This stack of firewood is the sum total of a week’s effort.I am not done by any means, as we normally go through a couple of cords every winter. By my estimation this is over a cord, but I have one partial and another full stack to to go. Note that a cord is 4X4X8, which is what the back two stacks are, roughly. Since the work is very hard I opted to finish the job in October, giving my body a needed rest.
Last year, knowing foot surgery was on the horizon, I put up as much wood as I could in a short period of time. That wood included garage scraps and pieces of willow and aspen (which do not burn as well as pine). We decided that for the first time in our then-twelve years here we would purchase a cord of wood. The cost was going to be $300. We burned less wood, however, and did not get around to purchasing it.
As wood goes, oak is said to be the best, long-burning and steady. We cannot get oak here – only pine. That’s all that is available in Colorado.
Note how carefully the wood is stacked. That is because my wife did half of that part of the job. I normally unload the split wood by the arm-full and dump it, making little effort at art. She does things differently, and I had to admit it was an aesthetically pleasing result. I worked beside her, stacking piece by piece.
The Club of Rome’s frightening goal and strategy based on … mistaken ideas was revealed in its book, The First Global Revolution (1991), which asserts, “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. … all these dangers are caused by human intervention. … The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” Here they had hit on something to make people feel guilty. The well known strategy used by governments for grabbing power that has been known and used for a long time is: PROBLEM -> REACTION -> SOLUTION.
Those in power create a problem or crisis that is real or imagined. They sell this “problem” using thousands of reports and articles – cleverly contrived propaganda. The public reacts by begging for a solution …
We live on a steep hillside, which makes cutting timber extremely difficult. Our land consists mostly of lodge pole pine, but is really not suited for that species. We are on the south side of this steep hill, so consequently, desired species like Ponderosa pine do not grow well here. We have but one Ponderosa on the property, and it is indeed magnificent. We also have Douglas firs, which thrive if given enough room to grow.
This past week or so, I have cut down maybe twenty dead trees, all lodge pole, trying my best to control the fall. But the trees, given the steep angle of the hill, often have a mind of their own. Also, these trees searching for sunlight grow very tall. When I do cut one down, it often falls into a neighboring tree forty feet up. It takes great effort to dislodge it, and I usually manage by cutting of lengths at the bottom till it falls.
One day last week I did this, and the tree finally fell, but directly on me. I saw it coming but did not move, I don’t know why. The tree landed on my head, and then my neck and back. Fortunately, I was wearing a hard hat, protective glasses, and chaps. The damage was minimal. Had I moved in either direction, it would have fallen on either shoulder or lower body, and would have done far more harm. Maybe some instinct other than stupidity saved me. However, as of now, I am going with stupidity.
Hurricane Katrina, a deadly hurricane that made landfall in 2005, was featured heavily in Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The hurricane was still fresh in everyone’s memory, giving the film a tremendous impact. However, looking at the entire record, we know that the incidence of major hurricanes has actually decreased in recent years.
In 2007 Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for this documentary at about the same time that a British judge, Michael Burton, listed nine significant errors in the “one-sided” production and ruled that it could be shown in British schools only if accompanied by teacher guidance explaining these errors to their students. Among other errors, Gore claimed that melting in West Antarctica or Greenland would cause a twenty-foot sea level increase in the near future.
“I will admit that I was more than a little skeptical of watching the scientific movie about global warming that was made by Al Gore. Al Gore and science go together like SpongeBob Squarepants and Mensa.” (John Kehr)
After downing the trees, I remove branches and the top, since they are too small to be firewood. Much of that debris stays where I felled the tree. Professionals will remove it and chip it, and I once owned a chipper. I did not have space for it, and so sold it. Jefferson County will come around and chip branches if we sign up for it and leave the branches in neat bundles on the road below. I think I need to do that next year. This year, with hundred-year record rainfall, there is no fire danger.
I next cut the downed trees into eight-foot lengths, and one by one drag them down the hill to the cutting station, pictured above.
When we moved in here I purchased a chainsaw, but did not know how to use it. Our neighbor up the hill, Dan, offered to cut down a very large dead tree that was a hazard, as a big wind could blow it down. After he felled it, he and I did all of the cutting. That’s a good way to get to know someone. At one point, a branch had fallen on a smaller tree, bending it to the ground. I cut the smaller tree, and it snapped back at me with great force. I missed getting whacked and vowed I had learned an important lesson. I’ve not made that mistake again.
The cutting station above is a replica of one owned by our neighbor, Tom. When I was new using a chain saw, it did not occur to me that when I attempted to cut a branch with the saw, it would spin. So I built a cutting station out of downed logs, and somehow managed to stop the spinning, I am not sure how. When I saw Tom’s stand, I knew it was a far better idea than what I had done, so giving due credit, made one for myself and used the old stand as firewood.
So far this year I have made perhaps 400 cuts on this stand. After making those cuts, I must haul the cut wood up a short hill in a wheel barrel to a place where I can use a log splitter. That is very hard work and really tires me out. I rarely haul wood and split wood in the same day. It’s just too much for this 73-year-old.
The idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the principal greenhouse gas is a lie. Water vapor, making up about 3% of the atmosphere, is the most powerful “greenhouse gas”. At 30,000 parts per million (ppm), water vapor has 70-100 times as much effect on the warming of the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, which at 415 ppm, makes up only about 0.04% (.0004) of the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide does not control global temperature. Global temperature has been steadily rising since 1860 or so, the end of the Little Ice Age. That warming trend is not steady, and at times is actually a cooling trend. There are some factors that cause spikes in temperature, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), sunspot frequency, and this year a major volcano. However, such events are followed by a return to normal, which is a very gradual and beneficial warming trend.
Volcanoes usually emit sulfate aerosols that have a cooling effect on the planet. In an unusual twist, the largest volcanic eruption of the 21st century so far, the 2022 eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai is having a warming and not cooling effect. The eruption released an unusually small amount of cooling sulfate aerosols but an enormous amount of water vapor, a greenhouse gas event.
Those three factors, El Niño, solar activity, and the underwater volcanic eruption, have caused temperatures to spike this year. Climate change had nothing to do with it. Again, this is pseudoscience and politics masquerading as real information.
There is no point in trying to control CO2 in the atmosphere. Even if we reached our stated goal of zero emissions by 2050, the result would be .2% less warming, this assuming that the science surrounding CO2 is valid. It is not. It is pseudoscience, used to support a political movement backed by very powerful people whose real ambition is depopulation and prevention of the rise of Africa. These people are both misanthropes and racists. I rarely claim moral superiority to anyone, as I am as human as anyone. But these people behind climate change are my moral inferiors. I look down my long nose at them.
I tend to stay away from the larger trees as my little 14-inch saw and its owner cannot bring them down safely. This year we brought in Michael, an ex-marine who makes his living cutting trees, to take down maybe twenty large and dead lodge poles. Michael chipped the debris. Note the wood stacked above. Michael either dragged or carried it to that place.
We also asked Michael to cut down a large living lodge pole that was crowding out a Douglas fir. I watched him do it, professionally. First he cut off lower branches, and then using spikes in his boot heels began to climb the tree, cutting off branches as he went. The tree was perhaps forty feet high. When he got to the top, he reversed, and every eight feet would saw off a section. In short order, the tree was gone. I asked him to stack it apart from the dead trees above, and he did, carrying each section of that tree to a place perhaps twenty feet away from the stack pictured above.
Live trees are much heavier than dead ones. I was very impressed as Michael picked up each section of the cut live tree and stacked it, moving each perhaps 75 feet. When I suggested he stack the live tree sections up the hill from the dead trees, he looked at me with a pained expression, asking “How far up that hill do you want them?” It was only a few feet away, and he was relieved.
The live tree will have to de-gas a couple of years before we can burn it.
In the year 1911 there was a terrible heat wave that killed tens of thousands of people in Europe and the United States. This is verified by looking at newspaper articles from 1911. In France alone 41,000 people died. In Nashua, New Hampshire, the temperature reached 106 °F. Yet, strangely, NASA, which tracks weather, indicates that 1911 was a cold year. This is a problem. We can no longer trust historical data, as NOAA and NASA have monkeyed with it, making the past look cooler than it really was so they can claim that we are suffering unusual warming.
In truth, according to satellite data tracked by the University of Alabama at Huntsville, since 1979 (when the satellites were first launched) we have experienced on average .136 °C warming per decade. And the hottest decade on record is and always has been the 1930s.
That is a log splitter. When we lived in Bozeman I would split logs using an ax and wedge. It was hard work and we never had much firewood on hand. Moving to Colorado, owning a chainsaw for the first time, I began to systematically cut smaller pieces that did not need to be split, interspersing larger hand-split pieces. For some time now I have endured a mild case of stenosis (4th and 5th vertebrae), and as a result have less control of my right arm than before. Consequently, splitting logs became an adventure in inventing new swear words.
I bought this splitter maybe four or five years ago. They come in all sizes and can cost a lot or, in this case, maybe $400. I am not sure what I paid for it. It works well, and can split logs up to maybe 14-15 inches. As long as the wood is dry, I hear a satisfying crack! as logs split in two. You’ll note that in the stack of wood at the opening, the pieces are uniform in size. I deliberately avoided the large pieces cut by Michael, and used the smaller diameter trees that I cut. Many required but one split, but about half came from two splits of one log. I’ve gotten pretty good at doing that, wresting the log as it splits once and turning it 90 degrees for a second splitting. That yields four relatively even pieces.
Because the splitter weights 100 pounds, I do not elevate it when I use it. Consequently, the work can be back-breaking as I am bent low to the ground while splitting. This year my wife suggested I put the machine up on pavers that make a bottom step off our deck, elevating it perhaps six inches. What a difference that made!
Temperatures cooled slightly in the 1960s and 1970s from the temperatures of the 1930s and 40s. Climatologists told the world that carbon dioxide was responsible for this cooling. On Earth Day of 1970 Dr. Kenneth Watt warned, “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.
Huh? It never happened, as we all know. More so, he should know that we are in an an ice age, defined as any time that both North and South Poles are covered in ice. It is called the Pleistocene. We are in an interglacial period called the Holocene. Winter is coming.
But global cooling was a thing in the 1970s. Now they are telling us warming is the problem. It’s all about a state of fear, and keeping us in that state. For myself, I don’t worry much, certainly not about climate. Liars lie, schemers scheme, and I cannot change that. I cannot start watching news either, as even if some of it is true, I do not know what part that is.
In 1990 Meryl Streep hosted a PBS 10-episode documentary entitled “Race to Save the Planet.” This documentary series predicted that by 2000 the world’s average temperature would be four degrees warmer. She missed, but not by much … say, only four degrees.
She did not win any awards for that effort. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently passed a resolution saying the Streep will no longer be nominated for best actress unless she actually appears in a movie that year. Actors should stick to acting, and leave science to scientists, and pseudoscience to pseudoscientists.
We do not have a fireplace. We have a wood stove that is centrally located on our main floor and puts out plenty of heat. I have seen its thermostat register as high as 1300 °F, but we normally run it much cooler. We save a ton of money by using it, so that my annual backbreaking efforts are worth it.
You can see by the type of wood (not the white bucket of kindling) in the foreground that we were reduced to burning last year when my foot was out of service. That is garage scraps, aspen and willow. Just so you know, the white container to the right has in it a fully charged fire extinguisher.
In 2007 31,487 scientists, over 9,000 of whom had PhD’s, signed the following declaration:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”
Is there a 97% consensus? No. They make that stuff up so that you go along with them and don’t think. John Kerry, the guy with that prominent Hapsburg chin, said in a speech some years back that CO2 formed a band around the planet that kept heat from getting out. He is that ignorant. He does not realize that CO2 is part of our atmosphere, and is buried in our minerals and in our oceans too. He is the Climate Czar. Why was he selected? Makes no sense!
Much of what I have written here, as it pertains to climate, relies on the book Exposing the Great Climate Change Lie, by Lynne Balzer. I wrote this piece as I am on temporary respite from the grueling labor of putting up wood for the winter. I thought for fun I could combine my wood gathering, kind of boring, and climate change, which I have written too much about, that that the two together would then be … SCINTILLATING!
Piece of Mindful 
Good to see you are prepared for whats coming, I am also sure that some of the elites are aware of whats coming and the injections could very well have been part of a quick depopulation plan to free up safe places for the elites.
I started researching climate change around 15 years ago and started by wondering about our oceans. I knew our planet was a volcanic planet and knew that we are covered 2/3 in water. So common sense told me the majority of volcanoes were on the ocean floor but could not find much information on it.
Along the way I learned about our rapidly moving magnetic pole and pole shifts/reversals and also learned stuff like the worlds largest volcanic ridge was ‘recently’ discovered and guess where it is located? Under Antarctica and not only under it, its under Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers AND its active and heating the bottom of the glacier. Its turning the bottom into slush and eventually physics is going to take over and its going to slide right into the ocean.
Back to our oceans, we know more about space then we do whats on our ocean floors. 3 months ago I saw a headline saying ‘scientists mindboggled’ so I wondered what they were lying about lol. Turns out they used a new sonar technology and in an area of the ocean they found 20,000 volcanoes!
Now back to the magnetic pole which is a big player in all of this, I figure as do others that magnetism is the greatest force in the universe and there are clearly far greater forces even in our own milky way then anything in our solar system.
It takes 260 million years for our solar system to make one trip around the center of the milky way and if earths age is roughly 4.5 billion years then our solar system has made this trip roughly 18 times.
We have no idea what kind of forces we encounter during these journeys, perhaps a super massive sun/star, maybe a black hole, maybe we go through a large magnetic field as they know magnetic fields can connect galaxies.
In any event at times, we encounter great magnetic forces, greater than our suns and planets magnetic poles and when we do encounter these forces, they clearly would exert pressure on our magnetic poles and eventually move our crusts and by extension continents and oceans.
I planned to move up north of North Bay in Ontario as I figured if I can live my life and plan for this I will, my wife thought I would never leave my job of 28 years.
Then the covid fraud hit and I refused to comply with any of it and lost my job of 28 years but then God went to work and gave me a whole new life and he put me right where we want5ed to be, 90 mins north of North Bay but He did it 7 years earlier.
Now I look around at the world and see that no justice is coming but even so lets say there are white hats and they are going to ‘save’ us…well my personal opinion is our God is not all that impressed that they maybe made this personal and dragged it out and millions have needlessly died or been maimed or had their lives ruined.
He is now going to pass judgment on all with a magnetic pole shift and very soon as well. If there are no white hats it won’t matter because in the end God always wins and a pole shift will totally destroy evils control of humanity.
I think, within months now, maybe the first 6 months of 2024.
Oh remember the boiling oceans from this summer….The oceans once super-heated the earth.
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-deep-sea-carbon-reservoirs-superheated.html
“It’s just mind boggling.” More than 19,000 undersea volcanoes discovered”
https://www.science.org/content/article/it-s-just-mind-boggling-more-19-000-undersea-volcanoes-discovered
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for a great comment. FYI, you went to moderation because you are a first time commenter. That helps keep the riffraff out. Once through that little gate, you are free to speak freely here. If you do go to moderation, it might be because WordPress has a two link limit on comments. More than that, they put you in moderation, but I check it regularly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the explanation, Mark as you well know people like you and I are censored into the ground. I post some of this on YouTube and they delete it immediately almost every time.
I’m not scared now worried as my faith in God has been strengthen beyond belief over the last 3 years.
So I continue to be His messenger and do as I feel He wants me to and tell people about Vitamin D and Gods other nutrients, show people how to detox from you know what and tell them what I believe is coming and to prepare.
May God bless and watch over and keep safe you and your loved ones Mark.
For the record I do NOT believe this is the end of the world, well for some parts it will be but it will be Gods reset of a world that I don’t like.
I do not judge people, but I do make observations. I see no way of fixing the world they way its currently constituted Mark.
LikeLike
This is for sure not the end of the world. It is just another tulip bulb mania, which is not catching on. The planet is fine, and weather can drive us nuts.
I like and respect your route to sanity, though not mine. Be well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad to hear you are still with us… getting hit by a falling tree is not so good.
I’m about 20 years younger and also a first-time chainsaw owner. Still, I usually ask an older neighbor to take out any large trees for me. He is way more experienced, and like the one that helped you, my guy has spikes and harnesses and ropes. I’ve been fortunate not to need him often.
Take care –
LikeLiked by 1 person
Re vitamins
Ab posted this recently, I haven’t listened but, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s persuasive.. why wouldn’t it be another racket?
The Great Vitamin Fraud
https://odysee.com/@I-Rabbi-T:3/Daniel-Roytas-and-Patrick-Black-720p-tr-2M-W23:9
My dad recently read some book that got him all stoked about vitamins… Partly because, after covid, he’s cottoned to the idea that pharmaceuticals are a huge fraud, and wants to get off the ones he’s on. But isn’t “vitamins” just a way to keep you believing the answer lies in pill form? I guess they’re cheaper anyway.. but the “quality” ones can be a bit pricey, and what exactly are you getting? I seem to remember a commenter here who said the whole vit A, B, C, etc business was a fiction.. To me, it feels like somebody hit on the idea, and then they kept expanding it.. gave it a veneer of scientific respectability, and it grew into a small industry. A nice side racket if you fall off the main path..
LikeLike
I’ll leave the nomenclature of chemical components out of this little discussion, but there’re components that are absolutely essential for us humans so our bodies can function properly. Vit C or ascorbic acid is one of the many, going without it for as much as a month can cause serious health issues and eventually death. While many animal species can produce their own ascorbic acid, we humans cannot so it’s of great essence to consume enough of it, preferably on a daily basis.
Calciferol is another component that’s essential, without it there’s no calcium (and other minerals) absorption possible so lacking it, your bones and teeth become soft and eventually dissolve. Luckily, all you need is a little UV light in order for your skin to start producing this chemical.
There’s a lot more to be written or said about the issue of essential chemical components, regardless of what we choose to name them. Saying and/or believing that “vitamins business is a fiction” will most surely get you impaired in terms of disrupted bodily functions, or eventually even killed. It’s not so hard to educate yourself so I’d recommend it before posting dubious ideas here at PoM. Not everything is fake, you know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
At some point years ago I was taking Vit C and minerals. I quit and felt no different. I read an interesting piece by Gary Taubes who claimed that we get everything we need in our diets, including C. His only dietary advice was to have a salad every day for K. I don’t do that either as the greens tend to pass right on through me, and quickly. My point? I don’t have one. I just wanted you to be a little grossed out.
LikeLike
Agree Minime, the only people attacking vitamins and minerals is satan and big pharma. Somewhere along the line I came across a link and it was at godlike productions website and there an entity claimed to be a part of some bloodline that knew all and asked members to ask it questions.
I believe its still there and somewhere somebody put the questions and answers in a readable format, in any event evil will always give you lots of truth to draw you in.
The one thing that stuck out to me, well there was 3 but I only remember the one and it was this entity telling us we must stay far away from vitamins.
Didn’t matter to me all the rest of the answers, that one alone told me this was an evil entity.
At the beginning of covid I did not take a single supplement but in May 2020 I learned all getting sick of dying were dangerously low in vitamin d. After that I went down the rabbit hole of vitamins and nutrients and a year or so later stopped all my kidney medication and rely on a high vitamin d level and many others nutrients. Its been 2 years now and the kidneys have been getting better every blood work.
My wife was down and out with 2 bad discs and fibromyalgia for 3 years and we are now making progress with her with a high vitamin d level.
And yes Mark ideally, we should be getting our vitamins and nutrients from food but evil has literally destroyed our food supply when roundup, glyphosate’ is used on 75% of the worlds crops and they likely spray us with it as well. Glyphsate LOWERS our vitamin d levels AND it inhibits our skins ability to get D from the sun.
Micro-plastics and bpa’s also lower our vitamin d levels.
“Glyphosate also depletes the body of methionine and selenium, which are necessary to make thyroid hormones. R
Also, glyphosate inhibits the body’s ability to create active vitamin D, which its receptors are widely found in the brain and liver, thus glyphosate blocks the ability to make vitamin D from the sun. R
Active vitamin D has a myriad of benefits such as preventing inflammatory, autoimmune, cardiovascular, neuromuscular, and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as cancer”
https://mybiohack.com/blog/glyphosate-zonulin-vitamin-manganese-gluten-serine-glycine
https://draxe.com/health/bpa-toxic-effects/
Something else to consider, potassium, we need 4700mg a day for our body to operate as it was intended and while that is alot there is proof that people long ago actually consumed upwards 15,000 mg a day of potassium.
This was the nutrient that fixed my blood pressure issue.
For the record my wife and I live in north Ontario now, for the pole shift:) and last winter we did not even catch a cold, true story, first time in our lives.
Dr. Eric Berg is a national treasure as far as I’m concerned.
This is on potassium
LikeLike
Okay MiniMe, I’ve listened to the first hour (the vitamin part) now, so I can give it my wholehearted endorsement. Far better than I even expected, even though I put some stock in Ab’s curation at Fakeologist.
It addresses specifically the points you raise, and casts them in a rather dismal light, so I really recommend you don’t listen to it, since you sound like a fervent vitamin believer who has his mind made up, so it would probably be a paradigm shattering experience that would have you cursing and throwing things at the computer. Unless you’re blessed with the equanimity of spirit to consider contrary views with calm objectivity.
It’s loaded with info, well and clearly delivered, and I can’t begin to bullet point it all here. If you listen and find it wanting though, I hope you’ll explain where he’s in error.
LikeLike
Adding.. I recommend it to everyone, since the historical info on early studies of vitamins, and their logical flaws, is relevant and interesting re science in general, even if the topic itself is not your passion.
LikeLike
“…since you sound like a fervent vitamin believer who has his mind made up,…”
Since we’re into ad hominem territory now, I believe you know very little or close to nothing about chemistry.
You can choose to believe anything you want. Even better, you could close yourself into a complete darkness for as much as a month, eating only BigMacs and alike, and report back to us with a myriad of health issues. That would be a first hand experience about the lack of calciferol and the consequences of not getting any at all. A true scientific approach, preaching about what you really know, no?
One of the things I’ve educated myself for now in regards to vitamins is, that retinol or Vit A is 100% toxic for humans and that it will definitely harm you in any amount if consumed. Start here:
“https://ggenereux.blog/2017/04/29/vitamin-a-oh-no-its-not/”
…and not at fakeologist, ok?
Lecturing me about the belief system? You need to work on your ability to spot a fake guru before it makes you look like a charlatan, in terms of chemistry at least since it’s essential for a healthy life, mate. And at the same time you need to invest into reading and educating yourself what you’re preaching about.
LikeLike
I’ll take thousands of years of traditional societies eating whole foods, that contain all the “vitamins,” (as well as substances that balance and complete them), over whatever 20th century chemists claim to have isolated and put into artificial pill form. The processes of isolation are just as ridiculous as what they do with viruses – heating, rinsing with heavy metals, processing into gel pills with soy oil, etc. No I’m not a chemist MiniMe. But I can see what makes sense and what doesn’t. Do you really think all these company men scientists have a clue? Is chemistry an exception to the general rule about what motives run science, in your view? Sure, not everything is fake… But most institutions and institutional dogmas are.
LikeLike
You’re full of contradictions, since you lack proper knowledge. How can you balance something you claim to be fictional? How does that work?
Yes, believe it or not, we’ve come a long way since the cavemen era, especially in chemistry science. We have a periodic system of elements and we know how to combine them into different compounds/molecules. We’ve learned that mostly by observation, experiments and by mimicking mother Nature. Do you believe that acids exist? I for sure.do, take for instance H2S, especially after it hurt my skin. By extrapolation, if I know what ascorbic acid is made of/from, I can produce it myself. And that’s how it goes with all and any compounds – once you know how to make them, it all comes down to having appropriate ingredients and tech equipment in order to do it.
But why do you keep insisting on some kind of pills when it comes to vitamins? Does physical form have any influence on effectivness of any chemical? Not that I know of.
Acids are usually liquid, for instance, and acid salts are crystals. I can consume them in any form I desire, being it pills or powder or liquid, and they will have the very same effect on me.
When you’re talking about artificial pill form, you’re probably trying to say these chemicals are synthetic vs the natural one. So if I take completely natural and pure ascorbic acid extracted from cherries and put it in a pill form, will it hurt me? Come on, mate, do you really believe this nonsense?
Like I said, educate and liberate yourself from parroting gibberish.
LikeLike
It’s not a contradiction, I’m just trying to abbreviate a complicated concept that is laid out over the course of that hour long podcast.
It’s the problem of two different paradigms talking to each other – the whole framework is different, so the skeptics side (me) looks nonsensical to someone invested in the paradigm.
My view is more nuanced than what you’re assuming/ projecting – I’m not dismissing all chemistry or findings about “vitamins” – I’m saying they’re operating under a limited paradigm (as in much of science), and assuming much more mastery and understanding of nature than they actually have. Especially in their marketing and promotion to vitamin consumers.
Please have the humility to listen to the link before dismissing it out of hand. If you listen and have issues, I’ll have the humility to read and consider your rebuttal.
LikeLike
I’ve dismissed the problematic idea based on your writing above just as quickly as I’d dismiss i.e. FlatEarth idea. For some subjects, I can spot fake-ism from a mile.
Since I got up too early and have some time on my hands, I’ll take a listen to that podcast, trying to take some notes as I do. I’m biased, yes, but it’s with a reason.
LikeLike
Cool man, I’ll be curious to read your thoughts on it
LikeLike
Yes well, don’t hold your breath. I really gave my best but have only had patience up to 0:40min… Couldn’t take it any more, sorry.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my short notes, including analysis of speakers’ names:
the channel of this podcast is called “I-Rabbi-T” -> as in Rabbi; a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism? It raises my eyebrows.
master’s degree in human nutrition – what the hell is that?
both together are 55 or 57 years old, meaning they have little or no real experience, one is a YT podcaster while the other is university preacher…sorry, professor
Black (Schwarz?) talks about ascorbic acid-> it’s synthetization from dextrose-> he talks about adding all kinds of elements as if he knew nothing about chemistry. But first he talks about plants being able to synthesize the very same ascorbic acid in their own “natural” way, while he knows nothing about the plant’s process of this particular synthesis.
Vit C / ascorbic acid- synthesized is completely different from Vit c you get from food-> the argument is ; “People are not aware of that.” My goodness, a true chemist scientist. Reality: Synthetic and food-derived vitamin C is chemically identical, but fruit and vegetables are rich in numerous nutrients and phytochemicals which may influence its bioavailability.
Schwarz -> “I don’t believe vitamins exist in the form we’ve been told they exist” -> argument: “I don’t understand this yet and I don’t think anyone does.”. My goodness, are we looking at a Nobel prize winner?
A bit of sarcasm there, hope you don’t mind it. It was just a flow of my thoughts, didn’t want to edit it.
LikeLike
Okay if that’s your take, fair enough. As far as the level of chemistry knowledge, as a layperson, it’s your word against his for me. I’m responding more to the overall framework he presents, of whole foods vs isolated elements, etc. It makes sense to me, and fits within an overall view of science I’ve developed over years from many sources. I think they’re generally too big for their britches and think they have a lot more understanding and mastery than they actually do. If not outright fraudulent at the top levels. Climate, pharmaceuticals.. why wouldn’t that play a part in vitamins too. Same players and methods.
Did you catch the part where he talked about the big pharma labs as the suppliers of the bulk ingredients used by vitamin packagers and manufacturers? True or false, in your view?
LikeLike
No, I didn’t, but I went on to try and find these major bulk Vit suppliers – all I managed to find is that they’re produced in China en masse. But who owns them was not available on those sites.
You do have a point – chemistry is flawed since they don’t acknowledge charge, which is the fundamental field Nature is built upon. However, a chemical formula is just that – whether I make it in a lab or it was made by Nature, it makes no difference in its composition – that was my main argument.
Another valid point is separation – Nature does not synthesize singular vitamins – they always come accompanied by numerous other compounds. Does that make any difference? I don’t know, honestly.
For what it’s worth – I keep my diet based on whole foods, and I don’t consume any supplements. I wasn’t seriously ill for years and I avoid pharmaceuticals as a remedy. Maybe I’m just lucky, who knows…
LikeLike
If we fall off the main path, do tell what the main path is friend.
LikeLike
I was referring to the mainstream path, trusting in Big Pharma and state licensed medicine. For skeptics, vitamins are an alternate seeming path that actually shares much of the same pseudoscience, and takes a similar approach of allegedly isolating out parts of nature into pill form, and packaging them up into unnatural drug like form, where they have drug like effects (including “side” effects.)
And who do you think is making your vitamins anyway? As that link explains, the vitamin companies buy the purified “vitamins” FROM the few big pharma companies that have the labs capable of refining them. I guess there’s no requirement to put that on the labels.
LikeLike
LOL, go away.
LikeLike
Brilliant Gary. Is this an example of what you were on about in another post thread?
“I don’t ‘worry’ if people think I am a bible thumper but I will take the time to show people that I am not just as I don’t care what people think of me as all I can control is who and what I am and what I put out into the universe and towards my fellow people I come in contact with.”
Those biblical principles have certainly turned you into a model web denizen..
LikeLike
I have no idea what’s you are trying to convey this time but I know this much, on your bets day at being smart you couldn’t come close to keeping up with me and why, I speak truth, not hard to remember truth.
The audacity to claim that vitamins are manmade chemical concoctions all the while believing that big harma is the only way.
Good grief man, there is a reason the 3rd leading cause of death in Americas is prescriptions from doctors…its because they are manmade concoctions that our bodies do not know what to do with…. hence the myriad side effects for just about every single big harma concoction.
LikeLike
And why should I be overly kind to a person like you who is clearly misleading people and pushing them towards harm rather than helping them. Once again your reading comprehension sucks, never have been nor ever will be a bible thumper.
I say what I do because so many are godless and get triggered when His name is mentioned.
No wonder why many are in the mess they are, far too many trusted in man and science, in other words big harma and big harma lies and manipulates as does man, I chose to trust in God and His amazing immune system that when fueled with His nutrients and vitamins and minerals can and will fight off just about any medical issue before it even gets started.
LikeLike
Gary, I suggest a little more tact, a little less frontal assault. We try to keep things civil here.
LikeLike
Fair enough and truthfully I was expecting this from you, my apologies.
LikeLike
My bad that I took you for having some sort of religious perspective.. much clearer now, thank you.
There’s lack of reading comprehension on both sides though.. if you reread my comment without being triggered yourself, it should be clear enough that I’m not a fan of, nor promoting, modern medicine and pharmaceuticals.
I basically think there’s more overlap between big pharma and the vitamin industry, than many proponents of the latter would like to admit. It’s similar imo to people who become disenchanted with any mainstream institution – politics, media, etc – and move to some third party or alternative. They saw you coming, of course, and are happy to roll out the red carpet.
LikeLike
The overlap is true, to a point but also, capitalism or better yet making money is part of the problem as well.
There are a great many vitamin manufacturers that I would never buy from, some because they value profits and some because they have been purchased by a big pharma company.
“I’m not a fan of, nor promoting, modern medicine and pharmaceuticals.
Sorry, can’t let this go as I even started a separate question, and you responded by saying…
“I was referring to the mainstream path, trusting in Big Pharma and state licensed medicine. For skeptics, vitamins are an alternate seeming path that actually shares much of the same pseudoscience, and takes a similar approach of allegedly isolating out parts of nature into pill form, and packaging them up into unnatural drug like form, where they have drug like effects (including “side” effects.)”
Before covid I essentially ‘trusted’ in big pharma as I had never taken a supplement in my life till that point.
Then after covid I learned of the significance of vitamins and minerals for our bodies then learned of the side effects of the drugs I was taking for my kidney issue and have not looked back.
So yes in a round about way you are correct about vitamins in the sense of making money and who is making them.
But the quote above from you sure sounds like you are a supporter of big pharma.
Maybe my reading comprehension sucks:)
LikeLike
Well unless I’m being much more obscure than I thought..
In that quote I say both the mainstream and alternative (vitamins) share much of the same pseudoscience.. and go on to be critical of their attempts (in both cases) to isolate out parts of nature and package them up.. I’m not sure how to be more clear that I’m skeptical of both camps, and see them as similar in philosophy and approach.
LikeLike
Thanks MiniMe, Gary, interesting discussion. On a related note, as I was saying my dad is very stoked about this vitamin book he read. He came to it via the Epoch Times, which must really be what put him off pharmaceuticals. (My longstanding criticism may have contributed, but would never have gone anywhere otherwise..)
Anyway, looked at from a propaganda framework, with Ellul’s lens of multiple “propagandas,” it seems to me that “they” are splitting people into the pro-pharma and anti-pharma, and giving the latter vitamins (and other health ideas?) as the alternative.
Whatever benefits vitamins may or may not have, or the validity of some of the research, if it’s being used in a major dialectic like that, it seems unlikely imo to be uncorrupted. It seems like some sort of cloaked branch of pharma. Even if at one time it was “pure,” it would now be co-opted. Of course I’m ambivalent about whether there’s any there there to begin with, or the whole industry is misguided. But certainly now one would have to have uncanny radar to suss out the genuine from the snake oil imo…
LikeLike
I love good discussions, they keep my mind sharp and thoughts articulated.
Vitamin stands for a chemical compound our body needs but it’s not able to synthesize it by itself. From this viewpoint, there’s nothing philosophical about them and it means vits weren’t invented or discovered by any human. The only real philosophy is how to reach balanced diet that will provide everything our bodies need in order to function properly. If you look at human specie, we live on different continents and consume very different food item in our regular diets. Maybe that’s one of the reasons there’s some differences in races and how different races function on chemistry levels and why there’s visual differences between us. Consuming local food that isn’t drenched in pesticides, herbicides and other poisons is crucial in my opinion in order to be healthy in the long run. Avoiding stress and pollution and keeping consumption of alcohol, cigs and all other drugs in at minimum is another task, and if you manage to do it, I believe you’ll be as healthy as possible. That’s my philosophy when it comes to this part of life and I believe I’m doing it quite right. Some knowledge mixed with experience will do the trick.
I also think that supplements are not a bad thing per se if you know what you’re doing. For instance, when winter comes and there’s no local fruits and very little sun, I have dried and powdered version of fruits at my hand – apples, pears, apricots, etc, as well as all kind of nuts. If necessary, I reach for extra superfood, like cuma cuma or maca, or something similar, what ever I think I’m missing with my diet in the particular season. I start my day with a couple of tablespoons of honey, and always have molasses in my household. As you can see by example, you can have your vits and minarals supplemented/replenished by eating all kinds of different food products, that are completely natural, but are loaded with everything the body needs.
There’s a valid point in you above comment – our diet has become a marketing item, so be very careful whom you’re trusting about it. The best way to go is to get educated and trust only yourself – as in many other areas of life. Stay well, mate.
LikeLike
Mark, have you ever looked at Charlton Heston as part of your Bokanoski (sp) batches?
I was watching The Omega Man last night and struck by how at certain angles he could be mistaken for Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people..
LikeLike
All new to me … I will look at it. I am easy to surprise.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Surprise surprise! Their facial features line up nicely, Schwarzenegger having a slightly longer chin. Keep on mind that I adjust the size of the head by setting pupil distance at one inch, but in real life one may have a larger or smaller head. That is a fatal flaw in this method, in that I cannot be in the same room with them.
LikeLike
Wow..! Still pretty uncanny, thanks for splicing them. I knew there was some resemblance.
LikeLike
Interesting also how they sort of have a similar level/ type of leading man star appeal, and went on to play political roles in their public personas..
LikeLike
Bye the way, good eye!
LikeLike
“Get your stinking paws off me you damned dirty apes!”
“Your clothes, give them to me, NOW!”
LikeLike