Tim Pim Blog

MINERALS are basic elements found in the soil. Plants pick up these elements naturally. When we eat these plants [or animals who have eaten the plants], we absorb these minerals into our own tissues.

SODIUM, POTASSIUM, MAGNESIUM and CALCIUM are minerals the body requires in large amounts, the focus of this report will be on these four minerals. There are many other minerals the body uses but the amounts are very small.

SODIUM, known as salt, regulates the water distribution in our bodies. Salt is the most abundant mineral in our blood and active people need it. Low salt levels will cause dehydration and muscle cramps.

This does not mean piling on extra salt while cooking or eating, we get enough salt depending on the foods we eat. Meat, fish, chicken, grains, and nuts contain salt.

Other foods high in salt: milk and margarine [except those advertised as low salt], canned foods, ketchup, popcorn, potato chips, french fries and sauerkraut.

According to a Harvard Medical School study, all our body requires is 0.2 grams of salt per day. Too much salt causes dehydration, potassium loss and serious medical problems.

POTASSIUM is a mineral that controls muscle heat and nerve conduction [the transmission of nerve impulses]. When we exercise and feel weak and tired, it’s usually low mineral levels in muscle cells. Lack of Potassium is a common cause and there is no warning system to tell you this, unless a blood test is performed.

When exercising, muscle produces heat; Potassium released by the muscle prevents overheating by increasing blood flow. Sweat and urine excrete Potassium so replacing it is vital.

Fruit juices have high levels of Potassium, drinking generous amounts will replenish low levels of this mineral. Other Potassium rich foods are: fruits and vegetables, molasses, pecans, rye, flour, soy beans, walnuts and wheat germ.

MAGNESIUM helps to control muscle contraction and regulates the conversion of carbohydrates to energy. Low magnesium levels cause fatigue and muscle cramps.

A U.S. Department Of Agriculture report states that 36% of Magnesium is supplied through dairy products and meat. Other recommended foods are dark bread, nuts, and green leafy vegetables.

Believe it or not, beer is a great source of magnesium. Some professional athletes have been known to hit the beer cooler as a post game recovery drink.

CALCIUM is the most abundant mineral and the main structural material for bones and teeth. Calcium controls muscle contraction and regulates most of the chemical reactions in our body.

Unless you are growing, pregnant or nursing, calcium requirements are low. If your body needs calcium, your own bones will supply it.

Sources of calcium: almonds, asparagus, beans, cabbage, cauliflower, cheese, egg yolk, figs, lentils, milk, nuts, sardines and turnip greens.

Combining these four minerals into your daily diet will increase energy levels and add some snap to your exercise routine! For a Free Informative Health Newsletter visit: http://healthybodysupplements.com

The publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten some time ago of cartoons depicting and satirizing the Prophet Mohammed has resulted in a widespread, sometimes violent and always astonishing uproar in the Muslim world. Even worse, the foreign ministries of eleven Islamic countries have demanded action from the Danish government, and several Arab countries eventually closed their embassies in Denmark in protest after the government initially refused to intervene or to apologize.

Among the various acts of reprisal organized throughout the Islamic world, some are worth mentioning - if not for their levels of excess:

[ ] A large consumers boycott was organised in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Middle East countries.

[ ] The Foreign Ministers of seventeen Islamic countries have renewed calls for the Danish government to punish those responsible for the cartoons, and to ensure that such cartoons will not be published again.

[ ] The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League have demanded that the United Nations impose international sanctions upon Denmark.

[ ] Several Arab countries have requested that the European Union introduce blasphemy laws.

[ ] The buildings containing the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were set ablaze.

[ ] In Beirut, the Danish Embassy office was set on fire, resulting in the death of one protester inside.

Muslim leaders say, that the cartoons are not just offensive - they are sacrilegious and blasphemous. This is so, because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet Mohammed - an absolute taboo in Islamic secular theology. Personally, I neither accept nor condone the virulence of those manifestations, especially since blasphemy is more than sanctioned by Arab governments. The Muslim media, in fact, routinely run cartoons depicting Jews and symbols of Judhaism with icons and images that closely - too closely - resemble those used in Nazi Germany. However, be as it may be, it is their faith and Muslims are entitled to express observance and abidance to their religion any which way they choose, in their own countries.

But only in their own countries!

Things do take a different turn, when we see Muslim demonstrators in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome holding up signs proclaiming “EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM” and chanting “WAIT FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST TO COME”.

Holocaust - a European word par excellence.

All Europeans are fully aware of that infamous date, November 9, 1938, known to the world as Die Kristallnacht or The Night of the Broken Glass - officially the beginning of the Holocaust. I know for a fact that they know it. I used to be a European myself.

The Holocaust was geographically widespread and systematically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory, where Jews were targeted in what are now 35 separate nations of the European Union. Names like Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Belzec, Sobibr, Treblinka, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, and Bergen-Belsen have become an integrant part of European contemporary history, and their ruins are there in Europe for every human being to see, including Muslims.

They constitute together a testament to the deepest abyss ever reached by human beings of any kind in the past one million years.

The Holocaust is so ingrained in modern European ‘civilization’, so cast into stone, that for the citizens of the country that perpetrated it, the Holocaust has become the equivalent of their second original sin - no matter when they were born !

The Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark, in a recent interview, has dismissed the Western innate right to exercise freedom of speech and expression. He has stated that exercising freedom of the press in this instance means that the cartoons will be reprinted, so that the European governments will never appease the Muslim world.

Excuse me?

So what, if European governments will never appease the Muslim world? Freedom of speech is an integral concept of modern liberal democracies, and guaranteed under international law through numerous human rights instruments, one of which being the European Convention on Human Rights. In fact, it seems to me that it should be up to Islam to appease the West, seeing as to how Islamic scholars have such a long tradition of threatening the free discussion of their religion in the West. And be it either for fear of political instability, threats to their own personal lives, social unrest or … oil, European leaders have always acquiesced to Islamic radical demands.

Leaders of the European Union should stop prostituting themselves to each and every Arab sheik that comes into town.

European leaders have a moral duty imposed upon them to make clear, that although Muslims are more than welcome to come, live and exchange ideas with their European counterparts, they must leave their religious fanaticism, intolerance of free speech and policies of intimidation at home. European leaders have an additional duty towards their own citizens to stand tall in the defense of civil liberties, to the creation of which Europe has contributed so much throughout the course of two millennia. And they have a further moral obligation to set the record straight, by making absolutely loud and clear that also we, in the West, have our own taboos - the Holocaust being among the primary. Ultimately, Islam needs European money just as much as Europe needs Islam’s oil.

All reasonable men will agree, that there is no reason to offend people of any faith arbitrarily. We owe all faiths deference and respect. But the Danish cartoons were not arbitrarily offensive. And those who have found them offensive should be informed that freedom - the very essence of it - means learning to deal with being offended.

And as much as Muslims may find it utterly blasphemous, a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb over his head does not even remotely come close to the blasphemy of the Holocaust.

Luigi Frascati

Luigi Frascati is a Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled the Real Estate Chronicle at http://wwwrealestatechronicle.blogspot.com where you can find the full collection of his articles. Luigi is associated with the Sutton Group, the largest real estate organization in Canada, and is based with Sutton-Centre Realty in Burnaby, BC.

Luigi is very proud to be an EzineArticles Platinum Expert Author. Your rating at the footer of this Article is very much appreciated. Thank you.

The times where laptops for gaming were a small sector are fading very rapidly. The units were circulated in insignificant qty’s but each laptops had a large profit margin. They were the type of notebook computer that everybody desired, but the cost didn’t fall in their price range. I believe you could say they were the best laptop computers about, at least performance wise. Having said that many of us most likely didn’t buy laptop computers of this kind because of the price. Recently all that has appeared to have altered as the big players have spotted the opportunities in laptops for gaming.

I reckon they could categorize it as a top end product and make lots of profit on these particularly with their mass production techniques. It is a splendid chance for them to regain gross markup as the markup on consumer laptops are so minute these days. With their massive marketing budgets I am certain they can sway anyone to buy laptop computers like these. Do the little companies even have a chance with this form of threat? In my point of view the multinational players will dictate the market direction. Large manufacturers can leverage their brand names to simply win purchasers over.

To my astonishment the mass produced gaming laptop computers are as good or even better than the best laptop computers at present. I reckon this would still be the encouraging advantage for littler manufacturers though. Being able to buy exactly what components they desire is a large plus for many potential prospects who are thinking of buying a gaming laptop. Typically many comparisons of the tech specs will be done and the tech savvy can tell what the superior portable actually is. For this type of niche, the specs are typically more sought after than the styling.

This would be seen as a good development for the purchaser. One method that the smaller resellers might utilise is to reduce markup in to sell more system. Though I say that, I am not actually sure of my predictions. Prices should be kept high as an outcome of the constant creation of new portables. I reckon we will have to watch whether this overcrowding causes any significant benefits for gamers.

I found this retailer that is selling gaming laptops at rock bottom prices. They look to be providing some excellent deals. Visit http://www.rizeon.com

Translated it means: Woon je in Heiloo of Purmerend en hebt u BKR’ Lenen met zonder BKR registratie is nog nooit zo gemakkelijk geweest. Koop een nieuwe auto met geldlening met bkr notering, 416393 euro is geen obstakel om te financieren. Van Bergambacht tot Bellingwedde, financieren met BKR gaat hier altijd.

See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property. Some will quote you precise, competitive rates 4 percent. So how do you find a lender or broker you can trust’ Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. It is a transfer of an interest in land, from the owner to the mortgage lender, on the condition that this interest will be returned to the owner of the real estate when the terms of the mortgage have been satisfied or performed.

In other words, the mortgage is a security for the loan that the lender makes to the borrower. Many of these fees are fixed but some can be negotiated.

See which lenders are charging fees 11 percent and for how much. Although most mortgage experts say that rates 8 percent are pretty much the same wherever you go, give or take this tiny 8 percentage. Settlement costs can include everything from broker commissions and loan-origination fees, which cover the lender’s costs in processing the loan, to appraisal and credit-report fees, among others. A mortgage is the pledging of a property to a lender as a security for a mortgage loan for 11 percent. In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans 4 percent secured on real estate rather than other property and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Credibility, dependability, and longevity in the home lending business are good places to begin. Start with credibility. It’s not easy to know if the prices quoted by lenders are reliable. Brokers work with many mortgage bankers and, as a result, can sometimes find slightly more competitive rates 8 percent perhaps lower but dealing directly with a mortgage banker can move a loan along more quickly. And of course, each loan and each borrower are different. Both banks and brokers have their strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your situation, that may make a bank loan more appealing than a mortgage processed by a broker.

Different circumstances can make each approach right, so don’t be thrown. But others will claim low rates to bring in customers or tell you that the rates 4 percent offered by competitors will change.

While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is evidence of a debt of 10 percent. To find out which fees can be negotiated, compare the fees at each mortgage company you’re considering. Different lenders charge different fees.

Satellite TV used to be all the rage and I guess it still is to a degree. It’s obviously one heck of a lot more accessible now than it ever was. I remember those early days where home satellite dishes resembled a NASA space patroller, consuming half of the garden in the process. Of course, back then, not everyone had satellite TV, so it was considered something of a status symbol. “Look at this neighbor, we’ve just got hooked up to satellite TV”. Ner ner ne ner ner!

Of course, like all new technology, it doesn’t stay new for long and prices usually plummet pretty quickly as demand and quality goes up. When high tech equipment got so big that it became too big for homes, the next challenge was to miniaturize everything. We now have hi-fi systems no bigger than credit cards, and look at what they can pack into a mobile phone these days. Satellite dishes were no exception and the tiny squarial soon followed the big saucers to become the superior satellite solution. Folks were glad to get there gardens back as these unobtrusive little receivers could be pinned neatly out of everyone’s reach and way.

There are also many providers nowadays of satellite TV, and just like cable television, you are able to choose from a whole variety of packages, quite often tailor made to your own requirements. I can remember way back when there were literally just a handful of stations to watch on TV, but now there are so many to choose from, you can become a prisoner to the box with the plethora of programs being transmitted at any one time. The kids of today have no idea just how limited home entertainment used to be.

When you think about it carefully, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the viewing options available through Satellite TV. All kinds of programs for all types of folks in many different languages beamed around the planet. Let’s look at a few: There’s satellite TV providers for local programs, we have music channels (including satellite radio), CD music channels, numerous movie channels, like Showtime, HBO, Cinemax, the Movie Channel, Encore, Starz, Sundance, Sci-fi and Beyond, Flix, Action, Love, Mystery, Drama, Wam, the Independent Film Channel, and so much more!

Blimey, I could go on forever! There’s my favorite, the history channel, we also have discovery, the travel channel, food channels, animal planet, home shopping, soaps, weather, Disney, cartoon network, oh there’s no end to it all.

With so much competition, it’s always a good idea to shop around if you’re thinking of hooking up for the first time or changing your provider. Many special satellite TV promotions have great giveaways such as free equipment, a free trail period, an extra package etc. Another great thing about Satellite TV is that many receivers now include what they call DVR technology, or digital video recorder. This is just a fantastic new way to record your favorite programs at any time without all the cumbersome hassles that came with traditional video recording equipment. Believe it or not, but with DVR technology, you can tape over a hundred hours of programming, save what you want, and delete what you don’t want. It absolutely awesome.

Satellite TV is very inexpensive now and subscriptions can start at less than $20 per month. Compared to many cable companies, its value that cannot be beaten. Why not check out the Satellite TV options today. You never know what you might be missing!

Well the score is in: Google has resoundingly thumped Yahoo and MSN in the ongoing search engine wars. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t read it myself; Google continues to grow in size and popularity while Yahoo and MSN continue to firm up their “also ran” positions. What does this mean for you? Plenty, especially if you are wasting your time with the other search engines.

Yes, I am surprised. My previous statistics were evidently a bit outdated as I had the search engine war between the Big 3 Providers — Google, Yahoo, and MSN — running a tight 1-2-3. Indeed, it must have been early in 2005 the last time I bothered to look at the statistics, but at that time my stats showed that Google controlled 36% while Yahoo and MSN were running at 33% and 32% respectively. Yes, the statistics total to more than 100% since they include those people who use more than one search engine [in this case they are counted twice].

According to the Neilsen//NetRatings and as republished in the October 20, 2005, issue of USAToday, Google’s share is as follows:

Google is the Internet’s most-used search engine, with a 45.1% share of searches in September, according to market tracker Nielsen/NetRatings. Yahoo (YHOO) had 23.3% and MSN 11.7%, says Nielsen.

To put it bluntly, only Yahoo is in the game and MSN is quickly fading to irrelevancy. How can I say this? Because when I do searches of key words that I frequently check up on including, Corporate Flight Attendant Community, I find some vastly different results.

With MSN, the search results yielded 3117 results, with Yahoo 326, and with Google 9850. What is apparent to me is that Google is doing the best job of indexing pages while the other two are way behind. I will give MSN credit for the recent leap in the number of results for Corporate Flight Attendant Community, but several of the results were for pages I deleted months, even years ago! Overall, I believe Yahoo harnesses their popular Yahoo Groups, Hotjobs, and other key features to give them a search engine edge over MSN.

I am betting my money on Google. While it isn’t good for one search engine to dominate, when it comes to building my business I want to go with a winner. Clearly, Google has a leg up on the competition, so every page that I create is optimized for my buddy Googlebot to index!

Do you, Yahoo? I don’t… now you understand why.

Copyright 2005 — Matthew Keegan is the owner of a successful article writing, web design, and marketing business based in North Carolina, USA. He manages several sites including the Corporate Flight Attendant Community and the Aviation Employment Board. Please visit The Article Writer to review selections from his portfolio.

If you are wanting to get a home equity loan, rates are still low enough that you may want to make use of that equity in your home. Do you need some ideas on what you could do to multiply your equity or make some extra money off of the capital that could be available to you?

Here are some suggestions of ways to put the equity to good use when you go to take out a home equity or cash out refinance loan.

1. Do a home improvement that will increase the equity in your home more than the cost of doing the improvement. As an example, I have heard rumors that adding a deck to a home, because of the amount it increases the homes resale value, can add up to 4 times the cost of actually installing the deck.

2. If you have a low interest rate on your home, invest your equity in a low risk investment that has a much higher return on your money.

3. Buy an existing business or start a new business with the equity capital in your home. If you can start a low risk business, take the opportunity to let your equity work for you.

4. Use the equity as a down payment on an investment property or a rental.

5. Use it to consolidate high interest debt and possibly save yourself hundreds of dollars a month to put toward something else.

6. Use it to finance your education and increase your earning power.

7. If you live in an area zoned for this, you could finish a basement or area of the house to rent out. You could create a separate living space or apartment on your property.

Just be careful to not do anything risky with the equity in your home. If you can get a low enough rate, it may be worth taking that money and investing it somewhere else.

If you would like to view our recommended home equity loan lenders or get more information on home equity loans click here:
Recommended Home Equity and Second Mortgage Lenders

Carrie Reeder is the owner of ABC Loan Guide. ABC Loan Guide is an informational loan website with informative articles and it has recommended lenders to help you get the best mortgage service possible.

12 month free line rental products are quite a new type of contract and are therefore little understood by most people. Perhaps this fact is one of the reasons they are the best mobile deals being sold at the moment.

Bar none, the most cost competitive way of buying a free line rental phone contract is online. As free line rental products are a little obscure package you would be well advised to use a mobile phone comparison site to see the most cost effective products at that given moment.

Theoretically a free line rental cell phone contract is not supposed to cost a penny to operate. That assumes the person taking out the contract is successful in their request for for 100% cashback. More often than not this is not as easy as consumers are lead to think because of the fact that mobile stores include some pitfalls within the fine print of free line rental products to cut down the numbers of successful consumers.

A free line rental cell phone contract is a type of redemption offer. With a 12 month free cell phone contract you must continue to pay the cost of the phone as usual for the initial months until you are able to get your 100% cash refund. At a later point you have to remember to claim the cost of the mobile cell phone back from the store who initially sold you the mobile cell phone.

In spite of the potential difficulties of free line rental contracts they remain legitimate and it is possible for potential buyers to get absolutely free phone for full duration of a 12 month contract.

12 month free is a compromise of sorts, as they are only offered with older phones. The most significant risk of free line rental contracts is that in the event that the vendor fold you have now way to redeem your cash.

Are you ready to get out and have some fun? Are you sick and tired of sitting around doing the same old same old every day? And do you have a friend who is about to get married? If so then this is the perfect excuse for you to talk your friends into going away for a great hen night party. These parties are the most fun things that you can do to celebrate the end of one way of life and the beginning of another. And best of all a hen night is great fun!

I love that these parties are so easy to plan. There are some sites out there that will even guide you through the process step by step. You can go virtually anywhere in the world for your hen night, the only thing that will hold you back is the cost and your own imagination. And the imagination is something you don’t even need to worry about if you have chosen to get some help from a great planning company. These guys have all of the imagination that you could ever want or need! They have thought of everything and it has all been done so that you can find out what other women just like you have enjoyed the most in the past. We women like to have fun and we like to party and even more than that we love to be comfortable and taken care of and that is what these hen night planning companies do for you and your merry little band of friends.

Have you considered going to Spain for your hen night? Why not? What a great way to get away from the grind of everyday life together. There you will be able to take in a whole new culture and the food is delicious and the drinks are out of this world. And what makes this is the perfect night for your hen night weekend is the fact that it is affordable. You will be able to get fantastic prices on fun and exciting packages from your hen night planning company. They have everything under control and you can feel safe knowing that they know which hotels are the best and which are ones to be avoided. They will always give you what you need, that is why they are there.

If you are thinking of going out for a hen night or weekend then you need to start thinking about getting in touch with a couple of hen night planners today. Talk to them and see what all services they offer, that will help you to choose the planner that is right for you and your friends. You will be safe in their hands, they spend their days planning hen nights for people and they know what will fly. So get out there and have some fun!

Martin Lucchi is a Web Developer for Eclipse Leisure, a British company that organizes hen weekends, stag nights, Corporate Events and Team Building Activities for the UK and Europe.

I frequently go on a tear about the “organic integrity” of botanicals used in herbal remedies and soap. It turns out, I am not the only one. Recently, nefarious and greedy forces with access to the policymakers have been attempting to relax the standards that qualify items as organic.

Why do these entities care? They care because the more they can muddy the water regarding what is organic, the more easily the consumer can be confused by the appearance of the word organic representing a compound or item that is, in fact, something that no reasonable person would consider organic. The item becomes “value added” and the manufacturer widens their profit margin.

Let’s talk about the different ways a company might list a botanical on its ingredient list and why it might make a difference to you. Keeping in mind the importance of “organic integrity”, think about how different extraction methods impact the organic makeup of an extract. There are several extraction methods available.

Alcohol can be used to extract components of a botanical. Given how alcohol evaporates and how it performs on the skin, when components are extracted via this method it is likely that you are not capturing the full essence of the botanical. Additionally, alcohol’s tendency to dry skin might not be something you want in your skin products. In fairness, it should be noted that for some botanicals this is the preferred method because it produces the best results. But, this is usually not the case.

Water can be used to extract components of a botanical; usually via boiling. The high heat exposure itself is damaging to certain elements of the botanical. So this method, while inexpensive, is not a method that I would recommend if you are looking for anything other than the most superficial elements of the botanical in question.

Soaking botanicals in carrier oil is another way to extract organic components. This produces a product that is not damaged by heat but is diluted by the carrier oil.

I am a strong proponent of the cold press method. This method is a mechanical method that generates a low heat that does not tend to damage the organic components and “presses” the desirable elements out of the physical plant.

(Here comes the shameless plug) Aunt Ann’s Garden Soap only employs two forms of botanicals, the organic plant itself or it’s organic essential oil. Sometimes, we enhance the plant’s function with a boost of its own essential oil.

In short, (I know it’s a little late for that) there are multiple ways for getting the goodies out of plants but the various methods do not produce products of equal strength and/or quality. The folks that make soap are not obligated and often do not reveal the method, quality or grade of their extracted material and ingredient labels are sufficiently vague to disguise the true nature of an added botanical. You should not have to pay premium price for a product that has substandard botanical components in it; that are listed so its manufacturer can claim a value added product.

Dawn Worthy, owner of Fresh From the Farm, is devoted to integrating human health and comfort with the natural world through 2 product lines, Aunt Ann’s Garden Soap and Grandma’s Love Afghans. “We think poisoning our customers is bad and we have taken a strong stand against it. We think lying to our customers is bad too. We are also against that.” http://www.FreshFromtheFarm.Us