The Modern Anglo-Dutch Empire: Its Origins, Evolution, and Anti-Human Outlook by Robert D. Ingraham

 This book talks about two forms of government, one that emphasizes the pursuit of happiness and the other property rights. Venice is the origin of the modern version of the latter and it moved to the Netherlands and England. Gottfried Leibniz was an outstanding advocate of government for the people. He influenced Ben Franklin and thereby the founding of the US.

Perfidy by Ben Hecht

 A journalist in Israel accused, in the early 1950s, Rudolf Kastner of collaborating with the Nazis in the killing of 1 million Hungarian Jews and the Israeli government sued him for libel. This book is the story of that case. Hecht portrays many of Israel's leaders as placating the British. American Jews incorrectly called an offer by Eichmann to trade Hungarian Jews for Trucks and other material as false causing the American help to flounder. 

Listen, Liberal - or whatever happened to the party of the people.

 Bill Clinton became a "New" Democrat. He cut welfare, kept the high penalties for crack compared to powdered cocaine, and was going to cut social security until Monica intervened. He enabled the bankers by removing Gram-Schmidt controls. Because of globalization labor had less clout so he needed a more reliable source of funding. Democrats since Clinton have followed his lead. Republicans have old business corporations, and Democrats the new technocrat billionaires and some Wall St hedge funds. The working class traditional Democrat constituency have no representation. Liberals tout innovation and talk frequently about innovators as if that a path that workers whose jobs have vanished can take. Instead of jobs liberals promise inclusiveness for minorities and sexes which is nice but avoids the real economic issues.

How Vaccines Wreck Human Immunity by Jack Stockwell

 This short ebook is very clearly written making the essentials understandable. Our acquired immunity or humoral immunity has two types, T cells that aggressively fight the invaders and B cells that make antibodies to protect against this invader, giving lifetime immunity The T cells make you sick in the process of fighting the invaders. Those that succumb to a virus show weak nutrition and bad environmental poisons or even damaging medicines. 

So in a natural infection first come the T cells and the the B cells. Vaccines attemp to stimulate B cells to provide antibodies with the causing virus to get the T cells to reach and activate the B cells. Using dead virus does not stimulate the B cells so vaccine makers add poisons such as mercury or aluminum to get the immune system to react. All these antibodies with no virus to fight cause the autoimmune diseases which plague modern society. And they do not create lifelong immunity as did those naturally created. Polio and other diseases were on the decline before their vaccines were introduced. He asks if you would inject a neurotoxic substance that will get through the blood brain barrier and into the brain itself in exchange for not getting the chicken pox.

Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller

 This is a very thorough coverage of vaccines by disease condition. Mostly vaccines are ineffective and many, many examples are given of bad side effects and death. Autism is linked to the MMR vaccine. I would never get a vaccine after reading this and am sorry that my daughter had some and probably side effects like asthma and diabetes.

The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods that Cause Disease and Weight Gain by Steven R. Gundry MD

 He explains that when animals came along plants developed defenses, poisons to kill them. They don't kill us but they do some damage. He shows the foods that are safe to eat and those that aren't and has recipes in the back of the book created by a chef. They are mostly vegetarian because meat has a different variant of a sugar than humans and so our autoimmune system attacks it causing disease. 

Conjuring HItler: How Britain and America made the Third Reich by Guido Giacona Preparata

 Britain and the US are not part of the Eurasian land mass. Britain's aim was to prevent Eurasia from uniting which would endanger Britain's empire. They worked to provoke Germany into WWI to weaken them. Britain pretended to support the Whites (the rich) in the Russian revolution but in reality were afraid that they would be natural allies of the German nobility and so covertly supported the Reds. They wanted to weaken Germany and Russia. To do that they had to build up someone (Hitler) to fight Russia and damage them both. This they did in the 30s. They even had some such as the Duke of Windsor be friendly to Hitler so that he wouldn't attack Britain. Hitler tried to ransom the Jews but neither Britain or the US would pay. Fascinating book with lots of insights.

The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze

 This is a thorough economic study of Germany in relation to the world wars. Just to mention a few points: He shows how the cycle of finance worked after WWI. The Germans paid reparations to the French and British who paid their loans to the US who made loans to Germany. In the early 30s Germany stopped paying reparations which broke the cycle and allowed their economy to prepare for another war. But they were deficient in many areas. Hitler hoped to defeat the Russians getting access to the food and mineral rich Ukraine. They planned to let the Slavs die. When that didn't work they weren't going to feed the Jews who was the least favored accessible victims. The economic analysis is fascinating.

Demystifying Shariah by Sumbul Ali-Karamali

 I thought shariah was some fundamentalist ritual from a thousand years ago so reading this book was truly enlightening. Shariah was created by scholars analyzing the Islamic holy works, keeping them relevant to the current age. It was not governmental but has always been progressive, humane, and fair to all. The author explains the negative effects of colonialism with conquering powers nullifying shariah rules as too lenient. No government today uses shariah law despite what they may say for political purposes. The book is beautifully written making it possible in a short time to gain real insight in place of slogans and uninformed opinions.

Virus Mania by Torsten Engelbrecht

 The author finds the HIV theory of AIDS as silly and asks what really causes diseases known as cervical cancer, avian flu, SARS, AIDS and hepatitis C and looks at alternative explanations such as drugs, medicines, pesticides, heavy metals or insufficient nutrition. A new edition includes covid-19. Chapter 11 gives 10 reasons against measles vaccination.

The Autism Vaccine The Story of Modern Medicine's Greatest Tragedy by Forrest Maready

 The book looks at the historical incidences of autism and associates autism with the damage caused by the addition of toxins such as aluminum to vaccines.

The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg

 The subtitle is A History of Electricity and Life and the author elucidates the perils of our increasing use of electricity. Our bodies are electrical but at a weak level. The powerful radiation of modern life interferes with our natural processes causing serious illnesses including anxiety disorders, influenza, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Conceptual Physics Eight Edition by Paul Gittewitt

This is a very clear introduction to physics. Chapter 26 on Color explains the difference between additive and subtractive color. We have three kinds of color receptors for red, green, and blue which cover the visible spectrum. If we shine lights of these colors in various proportions we can create all the visible colors. If we use physical pigments, then we see red because the pigment reflects red and absorbs green and blue so we can't paint with red, green, and blue to get all colors. Green pigment absorbs red, so using both would be blackish. The colors used in ink are cyan, magenta, and yellow. Cyan absorbs only red, yellow absorbs only blue, and magenta absorbs only green so we use this backwards (subtractive). If we want green we avoid magenta, for red avoid cyan, and for blue avoid yellow. Because light is white composed of all the visible frequencies we need to subtract from it to get the right color when white light is reflected.

Chapter 25 Properties of Light
            An oscillating electric field generates an oscillating magnetic field which in turn generates an oscillating electric field and so on. The vibrating electric and magnetic fields regenerate each other to make up an electromagnetic wave which moves outward from the generating charge. Visible light is a small part of the wave spectrum. The speed of electromagnetic waves must be constant because energy is conserved. If the speed of light slowed the new fields generated would be smaller and smaller with a total energy loss. If light speed increased the energy of the generated field would continue increasing. James Clerk Maxwell found the speed of light from his equations as about 300,000 kilometers per second.

Incognito by David Eagleman

     "Our brains run mostly on autopilot, and the conscious mind has little access to the giant and mysterious factory that runs below it." Your brain doesn't encode everything. Your internal model omits stuff that doesn't seem relevant. Given a little information your brain uses its best guess to turn it into something larger.

     Outfielders move in such a way that the parabolic path of the ball always progresses in a straight line from their point of view. That's why they crash into walls. Our brains predict where the ball will be. Vision has to be learned. Blind people can learn to sense vision on their skin. The brain learns this way too. 

     The program for moving the muscles for walking is built into the machinery of the spinal cord. The entire central nervous system works this way. Hallucinations are simply unfastened vision. We can think of a scene and the low-level vision areas light up. 

     Perception works by matching expectations to current sensory data. The visual cortex constructs an internal model that allows it to anticipate the data streaming from the retina. The thalamus reports on the difference between what comes in from the eyes and what was anticipated. The thalamus sends only what wasn't predicted so the model can be refined. Awareness of your surroundings occurs only when sensory inputs violate expectations. 

     Time is a mental construction. The brain adjusts for different physical times say for sound and light or touch. 

     Plane spotters or chicken sexers have to be trained by example (like neural nets).

     We get the sense of things before we consciously make the connection. 

     Deliciousness is an index of usefulness. We identify what we can experience sensually as the entire objective reality. If you are blind you accept that reality. We accept our limited sense of smell.

     Cards 5 purple 8 red vs tequila 33 sprite 16 show social thinking easier than abstract. 

     The brain is a team of rivals. Approach-avoidance, two conflicting desires. For weight-loss provide a system to compete with the dire for food that has an incentive to make it competitive.

     Rational cognition involves external events, while emotion involves your internal state. Cognitive reserve-- overlapping solutions. 

     Minds see patterns. Consciousness exists to control-and to distribute control over-the automated alien systems. An index is the capacity to successfully mediate conflicting zombie systems. A secret represents a rivalry between two parts of the brain, one that wants to tell and one that doesn't.

Biotic Regulation of the Environment by V.G. Gorshkov, V.V. Gorshkov, and A.M. Makarieva

This  book, of major importance for the survival of life, is available online
https://www.bioticregulation.ru/pubs/pubs5.php
For a good introduction see
https://news.mongabay.com/2012/02/new-meteorological-theory-argues-that-the-worlds-forests-are-rainmakers/

Chapter 1 provides a good overview. The scientist authors carefully detail what needs to be done to preserve life on earth. Species develop and cooperate to keep the biota livable. In one organism cells and organs work together to perform necessary functions. Cancer is when one unit grows with out regard for the others. Humans are like a cancer, the species that grows without regard for the rest of the environment. To maintain life, the large animals can use no more than 1% of the resources, but now use up to 10%. The maximum human population supportable is 1/2 billion, if those people live a simple life, not the modern first-world consuming. We must leave the forests alone to regulate the water balance. It's not the carbon-dioxide that is crucial but the forests that regulate the water cycle. There is much more water vapor in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The money gained from forests is a trivial part of the economy and so can be dispensed with. Forest with their extensive leaf area evaporate more water than the relatively flat ocean. The warm water vapor rises and comes down as rain or snow which is much more compact so a low-pressure area over land is created and the wind blows from the ocean bringing more rain and snow. The rain water or snow melt returns to the ocean to recycle. Native trees have genetically evolved to know the right amount of water to evaporate. Too much and the soil dries out and cannot support life.

Science Matters by Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil

A very-well written survey.
Chapter 2 Energy
        Energy is conserved.
        Energy goes from more useful to less useful forms.
        Work is force times distance.
        Energy is the ability to do work.
        A boulder at the top of a cliff has potential energy as does gasoline.
        A speeding car has kinetic energy. Heat is a kind of kinetic energy, of atoms in motion.
        Electrical current, visible light, sound, mass, food, etc. have energy.
        Energy can be moved from one place to another.
        Heat conduction e.g. spoon in hot soup, molecules colliding. Convection, e.g. heated water moving up, replacing cooler water; the heat is carried. Radiation, e.g. hand near fire.
        Temperature is relative. Heat and temperature are different. Heat is the amount of energy.

Chapter 3 Electricity and Magnetism
        Electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same force.
        Electrons are stripped from hair when combed.
        Plus attracts minus in chemical bonds, holding materials together. Electrons in shoes repel electrons in floor so we don't fall through.
        There are no isolated magnetic poles. Every time an electric charge moves a magnetic field is     created, and every time a magnetic field varies an electric field is created.
         Electric motors convert electricity into magnetic fields which cause useful rotary motion. A
battery can make a current flow through a wire loop. The current generates a magnetic field.            Putting the loop between two poles of a magnetic will cause it to rotate until the N of the loop's magnetic field gets to the S of the magnet. Alternating current of the right frequency cause the loop to keep rotating and driving a shaft or something useful. Generators reverse this process. converting mechanical energy to electrical.
         Maxwell realized that this duo of electric and magnetic fields cause radiation at the speed of light. Our eyes perceive a minuscule fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves have long wavelengths. Am radio like dimming a flashlight. FM like changing its color.
         Microwaves for communication, cooking, and radar.       
         Infrared is absorbed by the atmosphere. used for remote controls.
         X-rays and gamma rays, the most energetic. 

Chapter 4 The Atom
Chapter 5 The World of the Quantum
         We see by bouncing light off objects. If the objects are very small this inspection changes them. This is the uncertainty principle. We describe locations with probabilities because of this uncertainty..
         Quantum entanglement shows that quantum mechanics is not a local theory. It can be used for teleportation. The photon is recreated not transferred.
         Quantum computing is exponentially more powerful because qubits are in many states at once.

Chapter 6 Chemical Bonding
          Chemistry is the science of electrons and their interactions. Three kinds of bonds, ionic, covalent, and metallic. Filled electron shells are more stable.In an ionic bond one atom gives up an electron while another acquires it. Quartz combines oxygen and silicon. Metals have shells with a few excess electrons. Outer electrons are shared by all atoms in the system. In a covalent bond atoms share electrons to fill shells. The covalent bond is the basis for all life as in carbon-carbon bonds. The hydrogen bond involves a positive proton from shifting its electron to another atom which can attract other atoms. Water has this feature.
           Materials with ionic bonds make good insulators. The electrons are tightly bound. Materials in which electrons are loosely connected as in metals make good conductors. Covalent compounds of carbon-carbon bonds are almost as good insulators as ionic bonded ones. A semiconductor like silicon is intermediate. A slight impurity such as phosphorus has one more electron than silicon so it makes silicon a better conductor, called an n-type. Replacing a bit of silicon with aluminum with one fewer electron make a p-type semiconductor.
           The simplest semiconductor device is the diode formed from an n-type layer and a p-type layer. When first made the electrons from the n-type diffuse across to the p-type filling the holes so a border region between the layers is neutral. Applying voltage will cause current to flow in one direction only, the electrons can flow away from and not toward other elections. This rectifies alternating current making it direct. In solar energy systems the sun can provided the energy to move electrons from n to p.
           Transistors can be either pnp or npn layers.

Chapter 7 Atomic Architecture
Chapter 8 Nuclear Physics
Chapter 9 The Fundamental Structure of Matter
Chapter 10 Astronomy
Chapter 11 The Cosmos

Chapter 12 Relativity

            Every observer sees the same laws of nature. Different observers give different descriptions of the same event. In a car a book that falls straight down looks different to an outside observer. The speed of light is constant which violates our intuition. Einstein realized that if a streetcar moved at the speed of light away from a clock it would as if the clock had stopped. His pocket watch would remain the same. Consider a light clock in which a beam of light is sent upwards to a mirror and reflected back. Each time it returns is a tick. Now let another similar clock move away. The light as seen from the original position moves along a diagonal to nit the mirror in its new position and moves in a diagonal downward on the return (from the point of view of the stationary observer. Since the speed of light is constant and the distance is longer the tick must take longer as compared to the stationary clock so the moving clock runs slower. This is supported by experiment.

            For general relativity imagine being in a spaceship accelerating at the equivalent of earth's gravity. A dropped ball would appear to fall to the floor exactly as on earth. Looking at the spaceship from outside we would that the floor had accelerated upward to the stationary ball. Acceleration and gravity are equivalent. Gravity is an effect of our frame of reference. Stretch plastic over a frame. Rolling a light ball would cause it to go in a straight line. But a heavy ball would warp the plastic. Now a light ball would go closer to the heavy one because the space is deformed. Their is no force but a change in space.

           

Chapter 13 The Restless Earth

Chapter 14 The Earth Cycles

            Three basic types of rock: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. In the beginning all rocks were igneous -- fire-formed. Today igneous rocks are produced by volcanoes. Magma is the molten form of rock. Some cool deep underground. Sometimes they are lifted up like Mount Rushmore.Wind and rain break off pieces which form sediments, layer upon layer of igneous rock fragments. The accumulation of sediment may bury beach sand deep underground to form sandstone which get lifted up and weathered and so on. Plants die and form layers of coal. Organisms die and form limestone. Shale is made from silt and clay. Rocks that have been changed since they first formed are called metamorphic

Chapter 15 The Ladder of Life
Chapter 16 The Code of Life
Chapter 17 Biotechnology
Chapter 18 Evolution
Chapter 19 Ecosystems
Epilogue

Plague of Corruption by Kent Keckenslively and Judy Mikovits

This follows their book Plague which covers the earlier events. Mikovits is a researcher who found that retroviruses may be introduced with vaccines when vaccines are prepared using animal tissue. XMRV, xenotropic murine retrovirus, is one such. Retroviruses stay for a long time. When expressed they may cause chronic fatigue syndrome or autism. In Chapter 8 mentions that retroviruses damage mitochondria. The book Tripping Over the Truth elucidates that cancer is a metabolic disease caused when damaged mitochondria are unable to provide necessary energy. Cancer cells use the less efficient glucose mechanism for energy and flourish when mitochondria are damaged.  So putting these three books together one might investigate how much cancer may be ultimately caused by vaccines containing retroviruses.

The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku

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"Consciousness is the process of creating a model of the world using multiple feedback loops..."
Level 0 where an organism is stationary or has limited mobility and creates a model of its place using feedback loops in a few parameters (e.g temperature). Organisms that are mobile and have a central nervous system have Level I consciousness which includes a new set of parameters to measure their changing location. Reptiles are an example. In Level II consciousness organisms create a model of their place not only in space but also with respect to others (i.e. they are social animals with emotions. "Humans are alone in the animal kingdom in understanding the concept of tomorrow. ... Level III consciousness creates a model of its place in the world and the simulates it into the future by making rough predictions."

This is our strength and our problem. It gives us a past to agonize over.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck

This is a specimen gathering trip with ruminations thrown in of which those in Chapter 10 are especially interesting. He says that hope is a diagnostic human trait. But he quotes a study in which in fossil echinoderms mutations often have a destructive effect. Man is the only animal whose interest and drive are outside himself. Other species make little impression of the world but the world is torn by man. But these changes were not demanded but created because man 's desire created the technical ability. So our evolution is cultural toward collectivization and complexity which as a rule in paleontology precedes extinction.

In Chapter 11 Steinbeck comments on the Mexican Indians way of life. In paying bribes to official a bargain is struck, the service performed, and its over. For us nothing is clear. "We go to a friend who knows a judge. The friend goes to the judge. The judge knows  a senator who has the ear of the awarder of contracts. And eventually we sell five carloads of lumber. ...Ten years later the son of the awarder of contracts must be appointed to Annapolis. The senator must have traffic tickets fixed for many years. The judge has a political lien of your friend and your friend taxes you indefinitely with friends who need jobs. It would be simpler and cheaper to go to the awarder of contracts, give him one-quarter of the price of the lumber, and get it over with.

In Chapter 14 Steinbeck comments on explanations. Instead of looking. for why, accept what is. For example, if a neighbor is unreasonably frightened of possible burglars, do not reason with her to change her. Accept her feelings as what is and help her. He expressed this contrast much more thoroughly but this is a brief summary.

From Chapter 21: "...groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life....And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, ....is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable. This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and an Einstein. Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment that all things are one and that one thing is all things...."

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