INTERESTING TIMES

Mercola offers this article:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/25/why-sunlight-is-your-best-source-of-vitamin-d.aspx

He says that a study on people with repeated respiratory infections found that cod liver oil also contains vitamin A, and that vitamin D and A compete with each other metabolically, so if you have too much vitamin A in your vitamin D supplement, you are not getting as much use out of the D. "Vitamin A and vitamin D compete for each other’s function. For example, even the vitamin A in a single serving of liver can impair vitamin D’s rapid intestinal calcium response." Mercola calls the amounts of vitamin A in the supplements "detrimental".

A separate study from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene suggests that one form of vitamin D (calcitriol, aka 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) may be one of your body's main protections against damage from low levels of radiation. Calcitriol is the active form of vitamin D might be an appropriate protective agent before or after a low-level nuclear incident!! Calcitriol is involved in cell cycle regulation, hence affects proliferation, differentiation, encourages apoptosis and autophagy, and inhibits angiogenesis.

I get this foul taste in my mouth whenever President Bush comes on the radio, and often turn it off. But for now I have him tuned in, listening to his speech. The pomp and ceremony, the applause and hurrahs, bother me because I believe this congress should be impreaching this man and our vice president as well. But instead they keep up the appearance of approval. It seems that we could sustain the honor of our government better by removing the devils, instead of continuing to pump them up. The world sees that they are full of hot air.
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Yesterday (while studying biochem) I halfway listened to the democratic presidential candidate debate on NPR and the first (of 3 toughies) question that they tackled was Iran. The whole time the candidates were dancing around the questions of "how dangerous are they" and "are we justified to attack" I was thinking about what a reasonable leader (in Iran or elsewhere) would do in response to the demonstrated threat posed by the United States of America.
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Last night I went to hear David Barsamian speak at NAU. Barsamian is the founder and director of Alternative Radio. His talk was a little scattered, but full of insights about Iran. Such as this: they are a terrible dreadful mortal threat to the US, right? That's what our propagandists are gearing up to convince us. But Barsamian pointed out that we are a much graver threat to them. We have them surrounded. We have aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf to the south, and our military is swarming over Iraq to the west and Afganistan to the east. Iran has the finest oil left on the planet, and we intend to get it by hook or by crook.


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I had the opportunity to read more on this story, about the world of Islam erupting in violent indignation over some blasphemous cartoons. It turns out that some secular Arab governments and other folks with political aims have been using these cartoons and lots more to whip the populace into a frenzy for their own aims. It is similar to the use of 9/11 by the US government, to frighten citizens into giving the feds carte blanche to "protect" us.

As long as both sides in this escalating conflict case their arguments in terms of good and evil, we are doomed to a nasty WWIII. There is no reconciling with someone who calls you evil. America is the "Great Satan" to the Muslims. For many reasons. I don't know if nuclear devastation is already inevitable, but it seems probable coming from this angle. I don't believe the Shrub Regime when they say Iran is 10 years from having nuclear bomb capacity. They lie about everything else, so they probably are talking out of their asses about this item also.