Author: Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.

“Evil Empire”

“Evil Empire”

Henry's Views

Reagan called the Soviet Union the “evil empire”. But if you look at the international relations of the United States in the last 70 years, the litany of terrible outcomes and consequences is almost breathtaking — Vietnam, El Salvador, regime change in Iran, second Iraq war, Afghanistan. I’m sure this short list is missing other significant fiascos. So the bottom line might indeed be that today’s “evil empire” is not them but us — we are the evil empire!

At the very least, I think it is time that the United States government seriously reevaluate its goals relative to international affairs, and make the key objectives not exploiting weaknesses of other countries for some illusory gains for the US, but instead rectifying potential areas of conflict between nations so that peace and prosperity world-wide are assured.

Instead of jockeying for some questionable advantages, a more high-minded diplomacy on the part…

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Two Deadly Punches

There are two deadly punches in boxing. One has to do with the way the head of the boxer who is punched is moving. In boxing, there is constant movement by both fighters, back and forth, left and right, up and down. The movement is a big aspect of defense in boxing. The head of the boxer is therefore almost never stationary.

This deadly punch happens when the head of the boxer is actually moving in the direction the punch is coming from. The more extreme the movement of the head toward the punch, the more devastating the outcome because the movement of the head toward the punch magnifies the force of the punch. This type of scenario can be so devastating that you just see the boxer collapse instantly on impact, wilting straight down to the mat and knocked out — perhaps permanently.

The other deadly punch isn’t a punch at all, but the result of a knockout. If a boxer is hit with a knockout punch and falls directly backward, chances are he will land flat on his back, but when he is falling the head tends to lag the body so that the chin may be almost touching the top of the torso as he falls backward. So when the boxer’s back hits the mat, the head has a violent whiplash motion backward, and the back of the head can hit the mat with tremendous force because of the whiplash. There have been many fatalities in boxing from this precise scenario, and aficionados of the sport, cognizant of this, fear for the worse whenever they see this type of knockout.

Nutrition’s Golden Age

Afraid

You get afraid when you realize the leadership in Washington today are a bunch of dolts who make decisions based mostly on wanting to win a popularity contest rather than rational decisions based on the best possible outcome.

We are facing imminent food shortages, the erosion of our currency, an economic collapse, and horrible decisions in foreign policy that have driven our two most consistent adversaries — Russia and China — into a mutually beneficial alliance hostile toward the US.

Hard times are coming to this country…hard times, and much of it is our own doing.

“Evil Empire”

Instead of jockeying for some questionable advantages, a more high-minded diplomacy on the part of the US would be, for instance, to seek ways to peacefully unravel the conflict between North Korea and South Korea so that that potentially explosive issue just melts away. Ditto the issue of China and Taiwan. Not gain specious advantage from these situations but actually solve them so they go away.

Wouldn’t it be a huge sea change if US foreign policy were to pursue goals that were on the side of the angels rather than policies that, in the last 70 years, have led inevitably to the death of millions, devastation of whole nations, and terrible unintended consequences — the heritage of our evil empire.

So this brings us to the present moment and the Ukrainian situation, which isn’t fundamentally about Ukraine at all, but instead the uneasy relationship between an expanding NATO and a Russia with security concerns, having been invaded by Europe twice in history.

A high-minded diplomacy on the part of the US would have the US seek to bring these two parties together to work out an agreement that would leave both feeling secure and respected, so that the world could breathe easier and enjoy peace and prosperity.

But what has the US done instead? It has elected to exploit the Ukrainian situation in a proxy war to debilitate its supposed enemy Russia. The end result is not hard to see. Ukraine will be decimated, many there will die, and the relationship between NATO and Russia will deteriorate, perhaps to the breaking point, with the specter of nuclear war rising up once again.

All of this because the cognoscenti in the US see Russia as the enemy, even though, around the world, there are actually very few points of direct contention between the United States and Russia — the Arctic region being the conspicuous exception. That this is so is probably a consequence of geography, as the two countries are, after all, on opposite sides of the globe. And there are many similarities between the two countries — both are threatened by Muslim extremists, both are principally Christian, both are ostensibly democratic, with elections, both are capitalist.

Yet we are led to believe by our leaders in the US that Russia is the enemy. Why? And what will be the net result, but another decimated country called Ukraine, decimated as much by the narrow-minded and short-sighted diplomacy of the United States as by Russia.

Add yet another country to the list of countries victimized by the current evil empire, the United States.

Nuclear Umbrella

Extending Ketosis

I don’t think the Keto diet is healthy. It doesn’t provide enough fiber for healthy gut bacteria. It doesn’t provide a wealth of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that you get from eating lots of complex-carb vegetables and fruits. Also, people who practice it make light of the hazards associated with saturated fat and heart disease, which I consider a serious issue. Having said all that, I do think there can be a subtle role for using Keto in order to extend the ketosis one experiences with intermittent fasting.

Let me explain. I do a 19:5 regimen with intermittent fasting. To my mind, this means that ketosis starts to build around the 12th hour from my last meal. So, with 19:5, I should be getting an escalating ketosis that lasts about 7 hours — from the 12th to the 19th hour of my fasting period.

Question is, is there a viable way to maximize ketosis past the next meal for another 19 hours? This is where Keto may come in handy. If at the next meal, one eats an extremely low — as in insignificant — amount of carbohydrates, but an excessive amount of fat, then the body doesn’t spike insulin, and is left with only fat as an energy source.

Doing this strategy — an extremely high-fat but extremely low-carb OMAD meal — it is very possible to radically reduce your calorie count for that day, as all that fat induces satiety on far fewer calories than what you eat normally. This means that over the following 19-hour fasting period, burning body fat will happen much sooner (perhaps starting at the 6th hour instead of the 12th) because the body will burn through the fewer-than-normal calories from the food sooner, and so instead of 7 hours of ketosis, I might be experiencing up to 13 hours of escalating ketosis in this subsequent fasting period — a win win.

So I think a judicious and selective use of Keto with intermittent fasting could have significant benefits relative to burning body fat, even though I think Keto as your basic diet is unhealthy, even dangerous.

48-Hour Fast

Nuclear Umbrella

Finland and Sweden want to join NATO. But is that a good choice for their citizens, their populations? Under the current agreement with Russia, both countries enjoy a nuclear umbrella — in the event of nuclear war, their populations will not be decimated by nuclear bombs and/or the subsequent radiation.

But in joining NATO, that nuclear umbrella goes away. So does joining NATO make the people of Finland and Sweden safer? Unaligned, the two countries are under no threat of being attacked by Russia, but in joining NATO, both countries are now part of the nuclear confrontation between US/NATO versus Russia, and so, as a consequence, both countries would face annihilation in the event of nuclear war.

It would seem that joining NATO has very little gain for either country and potentially everything to lose. Under such circumstances, one has to wonder about the rationality of their political leadership in making such a questionable decision to join NATO. It does not appear to be a very rational choice.

Vendetta

The US/NATO vendetta against Russia using Ukraine as the pawn will lead to the destruction of Ukraine. It also brings in the nuclear specter. And by the way, the sanctions mean starvation around the world. The Russia-haters in the US and NATO don’t care.

Where Are the Peacekeepers?

48-Hour Fast

I want to do one 48-hour fast per month to get the benefit of increased autophagy, but I’ve had difficulty doing this. I stay busy with exercise (swimming) the full day that I can’t eat anything, but end up caving and eating just a few hours before going to bed, which would otherwise mean success if I didn’t cave. So I almost get there. Frustrating.

I got this idea from listening to a Youtuber about how to extend a fast a little longer. The idea was to use very high-fat and low-carb foods that won’t spike one’s insulin levels, so they won’t bring down the active ketosis. So I thought I might try this the next time I reach that impasse at a few hours from bedtime.

I’ve chosen two foods to eat: pecans (20 half shells) and one whole avocado. I put these two foods into cronometer, and they do provide an enormous amount of fact and very little carbohydrates. The issue is whether that much fat will satisfy my food craving and get me to bedtime without an insulin spike. We’ll see how this goes.

Intermittent Fasting

Where Are the Peacekeepers?

What one should be asking oneself about the conflict in Ukraine is where are the peacekeepers? It is obvious that a settlement of the dispute would be very beneficial to all the parties — Europe, Russia, and most of all Ukraine itself, for, if this war in Ukraine continues and no doubt escalates, the entire country will be ravaged.

But where are the third-party peacekeepers who might aid in brokering an agreement between Russia and Ukraine? No one seems to be stepping up to this task despite the clear benefits for all.

The areas of Ukraine that the Russian military has taken over have a majority of ethnic-Russians in their populations, so it isn’t unrealistic for these areas to be incorporated into Russia — that’s called democracy or rule by the majority. The deal would include the guaranteeing of the new borders of Ukraine against any further incursion by Russia, along with the compromise that Ukraine remains unaligned with NATO. Those are the obvious parameters of such an agreement.

Why would Ukraine entertain such an agreement with loss of territory? Because they are facing devastation to the middle and western parts of their country — currently relatively unscathed — as well as the loss of the entire coastline, including Odessa, so that Ukraine would become completely landlocked, and so no longer benefit as a lucrative transit point for the eastern trade route.

But instead of stepping up to encourage such an agreement, the West has elected instead to open the floodgates of military aid to Ukraine. Clearly, the West, egged on by the US, doesn’t want peace, but is willing to sacrifice Ukraine in order to debilitate Russia. That’s why there are no peacekeepers. The West is using Ukraine to wage covert war against Russia.

This will not end well for the West, certainly not for Ukraine.

Waging war, even indirectly, is an unpredictable animal. The current generation of would-be diplomats in the West seems to have forgotten this fact. And Kennedy’s sword-of-Damocles remark relative to the threat of nuclear war is still very pertinent today — perhaps more pertinent than ever.

Outbreak of War

What the events that led to the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 tell us is that diplomats can lose control of situations, which can escalate quickly and snowball out of anyone’s control.

World War 1 was a war that no one wanted, with the possible exception of Kaiser William II who had off-the-wall fantasies of glory in combat. Because of entangling alliances, once the dominoes started to fall, it was inevitable that the world was faced with not a local war but a world war.

It is a lesson that perhaps has been lost on today’s generation of diplomats that seem to be acting as if the nuclear threat were merely an innocuous abstraction that could never happen. But it can happen, and if certain events are set in motion mindlessly, it will happen of its own accord.

And so we will have another world war that no one wanted, but this time it will be the war that does end all war — and civilization as we know it.

Finland