One More Reason to Lose Weight

I told you about my knee-replacement surgery six weeks ago. I’m about 70% back to where I need to be in terms of strength and flexibility, and I’m feeling confident that I’ll get the joint back to 100% in the next month or two.

The first two weeks were very painful. The next week was somewhat better. Since then, what pain there is, is manageable.

During those first three weeks, I experienced something I’ve heard about a hundred times but never understood: cold sweats. This is when you wake up at night shivering in a puddle of perspiration. It’s an odd experience, but it had a benefit. I lost 18 pounds and I’m back to fitting in my “skinny” pants.

We’ve all heard that losing weight is helpful in lessening joint pain. As this clip explains, one of the advantages of losing weight after a knee operation is that for every pound you lose, you reduce the strain on your knees by four pounds. (And the stress on your hips by six.)

 

Briefly Noted 

* The science behind sound therapy. Click here.

* Birds: A secret weapon in your fight against anxiety. Click here.

* The Booze Effect: What happens when you stop at one glass of wine a day? Click here.

Where High Earners Are Moving 

The number of high-earning American households continues to grow. And the migration of these high earners in or out of a state can have a significant effect on tax revenues and property values.

Click here for the results of a 2023 study from Smart Asset.

 

At the Other End of the Economic Spectrum… 

61% of Americans say they’re living paycheck to paycheck. That’s the same number as last year, despite cooling inflation. Click here.

 

Woof! 

Nestle will invest $3.5B over the next three years to expand its pet nutrition operation. Pet products are the company’s fastest growing product line. The same is true for Purina and Friskies. Apparently, as we Baby Boomers shuffle off the mortal coil, we want to spend our remaining bucks spoiling our house pets. Click here.

 

Jeepers! 

A scary revenue drop for Jeep just isn’t stopping. The brand has now seen eight straight quarters of falling sales. Five years ago, Jeep was sixth among US auto sales. Now, it’s in ninth place. Click here.

 

“Unfortunate but Not Surprising 

Alas, after 99 years of growth and profits, Yellow Corp. is shutting down and letting go about 30,000 workers. In 2020, it received a $700 million loan from the federal government, but that failed to do the trick. In the last quarterly report, the company was in the red to the tune of $700 million.

From GM, re Ivermectin:

“My wife and I attended a memorial in NY for her sister who passed in May 2022 from pancreatic cancer. Her sister had been the principal of a local school in Westchester County and was a very popular figure both from the school and her involvement in charity work. Consequently, hundreds turned out for the service that was held in a large ballroom at a yacht club along the Hudson. Still, the room wasn’t large enough. Walking into the room, I commented that ‘this was a super-spreader event if ever I saw one.’ Well, just two days later, at the same time, we both came down with Omicron. Having very closely followed the entire COVID landscape for over two years, every day reading the latest medical papers, protocols, and developments, I was fully aware of the worldwide random control trials involving Ivermectin. No lie, I have at least 1,000 hours in research time on this subject. My doctor cut me off and refused to continue a conversation/ debate over many COVID-related topics. I think he realized he didn’t stand a chance. As a result of this knowledge, I secured, early on, a supply of Ivermectin which I put into our ‘drug inventory’ in the cool, dry basement. At the first sign of symptoms, I broke out the COVID tests and IVM and followed the FLCCC protocol. 

 

“My recovery time was three days and my wife’s was five. Blood type matters in COVID. I am universal O but she is A. The data has indicated that those with type A have a more serious case with more symptoms and more severe reactions. Our firsthand experience bears out the data. The one lingering aspect, after the three and five days, was an annoying dry cough for several weeks. No big deal.

“Interestingly, both IVM and Pfizer’s Paxlovid are protease inhibitors. This is the mechanism utilized by both to terminate the proliferation of the virus. Very simply, the virus dies in the presence of the inhibitor. Early treatment is key to cutting off virus replication! So, why did Pfizer bring out Paxlovid rather than allow IVM to do the work? Patent $$$! IVM is generic and safe without the now well-known rebound effect of Paxlovid. IVM received the Nobel Prize in 2015 and it may well become recognized as a miracle drug since studies show overwhelming effectiveness against cancers and other viruses such as AIDS and influenza. All this with a drug that safely allows use with a wide dosage tolerance. You can be way off on the dose without harming yourself. But, if you were to ask the FDA, NIH, or CDC, they would tell you bumpkins to stay away from that there horse dewormer! Isn’t it just great? Pfizer gets to make billions on a ‘vaccine’ (Wait… NOT really a vaccine!) and when it fails completely sell you the newly patented drug Paxlovid since they can make no $$$ on producing IVM. Gotta love it!”

My Response: Wow! The work you’ve done researching this is impressive. I wish I had the time to dig in deeper.

Funnier than Kamala Harris! 

There’s something about this guy’s accent and delivery…

Click here.

Is President Biden Reading My Blog?

On Friday,  I wrote about Navy Joan, Hunter Biden’s child that, for four years, the Biden family has never officially acknowledged. On the contrary, Hunter has been suing the mother, attempting to legally prohibit his daughter from bearing the Biden family name. Apparently, that made its way back to the First Family. Just this weekend, Navy Joan’s grandfather first acknowledged her connection to the family.

Click here.

Smart Guns Hit the Market 

After years of development and promotion, smart guns are finally on the market. In December, a brand called the Biofire Smart Gun will be widely available to US citizens from Florida to Oregon.

Smart guns aren’t AI-smart, but they do offer a feature that hasn’t been available before. They use fingerprint and facial recognition technology to identify registered owners. Nobody else can fire the gun. The gun isn’t smart enough to decide whether the owner should be using it. But in reducing the use to a single person, experts say it will lower the risk of unwanted shootings and theft.

That’s good. But couldn’t we do better?

With all the advanced technology available today, why can’t gun scientists develop smart guns that could stop bad guys in their tracks, but not kill them? What would be wrong with that?

Click here.

 

Venezuelans at the Top of Illegal Immigrant Flow to the US 

After 2.5 years of basically wide-open borders, the Biden administration has done a little tightening. Since May 12, the average number of daily illegal crossings has been around 3,360, down from about 7,100 in March.

A large number of those immigrants have been Venezuelans fleeing the economic disaster and political oppression that started when Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013) came to power in 1999. (Inflation in Venezuela is now over 400%.)

According to the WSJ, more than 7.3 million Venezuelans have left their country, making them the biggest refugee group in the world right now. About 6.4 million of them have settled in Central and South America, according to the Migration Policy Institute. But many hundreds of thousands are hoping to get into the US.

Click here.

 

What Do You Get When You Mix China with Russia and North Korea?

Danger, for sure! 

Top Russian and Chinese officials, including Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese Politburo member Li Hongzhong, met with North Korea’s dictator in North Korea last week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the truce that ended the Korean War.

North Korea launched more than 100 ballistic missiles since last year, while China and Russia have blocked US-led efforts at the UN Security Council to have North Korea sanctioned.

Click here.

 

US Industry’s Recent Boom Market: It Is Ending. Or What? 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 237 points last Thursday (0.7%), while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.6%, putting an end to the longest running bull market for tech stocks since 1987.

Click here.

The Quiet Girl

Written and directed by Colm Bairéad

Based on the book by Claire Keegan

Starring Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Catherine Clinch, Michael Patric, and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh

Release date (US): Dec. 16, 2022

My sister gave me a copy of Foster by Claire Keegan for Christmas. It was very good, and so I read another book by Keegan, The Quiet Girl. That was excellent, too. So when I saw that it had been made into a movie, I put it on my shortlist.

The Plot 

It is the summer of 1981. Nine-year-old Cait, a shy child who struggles to fit in at school, lives with her over-crowded, dysfunctional, and impoverished family in rural Ireland. When her mother gets pregnant again, it’s decided that she should spend the remaining months of the pregnancy with distant relatives – an older, childless couple. In their care, she blossoms, experiencing love for perhaps the first time in her life.

What I Liked About It 

* The Quiet Girl is an Irish-language film (Irish title An Cailín Ciúin) – with 95% of the dialogue in Irish, and English words peppered in only occasionally. (There are subtitles for both.)

* It’s beautifully shot.

* It’s well-acted.

* The musical score is effective.

* It gives a different, quieter impression of Irish families and what it’s like to grow up in a small town in a rural countryside.

Critical Reception 

The Quiet Girl broke box office records for the opening weekend of an Irish-language film and became the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time. It received 11 nominations at the 18th Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTAs) in March 2022, and won in seven categories. On January 24, 2023, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, becoming the first Irish film to be nominated in the category’s history. A milestone.

“There’s been a tendency in our cinema to pander to something that’s expected of us,” said writer/director Colm Bairéad in an interview with the NYT. But a recent wave of Irish films feel “very sure of themselves in terms of their identity. They’re coming from the inside out, rather than the outside in.”

* “A quiet film. A whisper of a film, really. And its unassuming nature makes it all the more effective.” (Adam Graham, Detroit News)

* “As beautiful as it is devastating.” (Odie Henderson, Boston Globe)

* “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.” (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)

You can watch the trailer here.

* Oppenheimer’s secret city explained. Click here.

* How the investor of the first chatbot turned against AI. Click here.

* Why fraud thrives on Wall St. Click here.

* Amazing rules for teaching Air Force Academy recruits how to speak inclusively. Click here.

* Biden announces he’s cured cancer. Click here.

From Murzban Shroff, author of one of the “Book Recommendations for 2022” that I listed here: 

“A small note to say: I stumbled upon your website here, which lists one of my recent books, Third Eye Rising, as a recommendation – and I was quite blown away to learn of your accomplishments and interests. Would you, by any chance, be based in New York or California? The reason I ask is: I will be visiting the US this fall on a reading tour and would consider it an honor to meet you. We could discuss our mutual love for books and literature and our individual journeys. Mine has been an interesting one: from corporate life to the literary, including intense persecution that brought my life and family under threat. Either way, I am very pleased to have known of you and wish you the best in your endeavors. I am Mumbai-based, so should you ever visit, please don’t hesitate to call.”