Learning!

Nice little film; taught me stuff!



                                         *     *     *

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262881.php


                                        *     *     *

https://www.chemainesmodelhealth.com/uncategorized/how-to-deal-with-lose-skin-after-weight-loss/


https://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-get-rid-of-excess-skin-after-major-weight-loss/

                                       *     *     *

Saggitatius A

The black hole at the center of our galaxy, in a virtual
representation:



source: Le Monde

Oshawa

Just lifted the following article from the Economist; helps me
sense of the Oshawa closure.


from: The Economist
Last-chance saloon
GM’s boss responds to customers’ soaring appetite for SUVs and pickups
Mary Barra idles five factories, attracting President Donald Trump’s ire

Business and finance
Nov 28th 2018
| NEW YORK

THE CAR industry’s changing fortunes have left a deep mark on Detroit’s urban landscape. Its once-bustling Fisher body plant, Ford’s Highland Park and the Packard factory became vast, abandoned graffitied shells—a sad reminder of the former might of America’s “motor city”. Now General Motors’s Hamtramck assembly plant looks likely to join the list of closed facilities. On November 26th GM announced that Hamtramck, along with four other factories in North America, and two more unspecified plants elsewhere, would not be assigned new vehicles or components to put together after next year.
News of the cost-cutting initially sent GM’s shares soaring. In total it will trim its North American workforce by a substantial 15%. Another Michigan plant is among those to be idled, as well as facilities in Ohio and Maryland, and in Ontario, Canada. The day after the announcement, however, criticism from President Donald Trump sent shares the other way. Mr Trump tweeted that he was “very disappointed” in Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, noting that she was not shutting down plants in Mexico or China: “The US saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get!” He threatened to cut off GM’s access to federal subsidies for electric cars (although industry-watchers noted that this is not a concern, since GM has mostly used up its permitted allocation of such subsidies).
Mr Trump was not the only disgruntled politician. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, tried to reassure workers about the proposed closure of the plant at Oshawa, on the shores of Lake Ontario, where GM started making cars over half a century ago. After trade liberalisation led to tighter integration of the North American car market, cars became Oshawa’s lifeblood. When the financial crisis pushed GM towards bankruptcy, Canada joined America in bailing out GM to save local jobs.
Yet the swirl of forces upending the industry means GM probably had little choice but to take some action. Car sales in America and China are already growing only tepidly. Some worry that a harsh automotive recession is coming. Capacity utilisation in the American automotive sector has plunged from nearly 90% in late 2015 to 80% now. This is a particular problem for GM, which in the past was known for a “bigger is better” mindset. On one estimate, the five North American plants to be shut down have the capacity to make 800,000 cars but are producing fewer than 300,000.
A big factor behind that gap is collapsing consumer demand for saloon cars, long a mainstay of the big car firms. Six years ago, annual sales of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles were roughly 7.5m in America, equivalent to sales of saloons. Now Americans buy over 12m pickups and SUVs each year, more than twice the sales of saloons. The plants that GM is winding down make the Buick LaCrosse, the Chevrolet Cruze and other saloons. Once buzzing with three shifts, these plants have been running just one shift of late.
Another trend forcing Ms Barra’s hand is rising costs. Both GM and Ford, its chief American rival, have estimated the impact on profits of the tariffs imposed by Mr Trump’s administration on a variety of essential imports (most importantly, steel and aluminium) at over $1bn each. On top of this are the heavy investments that GM must make for the future in electric-vehicle and autonomous technology. Cruise Automation, its well-regarded autonomy division (which in May attracted $2.3bn of investment from Japan’s SoftBank), expects to launch robotaxis on the streets of San Francisco next year.
Seen in this light, the cuts look sensible. Since taking over four years ago, says Colin Langan of UBS, a bank, “Mary Barra has done a phenomenal job”. She moved faster than rivals in preparing for the future, he notes, by selling off GM’s loss-making Opel division in Europe and pulling out of several unpromising emerging markets. Nor will her cuts hit the factory floor alone—they include a vow to trim GM’s executive ranks by a quarter. In total the changes will lower the firm’s annual cost base by $6bn by 2020. Mr Trump may attack her and unions will revile her. But tough decisions are needed if GM is to survive another downturn and without another bailout.
Business and finance
Nov 28th 2018
| NEW YORK


                                           *     *     *

From the Friday, 30 November L.A. Times:

Trump and leaders of Mexico and Canada sign new trade pact to revise NAFTA, but uncertainty remains

By Eli Stokols  and Don Lee

Nov 30, 2018 | 7:25 AM

| BUENOS AIRES

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put their signatures on their countries' new trade deal Friday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

President Trump and the leaders of Canada and Mexico signed a revision of the quarter-century-old North American Free Trade Agreement early Friday, but their ceremony did not disguise the tensions remaining or lessen the doubts of whether a new Congress would approve the pact.

At the event, on the sidelines of an international summit opening in Buenos Aires, Trump touted the hard-fought deal as "a truly groundbreaking achievement" and proudly held up the signed agreement for the cameras at the conclusion of a short ceremony. With Democrats taking control of the House in January, its passage through Congress remains uncertain, but the president professed confidently that he didn’t expect “much of a problem."

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Democrats have signaled they won’t support the deal without additional protections for workers, though it calls for some more safeguards than the agreement it would replace. The revised pact, which comes after a long, difficult negotiation, won't replace NAFTA until it's been approved by the legislatures of all three countries.

“Battles sometimes make great friendships," Trump said, looking to put a positive gloss on his fraught relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trump and incoming president of Mexico already at odds on key issues

By Tracy Wilkinson

Nov 30, 2018 | 3:00 AM

But Trudeau, who considered not attending the ceremony that Trump was so eager for, refused to play along. He opted not to hold up the agreement to showcase the leaders’ signatures. Most notably, he refused during his brief remarks to refer to the agreement by the name that the brand-conscious Trump had given it — the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, or USMCA, an acronym that Trump says recalls the title of a catchy hit of 40 years ago, “YMCA.”

"The new North American Free Trade Agreement maintains stability for Canada's entire economy," Trudeau said, using the name that dates to the early 1990s for the three nations’ accord, which Trump has been intent on repackaging as his own.

“That’s why I am here today,” Trudeau continued, saying the agreement “lifts the risk of serious economic uncertainty that lingers throughout a trade renegotiation process.”

Trump since his campaign had called NAFTA the worst trade deal in history, though much of it is carried over in the new version. The president falsely claimed the new deal was "the largest trade deal ever made" (the Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which he withdrew the United States, was larger), and asserted that it will lead to "high wages and higher wages" in the auto industry and bring back jobs that have been moved overseas.

Trump did not refer to General Motors' recently announced plans to cut jobs at five American factories, four in the United States and one in Canada, but Trudeau did, calling it a "heavy blow." He urged Trump to remove tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, which have been cited as a factor in GM’s decision to cut costs.

“Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and their communities,” he said, before addressing Trump directly. "Donald, it's all the more reason why we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our countries.”

Despite Trump’s hostile rhetoric about unauthorized immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico, he appeared to be on better terms with that nation's president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who was serving his final day in office -- and, in Trump’s view, going out on a high note by signing the trade agreement.

“It really is an incredible way to end a presidency,” Trump said. “You don’t see that happen very often.”

Peña Nieto, who leaves office highly unpopular and whose party’s chosen successor was soundly defeated by a leftist challenger in July, said, according to a translator, that the new agreement “aimed to preserve the view of an integrated North America with the firm belief that together we are stronger and more competitive.”

Prior to the signing ceremony, Peña Nieto awarded Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and advisor, who was involved throughout the trade talks, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest award. He pinned a medal to Kushner’s jacket as Trump and top administration officials looked on.

Kushner effusively praised Peña Nieto, saying he "put Mexican interests first even when it wasn’t popular." Kushner also celebrated what he called “a historic moment” in the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

The events preceded the opening of the first full day of the Group of 20 Summit, an annual gathering of the leaders of the world’s most developed nations. Yet Trump began the day by illustrating that what was on his mind was the controversy he left behind: the special counsel’s investigation of him, his campaign and possible collusion with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

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With an early tweet, Trump defended the continued negotiations by his private company over a proposed luxury tower in Moscow while he was running for president in 2016, saying it was “very legal & very cool.”

On Thursday, as Trump was leaving Washington for Argentina, his former attorney and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about that project, and implicated the president. Trump, who has repeatedly denied any prior dealings with Russia, in his tweet again mocked the investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as a “Witch Hunt!”

“Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odds, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail...” Trump tweeted before leaving his hotel for his first meeting, a short one with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri at Casa Rosada, the famous pink governmental palace.

He added in a second tweet: “Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!”

Trump did not mention the Russia investigation during brief comments before sitting down with Macri, whose father, the president noted, was a former business partner.

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7:25 a.m.: This article was updated with staff content.
This article was originally published at 4:50 a.m.

Pounded

The storm we are living through has been downgraded for the Montreal
region. Not sure where they mean; St-Jean is already 5 cm in
and we are being pounded.

11:20 am:

Deep Space

AWESOME that Insight landed on Mars yesterday.
(NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport)
All the while I was worrying about our little monkey physiology.🙋

The cubeSats worked perfectly. These are nano satellites that
can be used to transmit information, and although there are hundreds
near earth, the two here were the first deep space ones.



The cuurent NASA calendar for sending humans to Mars is the 2030s,
after testing the relevant technologies involved on the moon.

                              *     *     *

Le sismomètre de conception française écoutera les plus infimes vibrations du sol, provoquées principalement par les ondes de choc des météorites et les séismes. Comme un sonar de bateau, ces ondes permettront de dessiner une carte intérieure de la planète.

Autre instrument remarquable, allemand celui-là : HP3 ressemble à une taupe reliée par une laisse à l’atterrisseur et doit creuser de 3 à 5 mètres de profondeur sous la surface pour prendre la température de la quatrième planète du système solaire.

source: Le Monde

                                               *     *     *

source: Futura Planète

*     *     *

source: Le Figaro

It will take three months to set up the instruments, at which point
the two-year mission will begin.

E Physiology

Considering the current split between keto and vegan,
I am looking to better understand the evolution of
our metabolism, as well as the  development of eating
practices. One thing that is clear is that hominids ate
what they found, when they found it. It was never a supermarket
experience - today we are looking for blueberries - but more
of a see it, grab it, try it...

There is a work in French by Gilles and Brigitte Delluc that summarizes
findings in physiology and evolution. They are medical doctors and
pre-historians.

Below:

 source: Wiipedia

https://www.hominides.com/html/dossiers/alimentation-prehistoire-nutrition-prehistorique.php

Interestingly, the Neolithic introduced  salt and dairy; the Industrial
saturated fat in both!!

My guess would be that it is impossibe to establish primacy between
sugar metabolism from the pancreas, and the use of fats (soft fats from diet
is recent) from the liver. Both are long-standing structures. Primitive man
consumed a lot more vitamins than we do, but there was more variability as a
function of time of year and geographic location.

Keto

Lately, I have been stumbling over the ketogenic diet
all over the Health internet. Didn't sound terribly appealing:
one stays in a mild form of ketacidosis all the time to
control weight, with a diet aiming for a calorie split of
65% fat, 25% protein, 5%+ carbs. Sounds like a bad Atkins
day as a life sentence. How would one even set up such
madness?

I do believe I've cracked the math of it: one starts with the
accepted fact that fats come in at 9 calories per gram, and proteins
and carbs at 4. One then looks up the percentage of calories
from fat in a given food. An egg, for example, is the perfect keto
food: at 70 calories, 45 of those are from fat while the rest is
protein; thus 65% fat.

Overall, one ends up ditching starchy vegetables, grains
and legumes but all to the good. One eats only once or twice a
day, because the aim is to reduce insulin release in both quantity
and frequency. It is called intermittent fasting. I'm talking to you,
homie!

I then googled what is wrong with keto. Well, our muscles store
glycogen from blood sugar so this diet is not for body builders, or
athletes without some tweaking. Someone in ketosis going hungry is
meant to use body fat - hence this is good for fat loss - but in a pinch
will break down muscle tissue. And the heart is a muscle. This seems
to be the great fear about keto: it might damage the heart.

More generally, there is disagreement about what the human
metabolism is meant to be: fueled by fat, or sugar. Clearly both
are possible, because we use both. Something to look into...

On Strike

The fact of being on strike actually gave Lyse
a breather from her work-school threadmill.

Day 1, catching up on stuff:

Day 2, shopping for socks (brr):

Hang in there, girls. Even the very conservative
Richard Martineau from Le Journal de Montréal
is on your side.

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/11/24/les-etudiants-ont-raison

Petrol Issue

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/police-fire-teargas-at-yellow-vest-protesters-in-paris-s5525zzx0

                                                *     *     *

And right when you least expect it, there they are,
the oppressed masses, tearing up the sidewalks on
the Champs Élysées and burning the chairs. Because
now that everyone is oh so concerned about the Environment,
and about governments not doing enough to change behaviors,
who is left behind and unable to handle environmental
taxation? The working poor, stretched to the limit with
exhausting jobs at minimum wage.

And as they were there last week-end as well as this one, they
are planning to come back next week-end. Macron just has to go
because he is insulting, and doen't seem to understand these taxes
on petrols are unlivable. There is no alternative to just coming back.

Demonstrations in Paris are - normally - frantic and raucus. These are
like a dance, with unhurried police moving the crowds with water jets,
and tear gas. A number of bicycles got burned, but the storefronts are
untouched.

Analysts remarked on how these events are a reminder that Macron
was a second-choice-elected for a fragmented electorate. There is work
to be done and President Macron will be addressing the nation on television
Tuesday night.

Responsible

The Paris Accord on Climate Change is up for finalization,
with meetings in Brussels the week of December 3, 2018. The
UN Agency for Meteorology has published the graph below
showing increase in CO2 concentration, deemed 'largely responsible'...

From Le Monde:

T Day

Excuse me for being such an obsessive about the
weather, but my day is starting with a temperature
reading of -17°C outside. I mean, spending the day indoors
eating sounds like a plan!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

                                                      *     *     *

I have long been of the view that there is no
optimal weght management diet; it changes all
the time depending on one's health history.

Here is an argument that goes me one further.
At 38:00.

If one were to try to eat all the recommended
micro-nutrients for the day from natural sources
(and there is reason for wanting to do this, because
synthetic vitamins are rarely absorbed), then one would
nedd to consume 27,000 calories; because modern soils
 are that depleted.


How challenging is that!!

Rain!!

So it finally dawned me as I was browsing around the
Internet that the faint wiff of burn in the building is
not from the carrots on the Second Floor, but from
the Camp fire at the other side of the continent. Nor
is this the first time; we smelled the burn from the
West Coast of Canada last summer.

Schools are closed, and people are wandering the
streets of San Francisco with masks. A beautiful place,
San Francisco. I wish them rain!!

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/weather/california/san-francisco

Seismic Mars

source: L e Figaro 19/11/2018

author: Tristan Vey

translation: doxa-louise

The INSIGHT Franco-American mission to land 

on Mars next Monday

VIDEO - Next Monday, the probe Insight will be making a perilous 

atmospheric entry at more than 20,000 km/hr before landing

gently, if all goes well, at around 20hrs. It has been more than 

six years since anyone has tried to go down on the the planet.

The hour of truth is fast approaching. One week from today (Monday), the 

Franco-American mission Insight will attempt a difficult landing on Mars a bit 

short of seven months after take-off. The probe weighing by that time some 600 kg 

will enter the atmosphere at over 20,000 km/h. There will only be six minutes 

to accomplish the deceleration. A thermal shield is meant to offer protection from 

atmospheric friction, before a large parachute is deployed. Then 12 small  retrorockets

should ensure the final soft landing, expected at Monday November 26 20 hrs,

French time.

This will be the first time, since the appearance of the Curiosity Rover on the planet

in 2012, that Nasa attempts a landing. For its part, Europe failed in its 2016

trial. The Schiaparelli demonstrator that accompanied the TGO(Trace Gas Orbiter) 

probe crashed on the surface, victim to a technical problem.

Making it to Mars orbit, a fortiori landing at the surface, is no child’s play. The red 

planet has become, with time, a cemetery for space ambitions. Neither Russia nor Europe

have ever succeeded at landing a probe that could function in a durable fashion. 

The little English lander Beagle 2 for example never managed to deploy its solar 

panels although the landing probably succeeded. As for the Soviet Mars 3, it 

functioned for a few seconds at its arrival in 1971, sending back images on which 

one might see, aided by faith, a splotch of Martian surface.

America has known its own hard times, with the notable loss of Mars Polar Lander 

in 1999, plunging to the surface at great speed having interrupted too early the 

deceleration procedure. But it is also Nasa that holds a proud record of the only

successful landings on Mars: seven to date. Insight will be trying next Monday to 

join this select club.

The little lander will then need to deploy on the surface the seismometer built

under the aegis of CNES, the French space agency, and which constitutes the heart 

of the mission. Aim: to detect possible Mars earthquakes and thus deduce the internal

structure of the planet.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2018/11/19/01008-20181119ARTFIG00154-la-mission-franco-americaine-insight-doit-atterrir-sur-mars-dans-une-semaine.php

Tax Protest

Not everyone in France rides the Paris Metro to work.
The current unrest has to do with gas prices, and the
heavy tax compnent of those prices.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/transports/prix-des-carburants/vous-pensez-que-le-carburant-est-plus-cher-en-france-qu-ailleurs-ces-infographies-vont-vous-faire-relativiser_3034141.html

Healthy

Recently started watching the videos of the very
informative health enthusiast, Dr Berg, DC. He does manage
to tell a good story on various physiologcal processes, and
aims to help the obese (and thus, malnourished). No
shade intended from me.

Reality is pretty messy, though. Indeed mankind evoved
under shifting conditions and possibilities. Turns out that
a heavy concentration of animal protein leads to calcium
loss. (French language Wikipedia).

It has long been my experience that a restaurant-size meal of
fish with rice will give me breast pain. Fish and veg on one night,
and rice and beans on the next and I am fine...

Point being that everyone has a different body, with different

rates and capacities so there is no magic formula.

My own disclaimer entered; thought this video was bomb!!

Forest Management

Here is the funny find of the day: the difference between
a cow and a goat is that while the cow grazes - feeds on grass -
the goat browses, ie eats the fruit of the tree, higher up. Found
this in reading up on forests and their development.

In lashing out about forest management being lacking in the California
fires, President Trump angered those in the current debate on climate
change. But at the heart of the matter, there is something dangerous
and troubling about forests on the West Coast. Where humans have
settled on land, they de-forested first ie taken out the plants and roots
so that none of it would come back. This is not the case in California,
where rich and poor own what are essentially lots of forests, and live
on them. With sometimes catastrophic results.

What is a forest, anyway? On the European continent, all forests are by now
human constructs, be they  productive, recreational, what not. Man has been
making decisions on what happens to land since the Neolithic, in part because
the receeding ice from the last Ice Age left the land largely barren.
This is where the great difference between Europe and America appears. In
Europe, mountain ridges run East-West, which keeps species apart. In America,
they run North-South. The seaside of Vancouver Island is a rain forest, like
the Amazon basin. And Vancouver residents wore face masks last summer
because of
interior fires.

So the Western part of our continent is still something of  frontier. Perhaps
we need to look at that, forget conserving in the name of creating, and admit
to ourselves that climate change will not be reversed in anyone's lifetime.

source:Wikipedia

The Fire

For those who need to know…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/amp-stories/how-the-camp-fire-overwhelmed-paradise/?hpid=hp_hp-visual-stories-desktop_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Artillery Weapon

Been wondering what the new North Korean weapon is.
From the UK times.

Also read in the French press it had been something started by
Kim Jong-un's father.

BBrexit

Finally found what all the fuss is about on the Brexit front.
The document apparently contains 500+ pages, but is actually
a technical accord to the effect that things carry on as always,
to the end of the EU budget cycle in two years.

Get a grip, people...

https://www.lemonde.fr/referendum-sur-le-brexit/article/2018/11/15/brexit-les-principaux-points-de-l-accord-technique-conclu-entre-londres-et-l-union-europeenne_5383890_4872498.html

Just for the fun of it, read up last night on the amendments that David Cameron
had negotiated on the UK-EU accord, and for which he wanted public assent with
a referendum. All the clauses have kicked in, except for the last signaling that
Britain would go no further in political integration with th EU. (It missed its
time stamp).

Looks like they found it...😂

                                                      *     *     *

The view from New York:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-brexit-fantasy-goes-down-in-tears

Jet Stream

Trying to get clear on the Jet Stream, that all-important high altitude
air current which largely determines we go between polar cold or southerly
warmth here in Southern Canada.

It would be a mistake to view it as a ribbon: it moves faster on the East
Coast of the US than the West. This tells me it is fed more...duh!

Interesting as well that - contrary to fluid dynamics - the notion
of vertical in meteorology refers to the altitude component or vector,
and that of horizontal, the latitude position or vector. In fluid dynamics,
we are given a resulting position between two points.

De ce fait, l'air ainsi transporté depuis l'équateur ne peut dépasser une certaine latitude, à partir de laquelle sa vitesse deviendrait trop grande dans le sens ouest-est ; au niveau de cette latitude, il s'écoule en partie vers le sol, fermant alors la boucle de la cellule de Hadley, et en partie vers l'est, où il reste au niveau de la tropopause : c'est ce second flux d'air qui, dans chaque hémisphère, génère un courant-jet "planétaire".

Thus, the air transported from the equator cannot get past a certain latitude, from which
its speed would become too great in the West-to-East direction; at that latitude, part of it
will fall toward the ground, thus forming the envelope to the Hadley cell; and the other part
towards the East, as it stays at the level of the upper troposphere: it is this second air flux
which, in each hemisphere, creates a 'planetary' Jet Stream.

trnaslation: doxa-louise

http://www.meteofrance.fr/publications/glossaire/150103-courant-jet

Thus a lower Jet Stream necessarily moves more slowly.
And a Ferrel cell between a Hadley cell and a Polar one acts as
a heat pump, moving hot air to a heat sink ie making cold air
colder, between a Hadley cell and a Polar one.

source: Wikipedia

Paradise

An especially sad aspect of the Paradise fire; that community
was a retirement community, with 25 percent of the population
over 65. Some of the still missing were known to have dementia
or advanced diabetes, and the like. From the Huffington Post, UK:

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/california-wildfires-death-toll-firefighters_uk_5bea8525e4b0783e0a1b69c1?mzg&utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

Edamame

Bought frozen edamame beans in the pod. They are quite tasty,
but do require to be hulled, after cooking!?

In my dinner salad:

Now I'm off for my annual flu shot. I expect to feel chills for 24 hours,

and then...

source: Wallpapers for Me

Brekkie

TRUE STORY: I remember as a (pre-school) child trying
to tell my mother that I didn't like sugar because it
made me dizzy. I was still expected to put sugar on cereal,
a grapefruit half, with strawberries... To the
point where I hardly wanted to eat these foods at all...

Hard to believe from today's perspective on things.
To the point where added sugar is seen as  slow poison,
dammaging the body by releasing the free radicals
that age us.

What about the dizziness, though. It is still with me.
Just had my favorite breakfast of cottage cheese and
fruit, and threw in a half portion of tapioca pudding
left over from last night. Dizzy as anything, and this ingested
after my early morning black coffee, which I deem necessary
to eating anything at all. And a tad nauseous. Could go lie down
although getting some work done is easier because I am not in
any way hungry.

I will be having a lower glycemic index brekkie  tomorrow, see how
I feel. Maybe I can find an optimal level for myself. Still eating like
a normal social being, but with a sense of my parameters.

Maybe I ate too quicly, but I don't think so. I play word
games on the computer when I have a meal alone; conviviality
of sorts...

https://alsearsmd.com/glycemicguide/

https://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/nutrition-exercise/meal-planning/carbohydrate-counting-glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-putting-them-all-together/

                                         *     *     *

Day 2, I am going for a - equal calorie - but lower glycemic load
breakfast. And I am not dizzy.

Under 10. The temperature today has, however, taken a plunge.
It is -9°C on a sunny day at 11 am, and I'm going to need some
courage to venture out!!

Snow Day!

For anyone stuck at home on a snow day, this
little recipe just might cheer thins up.

Chaparral

Many are surprised to see succulent plants - such as the cactus - actually
burn in the current California fires. Below, some information on such plants:

http://espacepourlavie.ca/en/succulent-plants

The burning bushes and shrubs of California are known collectively
as chaparral. From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral

Drought-resistant evergreens occur higher-up. The land underneth is sedimentary rock.

Drought-dediduous (leaf-loosing) shrubs are nearer the coast. The land is sandy.

Chaparral systems are complex, and have evolved to reproduce with wilfires
for regeneration. They co-exist badly with urban sprawl.

Remembering

There is an extremely moving piece in Libération about the
beginnings of Surrealism in the midst of the First World War.
Many of the figures of the later movement were drafted - as medical
attendants, transporting the horribly wounded and dying -
while in their late teens. They new each other from Medical School.
And if Surrealism today  is part of the history of Literature,
it was first and foremost the work of intelligent young men horrifed
by the carnage around them. Freud and the subconscious would be
the entry to modernity, correct appreciation of the mind, and the possibility
of adequate pain killers...Opium could not be dosed, because it was the
natural product, but morphine, a derivative, could.



https://next.liberation.fr/culture/2018/11/10/grande-guerre-au-milieu-des-rales-les-premiers-cris-des-surrealistes_1691085

Wildfires

From L.A. Times:

The Malibu fires from TMZ:

http://toofab.com/2018/11/09/doctor-strange-director-scott-derrickson-loses-home-california-woolsey-malibu-wildfire-los-angeles/

Came On...

source: Washington Post

                                            *     *     *

Wildfires are forcing the evacuation of Malibu.

 
                                                        *     *     *

source: Le Figaro

auteur: Renaud Toffier

traduction: doxa-louise

Behind the killings in California, the unease of America’s veterans

On November 12 the United States will be honoring their veterans,

of whom some 7 000 end their own lives every year. Among them, 

Ian David Long, an ex-Marine and perpetrator of the killings in Thousand 

Oaks, in California, resulting in 12 victims.

Wednesday night, 60 kilometers from Los Angeles. A man in a dark coat goes up 

to a crowded bar, empties his Glock on the crowd, then turns the arm on himself. 12

dead and more than 20 wounded. Quickly identified, the man behind the mass 

killing of Thousand Oaks, the 307th of the year, is Ian David Long, formerly with 

the Marine Corps. 28 years old, he has just added his name to the list of 7 000 veterans 

who kill themselves every year, in effect around 20 per day. A troubling phenomena 

which the American Administration is having trouble dealing with.

‘The number of suicides has exploded since 2008, to the point where the army, 

normally silent on such issues, has decided to go public with this situation, points 

out Romain Huret, researcher with EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences 

Sociales) and specialist on the history of the United States in the XXth century. T

his also challenges public opinion with respect to the level of violence, badly known, 

of the wars in Afghanistan and Irak, and the hard defensive battles faced by combatants’.

In 2016, Veterans’ Affairs published a fictionalized view of these suicides, presented 

as ‘the most complete in history’, with segments by age, sex, social context or again 

educational attainment. A link stands out with the largest public health issue in the 

country: the opioids crisis, highly addictive pain medication which killed more than 

60 000 Americans in 2016 alone. Veterans, many of whom suffer chronic pain, consume 

a lot of these thanks to prescriptions from medical centers for their use. Concerned 

about the extent of the phenomenon, Veterans’ Affairs cut back on opioid prescriptions 

by 41% between 2012 and 2017. Between 2004 and 2012, these had gone up by 270%.

Veterans, ‘a pampered electorate’ at the hands of Donald Trump

If the department admits to ‘working without respite to find ways of battling suicide’, 

it also pulls out all stops to get the means it needs to this end. throughout his presidential 

campaign, donald Trump made much of his concern for the 21 million veterans in the 

country. ‘It is an electorate he has particularly pampered. He increased military spending, 

reminds us Romain Huret, and a part of this now goes to treating post-traumatic problems 

directly by units in the field’.

Both treatment and follow-up are necessary. Last April, police alerted by the neighbors 

had gone to the home of Ian David Long because he was acting ‘in an irrational manner’. 

‘He was punching the walls, said a neighbor to Reuters. Police couldn’t get him to leave 

the house, this lasted four or five hours’. the police guess they are dealing with post-traumatic

stress disorder. After consultation, mental health professionals did not judge necessary to 

commit the Afghanistan-experienced gunner.

Looking at the Midterms

source: Le Figaro, 7/11/2018

author: Alexis Feertchak

translation: doxa-louise

Midterms: Americans asked to choose

Why the midterms won’t change much to the politics of donald Trump

INTERVIEW - Torn between Republicans and Democrats, the Congress risks being 

paralysed, but President Trump will nonetheless pursue his policies, believes Vincent 

Michelot, professeur des universités  and specialist in the United States. Which won’t 

stop Democrats from working against the White House, according to the former director 

of Sciences Po Lyons.

LE FIGARO - the democrats win the house of Representatives, but the Republicans 

come out stronger in the Senate. Is this a blue Wave?

Vincent MICHELOT - Obviously the Democrats would have preferred a larger majority. 

But, in practice, a majority of 20 or 40 in the House of Representatives makes little 

difference given that the Democrats are the Opposition party. Progress has nonetheless 

been made in certain States, such as the very conservative Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania which are part of this industrial configuration, the Rust Belt,

which made a Trump victory possible in 2016. The Democratic party is thus capable 

of staging a comeback. Yet, for the post of Governor, it looses the two most sought-after -

Ohio and florida -, which shows how the Republicans are equally resilient.

Donald Trump even mentioned an ‘enormous victory tonight’. What do you think of this 

view of the matter?

One has to see the difference between verbalizations and reality. He had announced that 

if he kept the Senate, this would be a victory. He is thus being faithful to his

announcement. There is a well-known saying from President Kennedy which corresponds 

perfectly to the situation: ‘Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat

is an orphan’. Donald Trump believes that the defeat of  Republicans in the House of 

Representatives is not his since his name was not on the voting ballot. He does want 

credit for victory in the Senate, even though his name did not appear there either, as 

the American President campaigned very intensely for his candidates.

Will the new Congress have an impact of the domestic policies of donald Trump?

It won’t change much. Other than a grand law on lowering taxes, Donald Trump has no 

extensive legislative text on his score card. Any transformation of American society he 

might have accomplished was done through presidential decrees, the executive orders.

Donald Trump has little time for Congress, and thinks everything should be done through the executive function. Any great change will not be to Trump the ‘chief legislator’, but 

Democrats will be able to work against him because they will be able to set up investigative enquiries. Congress not only votes laws, but exercises control over execution. With 

their investigative commissions, Democrats will be able to submit President Trump to 

a form of Chinese torture: particularly with the Russian affair, they will be able to call 

witnesses, demand that the Administration produce documents, etc. The White House 

will be under a form of permanent investigation.

Is this so unheard of?

The political climate has been odd since the election of Donald Trump, but, widely 

speaking, American electors are free to order a periodic re-balancing of power. We 

are moving today from a unified government to a form of American co-habitation, 

which occurs quite frequently. This illustrates the sharing of power that is referred to 

as ‘checks and balances’ in the United States, but which one finds in all constitutional 

democracies.

Can the new Congress start impeachment procedures?

For some time in the United states, talking about impeachment, people are using the 

expression ‘the i-word’, thus referring to a taboo subject. Democrats are well aware 

of the dangers of starting such a procedure. Donald Trump has warmly encouraged 

them here because it would call up his electoral base.

To successfully impeach someone, there are two stages. One first needs a simple majority 

of the House of Representatives to approve the order of accusations. Then a majority 

of two thirds of the Senate needs to vote following a trial on the destitution of the 

President. Given the increased strength of the Republicans in the Senate, there is no 

chance for such an outcome.

With respect to nominations, does donald Trump emerge stronger from these 
midterms?

All federal magistrates, including judges to the Supreme Court, are appointed for life 

by the President ‘on the advice and consent’ of the Senate. As a result, some people

may well fall into some form of morbid analysis of the state of health of older judges, 

in particular on the Supreme Court. Beyond such speculation, there will certainly be

new nominations to be had. There should also be a new cabinet, with some new 

Ministers. There again, approval by the Senate is needed.

What about Foreign Policy?

Here, lets be perfectly clear: there won’t be any changes. A 1936 judgment of the 

Supreme Court confirms it, the President of the United States has ‘full powers’ on 

the matter. The Congress can certainly put limits on the budget for military operations 

and certain commercial treaties, but with a twist that plays in President Trump’s favor: 

both chambers of Congress have equal authority, except for Foreign Affairs where the 

Senate overrides the House of Representatives. The constitution gives the former the 

power to ratify treaties and control the naming of ambassadors by the same ‘advice 

and consent’ clause. There are refinements: certain treaties, such as NAFTA ( now the

United States-Mexico-Canada free-trade agreement, a commercial treaty between the 

countries of North America), are ratified through a more complex procedure involving 

both Houses. But without going into detail, Congress will have no impact on Foreign 

Policy.

Thus, no impending changes on the American policy of sanctions on Iran?

Donald Trump can play schoolyard winner, ‘Not scared of you’. Be it on Iran, North 

Korea or Russia, the House of representatives won’t have a word to say.

Will the results of these midterms have an impact on the next Presidential election 

in 2020?

there are different ways one can see the next two years playing out. The first consists 

in saying that cohabitation will lead to institutional paralysis in Congress, form which 

nothing will emerge. a miracle if they even agree on a budget... In principle, this is 

neither good for the Democrats who don’t want to appear to be the obstructionist 

party, not for the Republicans who don’t want to emerge with nothing to show for 

their time in power.

And the other way of seeing things go?

Donald Trump has no real ideological reference points and prefers to bargain. What 

he wants are ‘wins’. If to that end he needs to negotiate with Democrats, he will do 

it wholeheartedly. For the other side, it would a good thing to get some concessions 

with respect to infrastructure or health, for example. There are domains where the two 

grand parties can agree on legislation.

But is there not a polarization to the Left of the Democratic party and the Right of the 

Republican?

That’s the problem. The Democratic party is not unified. For these midterms, certain 

candidates very much to the Left - sometimes more so than Bernie Sanders - became 

more prominent. And inversely, the Democrats put up very centrist candidates in certain 

key States. For the Republicans, those most to the right are the ones re-elected. The 

moderates were in ridings which were themselves moderate, and thus historically those

 that flip first. Nothing is certain.

Midterm Rs

Congratulations to all!

 source: New York Times

 source: New Yorker

source: Journal de Montreal

source: Le Figaro