problem. Goiter is painful swelling of the thyroid gland that often results in a large, visible bulge on the neck and throat. It's a very unpleasant condition, and its chief cause is iodine deficiency. Before companies began iodizing salt, the amount of iodine in your diet would have been determined almost entirely by where you live. Live by the sea? Great news: You're practically swimming in the stuff. But in the Midwest, prehistoric glaciers leached the iodine out of the soil many years ago.

In an effort to fight the growing "goiter belt" — that's seriously what they called places without a lot of iodine back in the day — salt manufacturers in the United States began adding iodine to their table salts. And the goiter problem was solved almost overnight. But something else changed, too. According to a report released in 2013, the average IQ of people in iodine-poor areas increased by 15 points as a direct result.
Iodine on Your Mind

Working on a hunch that intellectual disabilities could be tied to iodine deficiency, James Feyrer, David Weil, and Dimitra Politi examined military records of recruits born in the 1920s. They weren't able to examine the actual test scores, but they found a workaround. Back then, the recruits with higher scores were sent to the Air Force, and the ones with lower scores joined the ground forces. By comparing WWI-era goiter rates and test results with those from WWII, they could see a clear connection between a reliable source of iodine and a rising average IQ.

US shifts to open coercion & manipulation of ICC

The US has always kept international judicial bodies on a short leash but did it quietly. Now, the mask has slipped, experts told RT after an International Criminal Court judge resigned over threats from Washington. 

Judge Christoph Fluegge had to leave the UN-run International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague last week after the United States reportedly threatened judicial staff who were inquiring about alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

Fluegge, a career international lawyer, told Die Zeit these threats would see the US imposing travel bans on judges or launching criminal investigations against them.


Trump said, "Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response."

‘Major international victory’: Trump cheers ICC decision not to probe US atrocities

RT : 12 Apr, 2019

After the International Criminal Court (ICC) declined to investigate claims of US atrocities in Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump cheered the decision but said the ICC was “illegitimate” and US and allies beyond its reach

“This is a major international victory, not only for these patriots, but for the rule of law,” the White House said in a statement, referring to the ICC decision to reject the request to investigate the actions of US military and intelligence officials in Afghanistan.

The US “holds American citizens to the highest legal and ethical standards,” and has consistently refused to join the ICC because of its “broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers,” threats to US sovereignty, and “and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate,” Trump said in a statement.

Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.

Last week, Washington canceled the entry visa of ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, saying that anyone who dared investigate US military or intelligence personnel would face the same fate. The Gambian lawyer had been conducting a preliminary investigation into claims of torture, cruelty and sexual assault by US and allied personnel in Afghanistan, dating to 2003-2004.

Bensouda had found a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan,” and was reportedly planning to open a formal investigation.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Bensouda last month to “change course” or face US sanctions, however, declaring that the US was determined to protect its troops and civilians from “living in fear of unjust prosecution for actions taken to defend our great nation.”

While Washington has pushed for the creation of ad-hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), the US voted against the establishment of the ICC in 1998, and has refused to join or submit to its authority after the court was officially created in 2002.

The US has held itself above international law for decades. In 1986, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled that Washington had violated international law by supporting the Contras in Nicaragua. The US refused to participate in the proceedings and blocked the enforcement of the judgment in the UN Security Council.

What makes the pressure on ICC different than in the past, UK journalist Neil Clark told RT recently, is that "interference and attacks are now in the open," whereas in the past they would be confined to back channels and low-key intrigue.

“You know, it's the empire with its mask off,” said Clark.

When soft power doesn't work, the hard one comes into play, he explained. "A judge in my case was threatened by Americans working there that if certain passages in the judgement acquitting the general I was defending were not removed he would face physical problems."

This is the type of gangsterism they use to get their way in these tribunals.

Both analysts said Washington used the ICC rulings to hammer down defiant regimes all around the world, including in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda or Sierra Leone. That aside, there were instances of ICC decisions disrupting peace efforts in some of the worst conflicts, Clark added.

Back in 2011, the journalist recalled, deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi tried to set up negotiations with the armed opposition. Only one day later, "the ICC Prosecutor sought an arrest warrant against Gaddafi and his son and intelligence chief for crimes against humanity, therefore sabotaging any hopes for a peaceful resolution."

He found it conspicuous that the warrant followed attempts by the Libyan regime to negotiate with the rebels and seek to end the war, which "could save so many lives." Gaddafi was then murdered by a mob of rebels and Libya, once a vibrant North African country, descended into chaos.

"It goes way back. Ever since the international courts and bodies have been established, the US has tried to interfere and to use them for political purposes," Clark said.

For his part, Black said claims that the US is bringing international justice bodies to heel are not unfounded.

Incidentally, Judge Fluegge has been the one who voiced dissenting opinions during the controversial trials by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He repeatedly refused to admit genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian forces in Srebrenica, having been removed from a number of proceedings.

Critics of the ICTY pointed out that most of those indicted were Serbs or Montenegrins, and many have seen this as reflecting bias against former Yugoslav leadership.

Likewise, the ICC "have only gone after certain African leaders who stand in the way of EU or US interests," Black noticed, while "war criminals like [Rwandan president] Paul Kagame and [former president of Uganda] Yoweri Museveni who have killed millions of people are protected." 

Out of the people who have been indicted by The Hague-based court, "an incredibly high percentage … have been black African leaders who have not been the allies of the US," Clark said. "If you're a black African leader who doesn't do what the US [wants to do], you'll be before the ICC. If you're a white, European, Israeli or whatever, you won't be in front of it."

The US and Israel, "two of the biggest culprits of international law," disregard the ICC jurisdiction, the British journalist repeated. It raises big questions about the international justice system where "the worst transgressors of international law are not being put up before the court." Such system cannot have any credibility at all, Clark argued, saying "law has to be applied equally to all."