+ Car’s at KALTire getting FALKEN Ziex ZE-512 Tires put on. Same as what I had on when I bought the car. Great tires in the rain, decent all seasons in the snow..So I’m in my studio staining parts of some small paintings on Oak I sanded down to bare wood. I did 70 small pieces a few years ago, but have never really felt they were done. So I use them to experiment on. While in the studio I’m listening to internet radio:

dublab (click to listen) is an Internet radio station devoted to the growth of positive music and culture. What you hear on dublab crosses genres and defies classification. Unlike traditional radio, the dublab djs have total freedom of selection. You will experience many different sounds but find they all have the same soulful root. The dublab echo continues to expand across the Earth.

+ Kim has been sending me loads of RAW food links lately. Getting me curious. Here’s more or less how I’m seeing it..

Eat it Raw! Vegetarians, Vegans, Raw Foodists and more -

We all eat some raw foods, like when we snack on an apple, so this concept is not completely foreign. We all know that we should eat more fruits and vegetables each day, that is not foreign. Yet, when someone says they eat Raw Foods or are a Raw Foodist, that sends shiver down the spines of some “normal” folk.

We know that food is the basis of our being. We learn about how food can hurt us and make us sick or feel sluggish.

Raw Foodists understand the power of food. Food can protect the body. Food can repair the body. Raw Foodists eat organic, uncooked, unheated (not over 116 degrees F), and unprocessed food. Raw and living foods include whole and dried fruits, vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, sea vegetables and organic unprocessed cookies and other foods.

Cooked foods increase white blood cells in our body. Cooked food takes about twice as long for our bodies to digest.

Raw vegetables contain chlorophyll. Green vegetables including Beet Greens, Bok Choy, Collards, Dandelion Greens, Kale, Mustard Greens and Blue-Green Algae are rich in chlorophyll. Chlorophyll helps our bodies detoxify. Chlorophyll can help make our bodies strong, can purify our blood (structure is similar to hemoglobin which moves oxygen through our blood), and can help our bodies get healthy.

Chlorophyll can be easily obtained through juicing. Juicing is an important way to get vital nutrients for the raw foodist. Juicing allows us to get more fruits and vegetables, especially those in the raw state, into our diet. It is clear that we should all add more raw fruits and vegetables to our diet and Juicing is the easiest way to do that. Juicing also helps “predigest” the vegetable enabling us to use the nutrients and digest it more effectively.

Raw foods are alive with nutrients and power. Cooking destroys this living energy. Plants get minerals from the earth’s crust and energy from the sun; plants have vitamins and enzymes in their tissues. By eating raw foods we harness this powerful energy.

Raw and living foods contain enzymes that aid in digestion. These enzymes start to break down when hit with heat of even just 106 degrees F. Cooked food has less enzymes.

It’s true that cooking breaks down cell walls which does kill some enzymes and nutrients but it is also true that properly cooked (not overcooked) vegetables still contain nutrients and the cooking process actually makes it easier for more nutrients to be absorbed by our body. There are many reports which indicate that the cooking process, though killing some enzymes, actually breaks down the outer cell wall of the vegetable and therefore allows our bodies to absorb and use the enzymes (that are left). And some vegetables, like Spinach, are actually more nutritious once cooked. Lutein, for example, in spinach is more readily absorbed when cooked. Most of us are poorly overcooking our foods and therefore not enjoying the real flavor and nutritional value afforded by vegetables. We need to add more raw foods to our diet, but a balance of cooked foods (light cooking) is also important in order to capture and maximize nutrients.

No Lube Required

Originally uploaded by seanorr.

+ …..

Do Antidepressants Cure or Create Abnormal Brain States? (PLoS Medicine)

The term antidepressant refers to a drug that helps to rectify specific biological abnormalities that give rise to the symptoms of depression. This exemplifies what we have called the “disease-centred” model of psychotropic drug action [1]. Modelled on paradigmatic situations in general medicine—such as the use of insulin in diabetes, antibiotics in infectious disease, chemotherapy in cancer—the disease-centred model suggests that antidepressants help restore normal functioning by acting on the neuropathology of depression or of depressive symptoms.

In contrast, we propose in this Essay that an alternative “drug-centred” model can better explain observed drug effects in psychiatric conditions. This drug-centred model suggests that instead of relieving a hypothetical biochemical abnormality, drugs themselves cause abnormal states, which may coincidentally relieve psychiatric symptoms (Table 1). Alcohol’s disinhibiting effects may relieve symptoms of social phobia, but that does not imply that alcohol corrects a chemical imbalance underlying social phobia. Sedation may lessen high arousal, present in many acute psychiatric situations. Drugs that induce indifference, such as neuroleptics or opiates, may help reduce the distress of acute psychotic symptoms. Low-dose stimulants may help improve attention and concentration in the short term.

+

globeandmail.com: Bank of Canada eyes a lower inflation target
HEATHER SCOFFIELD

Toronto — The Bank of Canada’s 15-year-old inflation targeting regime has been successful at bringing Canadians stable prices and prosperity, but the time has come to think about overhauling that regime to suck even more inflation out of the economy, the central bank says.

Efficient inflation targeting has delivered to Canada an era of low interest rates, macroeconomic stability, protection from financial shocks and stable long-term labour contracts, the Bank of Canada boasts in a new analysis of inflation.

However, the central bank says Canadians need to consider a new inflation regime that might push price changes closer to zero — with a nod to the growing number of seniors living on a fixed income.

“Although the erosion in purchasing power is difficult to notice year by year, it can still pose a serious problem on a cumulative basis,” the bank says in a background document. “This erosion is particularly acute for those pensioners on a fixed income.”

+ Spend some time reading about how some businesses are rockin the green world:

The Eco-Advantage - Green 50 - Sustainable businesses
By: Larry Kanter

Introducing the Green 50, a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time–and make serious cash along the way.
It’s beginning to feel like a new feature of the business cycle: Every few years or so, American companies and consumers embrace the concept of green business. We’re certainly in the midst of one of those moments right now. But something seems different about our current green awakening.

This time, the action is being driven as much by markets as morality. High oil prices, global warming, the sense that chemicals cause real harm and the earth’s resources are indeed finite–these are not so much charitable causes to embrace as they are problems that entrepreneurs can solve. Wall Street and Silicon Valley certainly understand this: Venture capital firms invested $958 million in renewable energy companies in the first half of 2006 alone.

Today’s green revolution is being driven by a whole new set of entrepreneurs. We asked our staffers and contributors to find the most intriguing ones out there; then we narrowed the list to the 50 in the pages that follow–The Green 50. The range of businesses is astonishingly wide, from high-tech firms making big bets on the future of energy to decidedly low-tech concerns that are simply determined to find a different way to do business. What their efforts add up to is a new way to think about being in business. We’re betting that most of them will be around for several business cycles to come

+ An excerpt from :: SchNEWS :: DIY Guide - How to make Biodiesel. -something I will suggest to my older brother Craig, who is a skilled fabricator, among other mechanically-minded skills. He’s also just moved to a farm in the outback near Edmonton Alberta, so a big biodiesel barn must be available.

Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic. 100% biodiesel is as biodegradable as sugar and less toxic than table salt. It biodegrades up-to four times faster than petroleum diesel fuel with up-to 98% biodegradation in three weeks. However, contrary to a popular misconception, it stores indefinitely in completely full, cool, dark containers. Compared to crappy fossil fuel diesel, biodiesel has the following emissions characteristics:

* 100% reduction of net carbon dioxide
* 100% reduction of sulphur dioxide
* 40-60% reduction of soot emissions
* 10-50% reduction of carbon monoxide
* a reduction of all polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and specifically the reduction of the following carcinogenic PAHs:
* phenanthren by 97%
* benxofloroanthen by 56%
* benz-a-pyrene by 71%
* aldehydes and aromatic compounds by 13%
* 5-10% reduction of nitrous oxide depending on age and tuning of vehicle.

For every one ton of fossil fuel burnt, 3 tons of CO2 is released into the atmosphere, biodiesel only releases the CO2 that it has taken in while the plants it is made from were growing, therefore there is no negative impact on the carbon cycle.

Equipment required

* 45 gallon drum.
* 1/2 or 3/4 Hp electric motor.
* Two pulleys which produce 250 rpm and a max of 750 rpm at mixer blade.
* A belt for the above.
* 12 inch rolled steel rod.
* Two steel shelf brackets (for the blade).
* 1 1/2 inch (38mm) brass ball valve.
* A hinge and a spring to act as a belt tensioned.
* 2000-watt electric water heater element.
* A water heater thermostat.
* 1 1/2 diameter piece of steel pipe * 3-5 inches long with male threads on one end.
* Assorted tat: angle iron, wood, screws etc.

IRIN is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but its news service is editorially independent. Its reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations and its various agencies. The following is from IRINs Latest news from Southern Africa section:

Earlier this month China wrote off US$211 million owed by Zambia, as part of President Hu Jintao’s three-year aid package to Africa. China has pledged $3 billion in preferential loans and $2 billion in preferential credits over the next three years, and has set up a China-Africa development fund that will grow to $5 billion.

The aid package includes the cancellation of all interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 for least developed countries with diplomatic relations with China. The package also provides for the establishment of five economic zones, including one in Zambia.

The spinoffs for Zambia, with a population of about 10 million and only about 400,000 formal-sector jobs, would be enormous.

read more

+ From The Toronto Star

..the Assembly of First Nations, whose leader Phil Fontaine calls native poverty “the single greatest social justice issue in Canada.”

At an aboriginal festival this afternoon in Toronto, the global movement Make Poverty History will turn its spotlight on the plight of Canada’s aboriginal communities.

Canada’s Make Poverty History officials will join with the Assembly of First Nations to push Ottawa to end the despair among many of this country’s 750,000 natives.

They cite a staggering gap in living conditions between native families and their Canadian peers:

- More than four in 10 First Nations children are in need of basic dental care they cannot afford, especially in remote communities;

- Nearly 100 First Nations communities must boil their water;

- Mould contaminates almost half of First Nations households;

- While Canada at large ranked eighth on the United Nations Human Development Index, its First Nations communities on their own were placed 68th for quality of living;

- Eight out of 10 First Nations peoples have personal incomes of less than $30,000 a year;

- Compared to the Canadian average, diabetes is three to five times more common among natives, and tuberculosis eight to 10 times more common;

- 40 per cent of aboriginal children whose homes are off reserves live below the poverty line, and almost half under the age of 15 live in one-parent families.

The Make Poverty History for First Nations campaign asks Canadians to sign an online petition to urge the federal government to consider First Nations poverty a shared issue for all.

+From the online petition which I urge you to sign:

First Nations poverty is the greatest social injustice in Canada.

The First Nations Plan for Creating Opportunity is part of a national campaign to Make Poverty History for all Canadians. Sign up today to add your voice to the fight against First Nations poverty. You will join concerned individuals and organizations who are getting involved online and in communities across the country to fight poverty.

Failure to act on First Nation issues is the most significant impediment to Canada’s competitiveness in the global economy. The cost of First Nations poverty is carried not only by First Nations but by all Canadian taxpayers.

By signing, you are helping to ensure that First Nations poverty is an issue in the next federal budget and election.

The First Nations Plan is reasonable, achievable and necessary to ensure a productive and competitive Canada for all Canadians.

The AFN has been working hard to press the government for a meaningful response and commitment to move forward. Now we need your help.

Help strengthen our message by signing this online petition and doing all you can to encourage others to follow your example.

WorldNetDaily: Man grabs girl’s arm – now he’s a sex offender

A man who grabbed a 14-year-old girl’s arm to chastise her after she walked in front of his car, causing him to swerve to avoid hitting her, must register as a “sex offender,” the Appellate Court of Illinois has ruled.