Spring Garden Street
That ' s actually the name of a street in Philadelphia where my paternal ancestors lived, but it seemed like a good title for this post. If I still had the energy to keep up the Windham County blog I would have put it there, but for now I ' ll just leave it here.Living in the temperate zone we do have to get through the winter, but our reward is spring, which you can ' t have otherwise. I got a load of horseshit from my neighbors last fall and now I ' m starting to spread it around. I planted a Concord grape next to my front porch, with a decent scoop of manure in the hole, and my idea is that it will grow up the column an...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 16, 2024 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: My apologies
This endless yammering is totally frosting my pumpkin. I ' m not sure what to do about it, however, because these chapters are long and it seems like an awful lot to do two of them at once. But what the hell, we have to get this over with. In Ch. 15, Eliphaz castigates Job for complaining to God, basically, and just says, as MacLeish translates it, " In Adam ' s fall we sinned all/We ' re like the flies the creep and crawl/Across the dusty windowpanes, " IIRC, or something like that. In Ch. 16, Job essentially adds the would-be comforters to his afflictions, which is fair enough. What Job doesn ' t know, however, is that t...
Source: Stayin' Alive - September 27, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Thank God it's over
We have finally come to the end of Nehemiah. Just a reminder, we ' re following the order of books in the protestant Old Testament, which is different from the Tanakh. That ' s important here because we have already read the Book of Ruth, which was written later than this and comes after it in the Tanakh, although it is set in the time of the Former Prophets, specifically in the time of Judges, before the founding of the kingdom and construction of the Temple.The Book of Ruth is relevant here because it is all about the marriage of a Moabite woman and an Israelite man. This chapter, parallel to the last chapter of Ez...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 5, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Treating Hypertension with Diuretics
This article will explore the types, uses and side effects of treating hypertension with diuretics as a supplement to other ways to lower blood pressure.
Quick Summary
Diuretics are prescribed to encourage kidney function and vascular health and regulate blood pressure.
There are several forms of diuretics with possible side effects and interactions with other drugs and supplements.
Doctors often prescribe them to complement medication or a combination for effective hypertension treatment.
Treating Hypertension and More with Diuretics
Diuretics are the most common medication to manage high b...
Source: The EMT Spot - November 8, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Michael Kutryk Tags: Guides Blood Pressure Source Type: blogs
Taxes, Regulations, and Small Business in California ’s Marijuana Industry
David BoazCalifornians voted in 2016 to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. The voter initiative,Proposition 64, provided for taxes, licensing, and a county option on whether to allow marijuana businesses at all (much like the alcohol rules in my home state of Kentucky, where some counties are “dry” to this day). Libertarians applauded the advance for liberty, and mostly understood that some taxes and regulation were inevitable — what product isn’t taxed and regulated in modern America? — butwarnedthat excessive taxes and regulations could keep much of the marijuana tradein the black market.Well, ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 23, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 1st 2022
In this study, we used the recently released Infinium Mouse Methylation BeadChip to compare such epigenetic modifications in C57BL/6 (B6) and DBA/2J (DBA) mice. We observed marked differences in age-associated DNA methylation in these commonly used inbred mouse strains, indicating that epigenetic clocks for one strain cannot be simply applied to other strains without further verification. Interestingly, the CpGs with highest age-correlation were still overlapping in B6 and DBA mice and included the genes Hsf4, Prima1, Aspa, and Wnt3a. Furthermore, Hsf4, Aspa, and Wnt3a revealed highly significant age-associated DNA methyla...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 31, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Inundated with an Ideology of Death-Acceptance
Is it a challenge to advocate for greater funding for rejuvenation research, a challenge to persuade people that significantly extending healthy human life spans is possible, plausible, and potentially imminent, because we are all relentlessly taught from an early age that death is to be accepted? Our myths, our ever-rewoven heritage of stories modern and ancient, propagandize for aging and death. Our cultures are replete with tales in which longevity is a punishment, and heroes are castigated for even trying to seek a longer life. This is an interesting question: to what degree are we controlled and constrained by the exp...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 28, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Produce Cartels
Gabriella Beaumont-SmithIn July 2021, President Biden signed anexecutive order (EO) directing multiple federal agencies to take action to inject more competition into the marketplace. The EO expands regulations across multiple sectors, includingagriculture. Yet it mostlyignores how thegovernment ’s current actionsimpede competition across numerous agricultural industries, to American consumers ’ detriment.One such barrier is themarketing order—a domestic regulation that allows fruit, nut, and vegetable farmers to control how their product is sold in the United States. The current marketing order on South Texas onions...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 21, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Gabriella Beaumont-Smith Source Type: blogs
poem
Red MoonThere is a reddish moon in the morning skyRaw pink like sunburnt skinLeft too long to bake in the sunSomeone has sliced an orange in halfExposing a fleshy citric succulence With a squirt that burns the eye.The last flicker of flame before the lapse.A crimson surge before the fade to white ash.They say it ’s due to wildfiresRaging thousands of miles awayScattering all the western light.Homes and and fields and forests seared Even the vineyards in the valleys are at riskAll those grapes swelling and hissingBefore they pop like millions Of tiny moons on the verge of bursting 7/21/21 (...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - July 21, 2021 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: A complicated parable
Judges 9 is one of the longest chapters in the Bible. Were I the responsible medieval monk, I might have cut it in half, but it does tell a single story, the biography of Abimelek. (More often spelled Abimelech but this is the NIV spelling.) A point that strikes me about this, which I haven ' t seen noted in commentary, is that up until this moment secular leadership has not been hereditary. This is the book of Judges, not Kings. Yet when Abimelek claims hereditary leadership, the people go along with it, even though he has murdered all but one of his brothers. (Remember that Jerub-Baal and Gideon arethe same person.) And,...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 7, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: He seems nice
Judges 8 concludes the story of Gideon. He never does leave any Bibles in hotel rooms, but he does a couple of other things in this chapter that would probably be embarrassing to the people who do leave Bibles in hotel rooms should they actually read it. One is just the usual sadistic psychopathy, which probably explains why God likes the guy -- they ' re kindred spirits. The other, however, seems to be a serious sacrilege, a clear violation of one of the most important commandments, yet it is presented as perfectly ordinary and acceptable. I ' ll comment at the appropriate places.8 Now the Ephraimites asked Gideon, ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 4, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Sing that Thing
Deuteronomy 32 is the song we were promised in the previous chapter. It isn ' t clear if he actually sings it or if this is more a poetry slam performance. Anyway it once again summarizes the basic theological points: Yahweh chose Israel, he is specifically the God of Israel, not the God of humanity; he will reward the Israelites if they worship him properly and obey his laws, including by helping them massacre other people; when (not if, it ' s a prediction) they cease to obey him, he will torture them horribly and see to it they are murdered en masse in turn. That ' s the essential message of the Torah. I ' ve inserted a...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 7, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Well okay then
I think Deuteronomy 28 is the longest chapter in the Torah, though I haven ' t tried to confirm that. Anyway, it ' s actually an expanded version of Leviticus 26, which recites the blessings the people will receive if they obey Yahweh and the evil that will befall them if they don ' t. It even uses some of the same language; the blessing section is quite similar, but it adds a lot to the curse part. I actually do recommend that you read this, for the black comedy value. Update: After I posted this, by coincidence I learned that Flavius Josephus, in his account of the rebellion against Roman rule that culminated in the...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 21, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: More rules
Deuteronomy is probably the most tedious book of the Bible, certainly of the Torah. It ' s basically a laundry list of rules, interspersed with references to events in Exodus through Numbers, though often inaccurate. The rules range from some which seem morally salutary to modern readers, to strange in modern context, to arbitrary and ridiculous, to depraved. Chapter 24 is mostly in the contextually strange category, I would say. Fortunately we ' re getting near the end. There ' s more action in Joshua, for better or (mostly) for worse. 24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 7, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Some very strange dos and don'ts
Deuteronomy 23 is, to me, largely inexplicable.23 “He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of theLord.KJV puts this more quaintly:" He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. " Fortunately, Isaiah didn ' t go along with this: "Neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 3, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
