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Wikileaks Afgan War Diaries Afgan War Documents

The whistle-blowing website Wikileaks is down, users have been reporting today. Repeated attempts to connect with the home page and other internal pages failed when I tried earlier this afternoon. The best I could achieve was a blank white screen.

The site’s outage comes just one day after it published over 90,000 classified pages relating to military and state department activity concerning the Afghanistan war and Pakistan. Rumors abound about the cause ranging from (likely) server overload because of the interest in the documents to (perhaps less likely) Pentagon, CIA, or NSA, interference with the site.

Many users on Twitter noted Wikileaks’ downtime:

@sethodell: Looks like @wikileaks site is completely down. Wonder if it’s due to today’s surge in traffic, or something else entirely?

@Sock_De_Jour: Wikileaks site is down. Pentagon hacking it? Or too much traffic? #p2

The website “Down For Everyone Or Just Me” confirmed the site’s outage, as did Wikileaks via its official Twitter feed.

@Wikileaks: WikiLeaks is tremendously overloaded. Please use http://bit.ly/9RlJQAless than a minute ago via bitly

However that link failed to work for me as well, resulting only in a page not found error screen.

Keep your eye on the news during the day for updates. Keith Olbermann (http://countdown.msnbc.com/) is bound to have it as his first story tonight. It will be worth a watch: 8 p.m. eastern, 7 p.m. central.

Synchronicity?

I’m fascinated by numbers. I have been for most of my life — at least as long as I can remember — and patterns in numbers, like the Fibonacci sequence tie in to my interest in unusual coincidence or synchronicity.

Wikipedia defines synchronicity as…

“…the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.”

Carl Gustav Jung is credited with the first professional studies of synchronicity in his work on the dynamics of the psyche in the 1920s but, no doubt, people have observed and wondered about the phenomenon since first becoming aware of cause and effect.

Lora and I have discussed an interesting relationship in numbers we noticed not long after first meeting. If you consider a simple number line displaying whole numbers from zero to nine:

If you select number pairs starting with zero and skipping the next number, then one, etc, like this:

02, 13, 24, and on to 79,

and then reverse the digits in the pairs, like this:

20, 31, 42, and on to 97,

you will find the difference between the respective pairs in each of the two lists is 18.

The interesting bit in all of this, to Lora and I at least, is that is the number of years between us. When she was 2 I was 20. When she was 24 I was 42. She will be 46 when I am 64.

How we stumbled upon this concept is as much a mystery as the numbers themselves and it has held our attention for nearly ten years now. We do know that the number line doesn’t work this way for everyone — for almost no one — so what, if anything, does this mean? Your comments, ideas, and suggestions will be appreciated.

Spelling? What Spelling?

The phaonmneal pewor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Dogs and Dog Lovers

Over the years I’ve had a lot of pets; mostly cats and dogs. Laddy, a sheppard-collie mix, was my constant companion as a young teen. His loss was my first experience with real grief. I’ve had other pets, too; a rabbit and a chicken when I was a young child on the farm, assorted gold fish, a few gerbils when the girls were young, but mostly cats and dogs. The cats tended to be indoor types with us in places that didn’t have yards suitable for a dog. The dogs tended to hang around when we had bigger places with yards or fields. I hate to see a dog confined to a pen, a small yard, or a chain. They’re pets, folks, not prisoners.

Cats, on the other hand, seem to do quite well in a house. As long as it has at least one warm spot in the sun and a few closets to explore, they are happy to have you keep house for them. Occasionally they even say thank you. Mostly they just let you know when they are hungry or need water, “What? You forgot? You can look at my back now!”

At the moment we have four indoor cats acquired from three different litters over a couple of years. Kiki is the oldest and definitely queen. Sammy is second and the most reserved. She lost a lot of ground after getting into something (poison?) that really didn’t agree with her. The vet thought we’d probably lose her but she pulled through and we’re glad she’s back. Molly and Polly are sisters, the youngest, and the most playful.

In my travels around the ‘net I come across lots of great sites. Here’s one that has an abundance of pet supplies for dog lovers: Dog Lover Store. Not cat stuff. Sorry. I’ll find one of those for another post. The Dog Lover Store does have an excellent selection of dog gifts, dog clothing, dog figurines and ornatments, collars, leashes, beds, dog toys, accessories, and other doggie things.

Too Fat Or Not Too Fat

I’m not a medical doctor so take what I say here with the proverbial grain of salt (though be careful you don’t get too much because salt is… well, that’s a topic for another post!)

In the last 18 months my life has changed radically… again. As many of you know I was diagnosed with diabetes so it meant an intense change in my eating habits. I listened to some of the crap being pushed by the American Diabetes Association and the certified mouth-pieces working for the doctors (the medical kind) and it just didn’t sit right with me. Something, the logical part of my brain told me, wasn’t kosher.

I’ve learned to listen to that part of by thinking apparatus and so I began doing some serious research — not in the usual places, but not with the wing-nuts, either. I found some excellent resources and I encourage you do to your own looking around. Check out Gary Taubes for starters. If you don’t find the good stuff drop me a note and I’ll point you in the right direction.

My searching shone some serious light on the whole subject of obesity (especially in children!) and diabetes. They’re linked (obesity and diabetes) of course, but not as has so long been thought. Being diabetic isn’t a “fat people’s disease”; rather both actually stem from the same underlying cause, perhaps an immune deficiency. Once we understand that so much more falls into place.

The number one external factor leading to both obesity and diabetes is high fructose corn syrup and, it actually surprised me to find this out, it is almost everywhere, in almost every processed food — it’s even being added to packaged meat! Many people who think they are watching their diet and eating well are actually doing more harm than they know.

I started looking at the ingredient and nutrition facts sections of labels on just about everything and I was shocked at what I found. Let’s take one that’s way out on the fringe if you are dieting but, none-the-less, a choice you might find yourself making.

Half and half cream is bad for you, right? But if you like it what are you to do. Well, obviously, choose fat free half and half, right? Not so fast!

Regular half and half has about 315 calories per cup and 78% of that comes from fat. That’s bad, right?

Fat free half and half has about 145 calories per cup with only about 20% of that coming from fat.

That must be better, right? Well, it’s not exactly what it seems. Never mind that fat free still means that 20% of the calories come from fat in there somewhere, there are some other interesting numbers when you look a little deeper:

Regular half and half gets only about 13% of it’s calories (about 41) from carbohydrates and has less than 1/3 of a gram of sugar per cup, but fat free half and half gets 60% of it’s calories (about 81) from carbohydrates and has a whopping 12 grams of sugar per cup! Neither, by the way, has any dietary fiber.

So, for fat free half and half that’s 81 calories from carbs with 12 grams of sugar without any fiber. That’s NOT good. Not good at all!

As a diabetic sugar is a concern. But, even more interesting is the fact that the sugar in the fat free half and half comes from one of it’s main ingredients, high fructose corn syrup. And that’s a really bad thing whether you are diabetic or not. If you are a non-diabetic trying to lose weight (or just keep weight off in the first place) these numbers are really bad. Choosing fat free can actually lead to more weight gain than choosing the high-fat product.

And, it turns out, the fat apparently isn’t as bad for you as the scare mongers and corn pushers would have you believe. If you get rid of the high fructose corn syrup and eat the right foods it turns out the fat may actually be GOOD for you!

We’re being conned, folks. Seriously conned! We need to re-think the whole calories in – calories out doctrine that’s been spoon-fed to us over the years. That spoon feeding has been more of a cause of weight gain, perhaps, and the primary cause of most dieting plans failing.

Rev. Stephen B. Henry, PhD., is a website architect, researcher, writer, philosopher, and diabetic.

Who’s Un-Patriotic Now?

Okay, I admit it. I watch the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. Considering I’ve had a life-long voting record that leans conservative you might find that strange. Maddow is, unquestioningly, a lefty. I find her take on things refreshing and, more than that, she seems to cut deeper to the truth than almost any other news show anchor or pundit. Sure, her position shows, but the facts she presents stand up to any test you care to give them. I like that.

I listened to, and generally agreed with, the position (talking points?) during the George W. Bush presidency that spoke to patriotism — you don’t criticize a war-time president publicly, you support the troops, etc. How many Democrats were regularly accused, by the Republicans, of lacking patriotism for those very reasons?

I would add to that list: politicians are generally expected to lie during a political campaign but they should turn to the truth when it comes to the business of running the country… certainly when it has to do with national security!

This is a rather long segment but, whether you lean to the right or the left, I encourage you to watch it in it’s entirety.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Makes Big

You know you’ve hit the big time when the major comics lampoon you on TV. Rachel Maddow, news anchor and pundit on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, has not only carved out a solid place for herself in the talking heads market, she has been honored by an awesome impersonation skillfully played by Tracey Ullman on her show Ullman’s State of the Union which airs Mondays at 10:30 p.m. EST on Showtime, now in its third season.

Ullman also takes a loving swipes at Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, Congressman Barney Frank, and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Ullman visited Rachel’s show to talk about her impersonations and her new American citizenship.

Blockbuster Revisited

Some time ago I wrote about the troubles we were having with our Blockbuster Video by mail account and I thought I should update the reader with what has lead to our current situation.

We continued with Blockbuster, making all the changes in our activities suggested by the supervisor who wrote to us including micro-managing our request list so that only available videos were at the top of the list (a silly requirement as anyone who understands database processing could explain!). We gave them another couple of months to see if things would improve. They didn’t. In fact, they got worse. We sometimes actually went a full week without movies.

Okay, I’m a sucker for punishment but, ultimately, we had enough. We canceled our account and signed up with Net Flix. Wow! We got our first movies in two days. Since signing up we have had all of our new movies the second day after mailing them back, e.g. we mail the movie back on Tuesday, Net Fix acknowledges receipt and mails the new movie from our list on Wednesday, and we receive it on Thursday. It’s never been longer.

We thought this must be some kind of good service given to new accounts but, after several months of the same treatment, it seems like this is S.O.P. Additionally we have been taking advantage of their “free” (no additional cost, really) view-online movies. There are a lot of ‘em and there are some great selections. Often they are the same movies available on the movie chanels on cable.

Between fast turn-around on mailings and the available selection of online movies, we are never without something to watch. At this point we are very happy with Net Flix and recommend them to anyone.

Bad Information… Again!

In an article titled Stock Your Kitchen for Diabetes Health by Jeanie Lerche Davis (reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD) on the WebMD site the truism “Healthy cooking and snacking means having the right foods on hand” is offered. The article goes on, however, to suggest a variety of foods based on the old (and now known to be incorrect) concept that fat is bad and whole grains are the basis of good health.

Some of the foods suggested are:

* Canned beans: Garbanzo, pinto, black, red kidney, navy beans.
* Whole-grain pasta.
* Grains: Brown rice, barley, oats.
* Cereals: Fiber One, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Kix.
* Diet, light, low-carb whole-wheat: bread, pancake mix, tortillas.
* Chocolate treats: Cocoa Via Crispy Chocolate Bar; Cocoa Via Chocolate Snack Bars; Cocoa Via Chocolate Blueberry Snack Bar.
* Water-packed tuna, chicken breast, and salmon (canned or pouch).
* Canola and extra-virgin olive oil and cooking sprays.
* Low-salt canned tomatoes, tomato soup, broth-based vegetable soups, V-8 juice, tomato juice, Diet V-8 Splash.
* Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop popcorn (snack-size bags).
* Ritz Chips crackers.
* Reduced-sugar jams, jellies, pancake syrups.

More than half the items on this list are, in my opinion, questionable at best. On the one hand Davis gallantly recommends “low carb” bred while, on the other, she offers brand name products loaded with carbs! Pancake mix and tortillas scare the proverbials out of me. And what’s wrong with soaking dried beans? Far less salt which, though not a problem for diabetics per se, is an issue for high blood pressure and heart disease that may well parallel a diabetic course.

The article goes on to include items for a well-stocked diabetic-friendly refrigerator:

* Fresh fruits: Berries, cherries, oranges, tangerines, peaches, grapefruit, grapes, kiwi, plums, watermelon, peaches, melons.
* Fresh vegetables: Spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, cucumber, Romaine lettuce, mushrooms, radishes, snow peas, sugar snap peas, cabbage, carrots, green beans, asparagus, garlic, tomatoes, small sweet potatoes, small russet potatoes, edamame (soy beans).
* Low-fat salad dressings.
* Low-fat dairy: 1% or 2% cheese like Baby Bell or Laughing Cow; string cheese (part-skim mozzarella); fat-free sugar-free yogurt; skim or 1% milk; I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray; Butter Buds.
* Fresh lean protein:
o Boneless skinless chicken breast
o Turkey loin
o Ground turkey white meat
o Laura’s Lean 4% fat ground beef
o Pork tenderloin
o Beef: fillet, flank steak
o Eggs
o Salmon
o Tofu
o Meat-substitute/soy products.

This list is considerably better but grapes stand out as one of several high-sugar “natural” products diabetics may need to watch and there is an obvious bias in support of the Ancel Keys doctrine of dietary fat, especially saturated fat, is BAD! We now know that the research that supported his conclusines was, at best, flawed and, at worst, fraud. He fudged and cherry-picked his results and nearly all government, medical, and food-industry positions over the last 30 years have been based on his incorrect conclusions.

New studies, and reviews of old ones, too, are suggesting that dietary fats are not only not bad for you, they are necessary and actually assist in controlling diabetes. Atkins, you win!

As we look farther along the list in the WebMD article we see recommendations for stocking a diabetes-friendly freezer:

* Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries.
* Green Giant Select:
o Broccoli florets
o Broccoli, cauliflower and carrots
o Broccoli, carrots, and water chestnuts
o Sugar snap peas
o Whole green peas
o Spinach
* Birds Eye:
o Pepper stir fry
o Sugar snap stir fry
o Seven vegetable stir fry
o Szechwan vegetables in sesame sauce
o Winter blend vegetables and cheese sauce
* Frozen lean protein: salmon, tuna, tilapia, orange roughy; Louis Rich, Butterball or Jenni-O turkey sausage; egg substitutes.
* Ground flaxseed (sprinkle over fruit, breakfast cereal, yogurt, smoothies, sandwich spreads for extra omega-3 fatty acids).

Berries are good and so are vegetables. Raw, of course, is the better choice but having some choices in the freezer is a must for many of us. The protein list is good but why the brand names? Turkey is, after all, turkey. For those of us on a budget we might just have to settle for utility grade! And egg substitutes? Give me a break. Davis obviously hasn’t read the current literature on real eggs… not the cholesterol bumpers they were once thought to be. Perhaps her company doesn’t sell eggs!

The section Spicing Up a Diabetes-Friendly Spice Rack is interesting, if limited (by imagination or, perhaps, once again brand).

* Spice rubs for meat and seafood.
* Garlic and onion powders, not salts.
* Mrs. Dash; Mr. Dash.

So now you say “not salts” — of course you don’t want extra salt since you loaded us up with canned beans at the top of your list. If you start with raw, fresh or dried, ingredients most of us can actually use salt! And, with all the brand names here I can only lead one to ask, “Company sponsored article?”

WebMD has been considered by many as a great help in an otherwise overly regulated and overly expensive arena of medical services. This single article now makes me suspicious of any content on the stie!

Rev. Stephen B. Henry, PhD., is a website architect, researcher, writer, philosopher, and diabetic.