Bill Still --Monatary Reform: Heading Them Off at the Pass

It is so important for Catholics to understand this issue because it coincides with Catholic Social Doctrine very well.

Unfortunately Bill lost his run to be the Libertarian presidential candidate. Here is his presentation at the Public Bank Institute conference. I hope people can follow the main points of his presentation. [If not see older post of his documentary here] And his presidential platform [here]

Move OUR Money: Public Banking Movement

For more information: http://publicbankinginstitute.org/
Move OUR Money is a call for cities, state governments and counties to move the public's money out of private banks and into public banks. Every quarter that goes into a parking meter, every tax payment that we make, every dollar that banks pay in penalties -- it's all OURs. Let's put it in OUR bank -- a public bank, one that serves the public interest.

Don't have a public bank? Contact the Public Banking Insitute to find out how you can start one in your community. Public banks are common throughout much of the rest of the developed world -- Germany and Japan have some of the largest public banks. Let's get with it and take our credit back from private banks -- let's Move OUR Money!




Why Move OUR Money?
The time for public institutions to place public money into private banks, which then use the public money for their own private gain, is over. Private banks have squandered the public trust.

David Berlinski—Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

David Berlinski,an agnostic,attacks the neo-atheists.

LFTR--The Thorium Dream

Here is another film about LFTR technology. Here is a broad overview.



For more about the technical aspects see older post here

Practical Advice for over-coming Lust

 [From http://www.drmonicabreaux.com/ ]

FIRE DRILLS WITH A STOP LETTER by Monica H Breaux PhD
Fire drills are used to practice moving bodies to safety, so people will not get burned. They build up confidence in people for a timely escape. The frequency of the fire drill practice is the key to this prevention training. In the treatment of addiction, there is a helpful method that is also called a fire drill. It is used to practice an escape from habits of unhealthy behavior that is destructive like fire. Fire drills can be used to practice moving minds to safety, so people will not get burned. They build up confidence in people for a timely escape. The frequency of the fire drill practice is the key to this prevention training of the mind.

The simplicity of the method is the reason many people will not try it, but it is used successfully among

The Myth Of The Spanish Inquisition

Here is a BBC special seldom seen

Miracle Sponge May Save Lives On Battlefield

BOSTON -

Uncontrolled bleeding has been the leading cause of death for soldiers on the battlefield. But the engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have come up with a way to stop bleeding instantly with a special sponge.


The technology could be so effective, it may end up in hospitals and home medicine cabinets, experts said.

MIT engineers at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies came up with ways to protect and heal soldiers on the battlefield. Their newest invention is a sponge that stops bleeding instantaneously.

"When we have a very heavy wound or a large amount of bleeding, we need to stop the bleeding immediately," said Dr. Paula Hammond. "We've been able to develop this sponge which can fit any kind of surface or wound and can be applied very rapidly."

Unlike regular sponges that absorb moisture, the lightweight sponge is coated with the protein thrombine -- a natural clotting agent already found in our bodies and combines it with tanic acids.

"What we're doing is actually releasing the thrombine in its active form immediately and allowing it to access the wound. It stops the bleeding within seconds," Hammond said.

Hammond said the nanotechnology is inexpensive to produce which could make it ideal for everyday use.

"First responders, emergency care rooms -- everything from something you might store in your bathroom or kitchen, to something you would use for extreme conditions," Hammond said.

"Many of the lessons we take to the operating room here for traumatized patients, we learned on the battlefield," said Dr. David King, a trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.

King, who is also a major in the Army Reserve, said the sponge technology is exciting.

Read more:http://www.wcvb.com/Miracle-Sponge-May-Save-Lives-On-Battlefield-Home/-/9849586/11257286/-/s62x5wz/-/index.html

Study: Multitasking hinders youth social skills

(CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.

"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."

The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.

"If you eschew face-to-face communication, you don't learn critical things that you have to learn," Nass said. "You have to learn social skills. You have to learn about emotion."

The Stanford researchers 

full article here

coconut oil Fights Alzheimer's

There is so much information being published right now about the positive effects of coconut oil and Alzheimer’s sufferers. This is an area that I am still learning about, but I am sharing the information I find with as many people as possible. I don’t personally know anyone who is suffering with Alzheimer’s, but my dad died of it, and this information might be highly beneficial. If you know someone who is, or may be suffering, with Alzheimer’s or dementia, this information might be worth sharing with them or their caregivers.(check out my other health posts for stuff you may have not known of click here)

Let’s get the word out about this and see if we can make people’s lives happier and healthier. You’re not going to see a lot of this info in mainstream media, however, there is some happening, which is incredibly promising. There are some medical doctors who are starting to stand up and take notice, so we might be right on the cusp of some change. Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed!

700 Club video:



If coconut oil works why bother with developing a drug?

World Renown Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease

Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.

March 1, 2012


We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.


I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.



It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Dirt Bricks

Here are some Protestants using technology at the service of man. Dirt bricks came out of the environmental movement. But we can see how a basic idea can be developed. Catholic missionaries need to follow their lead on this one. It is basically dirt mixed with cement and pressed to make bricks.

Earthships

It isn't exactly a “Christian” idea as in its driving force. I don't agree with the some of their political views of over population or Global Warming...etc But there are really good things happening from these ideas of “Earthships”. I think it would behoove Catholic Church missionaries and religious communities to see these things and see the benefits for self-sufficient housing. Could you imagine a monastery that needs no food and no utility bills or even Catholic communities? It is possible and this visionary has set a foundation that could be built on. Yeah his structures are not beautiful but Catholic artists developed souring cathedrals from the basis of pagan architecture developed by the Romans and other cultures. I think some really beautiful structures could be developed.

Introduction overview

The Errors of the Economists: Usury

from The Distributist Review
http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/07/the-errors-of-the-economists-usury/
by David W. Cooney on July 31, 2011 2:00 PM

Usury and concepts of legitimate interest are points of contention between distributists and modern economists. A lack of understanding on the difference between them, and how to determine if a particular transaction is one in which interest may be legitimately charged, can make our positions confusing for those considering Distributism.

The average person, trained to accept the prevailing economic model, treats money as though it has the ability to produce wealth rather than being a convenient means of acquiring goods that actually do so, or just buying goods period. Because they look at money as a wealth generator, they see no problem in charging interest for its use. They have never been asked to look at the fundamental points that determine whether charging interest is legitimate or usurious.
What is the Real Difference Between Sales, Loans,  or Rentals?
A sale is an exchange of things of equivalent value, it is a transfer of ownership of the things exchanged. A loan is not an exchange at all. It is the temporary use of a specific thing which much be returned. A loan requires the return of the same thing loaned, not merely an equivalent thing. If I loan you my car, I require that you return the same exact car to me. If I charge you for using the car, it is a rental.

The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde

by ANDREW MCCRACKEN

Oscar Wilde is widely celebrated as an artist persecuted for his homosexuality, a sort of protomartyr for the cause of gay rights. The current celebration of Wilde as gay martyr is certainly one legitimate interpretation of his life, but it oversimplifies his complexity; indeed, it ignores the major movement of his life, a life that may also be seen as a long and difficult conversion to the Roman Catholic Church.

Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

"I am not a Catholic," said Oscar Wilde. "I am simply a violent Papist." This statement, like so many of Wilde's outrageous paradoxes, conceals a sober truth beneath its blithe wit. Another example would be his jest that, of all religions, Catholicism is the only one worth dying in.

Looking back over his life more than a hundred years later, we can be forgiven for seeing the irony in such statements, for Wilde's fascination with Catholicism, its mysteries and rituals, did set the stage for his death-bed conversion. And we can certainly perceive justice in the fact that the man who cracked such jokes also believed that life imitated art: ultimately, then, the joke was on him. Wilde's name is much in the air these days. There are stage plays about his life, a recent feature film starring Stephen Fry and Jude Law, and articles in the national press. The centenary of his premature death in 1900 at age 46 was widely celebrated in the literary and gay communities with moving testimonies to Oscar Wilde, the persecuted genius and gay man, victim of a repressive and judgmental social order.

Many of these recent works do tell part of Wilde's story well. He was homosexual, promiscuously so, and his downfall was precipitated by his passion for a younger man. It was this young man, Lord Alfred Douglas, who in one of his poems called their desire "the love that dare not speak its name." The tale of their romance has classic, even operatic, features — objections by the beloved's family, separation and exile, brief reunion before the lover's death. The heart left unmoved by their story would be hard indeed.

Yet this sad accounting fails to give us the whole of Oscar Wilde. He was prosecuted for "acts of gross indecency with other male persons, " found guilty, and sentenced to two years in prison at hard labor. But his reading during his imprisonment included works by St. Augustine, Dante, and Newman. When he emerged from prison, injured and in poor health, he fled across the channel to France to reunite with his lover. But his first act on his release had been to write to the Jesuits begging to make a six-month retreat at one of their London houses. Wilde is celebrated as the center of a circle of unconventional poets and artists known as decadents and aesthetes. But looking a little past these labels we find that many of these men became sincere converts to Catholicism — Wilde being among the last of them, and entering the Church only in his final moments of life.

So the current celebration of Wilde as gay martyr dilutes his complexity and ignores the major movement of his life, a life that may more accurately be seen as a long and difficult conversion. But why this long conversion, and in what larger context?

Catholicism had held Wilde's interest all his adult life. Born in Dublin in 1854 to a Protestant Anglo-Irish family, Wilde came at age 20 to Oxford University in England, where he was taught by the critic and novelist Walter Pater. Under Pater's influence Wilde became fascinated — aesthetically, at least — by the mystery of Catholic ritual, and took to attending Mass regularly. One of Wilde's friends was David Hunter-Blair, a recent convert, who paid Wilde's way on a sojourn in Rome that included an audience with Pope Pius IX. Hunter-Blair had hopes of converting Wilde, but Wilde was apparently moved only to a kind of romantic excitement at this close brush with the dangerous Catholic Church.

Dangerous? Roman Catholicism was to poetic souls a sort of aesthetic temptation, while to many proper Englishmen the Roman Church was still the Whore of Babylon, the Anti-Christ. (It is well to remember that it had been less than fifty years since the Emancipation Bill that allowed Roman Catholics to hold public office in England, only thirty years since the defection to Rome of John Henry Newman and other prominent Anglicans, and just a few years since the First Vatican Council under Pius IX had debated and defined the dogma of papal infallibility — a dogma that must have seemed to many an outbreak of medievalism at the very birth of the Age of Darwin.)

Hunter-Blair's evangelizing efforts had no immediate effect, and the two men parted, Hunter-Blair taking Holy Orders and Wilde turning to the literary world of London. Wilde was forthright about his motives: "To go over to Rome would be to sacrifice and give up my two great Gods: Money and Ambition." His entrance into London society was spectacular: his dandified dress, pronouncements on fashion, and opinions on art were exquisite and sensational. He published poems and stories and made a lecture tour of America in 1882. (The story goes that when asked by a U.S. customs agent if he had anything to declare, Wilde replied, "Only my genius"). In the 1880s he married, fathered two sons in two years, and published several books of stories for children (truly moving fairy tales of sacrifice and death and life beyond the grave that are well worth reading today). But the 1890s were to see Wilde's great rise and sudden fall.

click here to read full article

IRE: Minimally Invasive Treatment for Inoperable Tumors

[Catholic Data editor: Why isn't this technique being used for breast caner? It would seem the obvious candidate ]

Baltimore, MD – May 26, 2011. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center are using a new minimally invasive technique to treat soft tissue tumors in the liver, lung, prostate, head and neck, kidney and pancreas. [Catholic Data editor: Could it be possibly for  breast cancer? it seems to be a soft tissue easily accessible]

The process, known as Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), offers another option for patients who have cancerous tumors that are close to blood vessels, ducts or nerves that may otherwise be damaged using other techniques, such as burning through radio frequency/microwave ablation, freezing through cryotherapy or traditional open surgery. The University of Maryland Medical Center is one of fewer than 30 hospitals in the United States offering this treatment option and is the only facility in the mid-Atlantic region currently using the approach.

“IRE uses electrical energy to target tumors at the cellular level. Using short electrical pulses, IRE breaks open the tumor cell walls, causing these cancer cells to die,” explains Ziv Haskal, M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology and surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and chief of vascular and interventional radiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Electrotherapy and Brain cancer

Published by MIT http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/19195/

Zapping tumors: Brain-cancer patients in a trial for a portable device that sends a weak electric field into the brain must wear electrodes almost constantly. One patient in a pilot clinical trial for the device, who still had cancer after radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, experienced a complete recovery. The MRI at top shows a tumor on the left side of this patient’s brain before treatment. The MRI at bottom, taken after eight months of treatment, shows no tumor.

Yoram Palti, NovoCure (top image); Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (bottom MRIs)

Multimedia

• View an image and graphic of the device.

Biomedicine

Electric Fields Kill Tumors

A promising device uses electric fields to destroy cancer cells in the brain.

• Wednesday, August 8, 2007
• By Katherine Bourzac

Audio »

An Israeli company is conducting human tests for a device that uses weak electric fields to kill cancer cells but has no effect on normal cells. The device is in late-stage clinical trials in the United States and Europe for glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer. It is also being tested in Europe for its effectiveness against breast cancer. In the lab and in animal testing, treatment with electric fields has killed cancer cells of every type tested.
The electric-field therapy was developed by Yoram Palti, a physiologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, who founded the company NovoCure to commercialize the treatment.

Good Clean Fun

A man I know was in contact with Jimmy Brogan years ago about 2001. Brogan was a professional comedian for years and said he just got tired of the constant raunchy humor. So he branch out to be the "clean comedian". He does Church fundraisers and KofC halls.He is a humble man that seeks to help a troubled world the only  way he knows how. Brogan gives full credit to his faith -- both in keeping him grounded amid the madness of show business and in defining his point of view so thoroughly he named his website www.thecatholiccomedian.com.

Jimmy Brogan is a proud graduate of St. Ann's Grade School, St. Ignatius High School and the University of Notre Dame.
He has appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson as well as Late Night with David Letterman.

"My act is all clean and appropriate for church events. I did an event downtown at the Cathedral last year" in Los Angeles, says Brogan. "It's not that I was doing all Catholic jokes, but they were appropriate for that kind of audience. I do benefits, and did one in Long Beach where a thousand priests and nuns were there, and they loved that not one of them had to worry about being offended."

His style was formed in the Catholic schoolyard. He was the wiseguy geek who learned a quick wit can be an asset. No one works a crowed like him.

Save the US Post Office!

Watch this video. What you thought about the post office losing money is a lie. Congress has mandated since 2006 to take 6 billion off the top each year. Small business depends on this cheap service. Remember it is a service NOT a business.-- it is organized to at least break even. Without the Post Office we will be at the mercy of private carries that would skyrocket the cost of letters and packages. This is a political game. Remember the US Post Office is part of the US Constitution. Those who want to enforce the Constitution and think it is great document must remember this!

Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 1/13)

This is a really good documentary and needed.

Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America is a 2009 pro-life documentary film which draws a connection between the targeting of African Americans by the eugenics movement in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the modern-day prevalence of abortion among African Americans. The film argues that abortion is an attempted genocide or maafa of black people, and has been so since the 19th century.

Religion the enemy of eduction?

  I have to laugh when secularists say that religion promotes ignorance. Maybe that could be often true in general-- you could include paganism and atheism as religions of ignorance. But Catholicism in its full strength offered education to the poor. Since there has been  lack of religious brothers and nuns to keep Catholic eduction cheap and the liberalism in the Church has caused the standards to descend.

Here is an example of how Catholics were taught according to traditions of Catholic education. This is a renewal

Flaherty O'Connor--the power of Catholic Literature

 Here is a strange video lecture.
It is given at a Protestant College by man who seems to be a Protestant.
 At least he refers to himself as such indirectly. But his love of Flaherty O'Connor's novels and letters has captivated him into something of a closet Catholic. He could be a Catholic but has not formally entered the Church yet. He talks of the need of the sacraments especially Baptism to be Christian. Talks of Catholic as Christians, quotes the Pope and admires Flaherty O'Connor devotion to the Eucharist! It is a long talk I wish it was on MP3 so people could listen to it on their i-pod or in their car. Very interesting.

It is an example of the power of art. Art is communication and the artist communicates the worldview which he holds. In the case of a devout Catholic such as Tolkien or O'Connor their power to attract is magnetic, to the point of inspiring their fans to wonder: "What made him/her write that?" That can often be the beginning of a conversion.

Flaherty O'Connor is a forgotten Catholic writer that let her Faith influence her art. She allowed it in such a way that it leaves people perplexed. Her texts usually take place in the South and revolve around morally flawed characters, while the issue of race often appears in the background. One of her trademarks is foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. Most of her works feature disturbing elements, though she did not like to be characterized as cynical.

 "I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic," she writes. "The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."

Kefir vs Yogurt

Many Americans have never had Kefir. It is very common in Slavic countries, like the Czech Republic or Russia. Some Americans don't like the taste at first. It is stronger in taste than Yogurt. But like beer it becomes a very pleasant beverage; after a few tries it becomes a real pleasure. It is similar to Buttermilk.

Kefir contain different types of beneficial bacteria than Yogurt. Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But  it is only temporary. One needs to eat it on a regular basis to have the full effects. But Kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match.

Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species.

RECLAIM Sexual Health: is a professional and science-based Catholic online program

[Update- 5-29-2012; Radio show with the directors of Catholic RECLAIM program http://ewtn.edgeboss.net/download/ewtn/audiolibrary/gf_05052012.mp3 also here is some free advice in "practical advice for overcoming lust" ]

[editor--unfortunately this therapy costs money. Maybe some priests could take the course and then be more enabled to help their flock? It does sound promising though]

 

What Is RECLAIM?

RECLAIM Sexual Health is a professional and science-based Catholic online program designed to help individuals overcome unhealthy sexual behaviors. Combining The Brain Science of Change and insights from Theology of the Body, RECLAIM is a powerful tool for more joy and happiness in life!
Participants who sign up now will initially be using the secular version of the Candeo Program. When the Catholic version, called RECLAIM, is completed, those enrolled will be able to access that program. The current acclaimed Candeo Program provides The Brain Science of Change training and the technical online applications that will continue to power the new RECLAIM Program.

Home site here http://www.reclaimsexualhealth.com/

The Kalaam Argument for the existence of God

The Kalaam Argument

The Arabic word kalaam literally means "speech," but came to denote a certain type of philosophical theology—a type containing demonstrations that the world could not be infinitely old and must therefore have been created by God. This sort of demonstration has had a long and wide appeal among both Christians and Muslims. Its form is simple and straightforward.

1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
2.The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.

Grant the first premise. (Most people—outside of asylums and graduate schools would consider it not only true, but certainly and obviously true.)

Nutrition 101

Here are 2 nifty videos that covers nutrition in very broad way. It isn't visually well done but the information is great. The the end of the first video  will be of interest to women with PMS because this problem is mainly caused  by a lack of essential fatty acids
Part I

Greater Glory

Looks good starts June 2012

Natural Weed Killer

Got Weeds? Use Vinegar, Not Roundup

NEED PROOF THAT VINEGAR IS A WEED-TERMINATOR? Just look at the weeds growing along a pea-stone path in my Herb Garden. These were photographed yesterday afternoon, just moments before I sprayed them with cheap, undiluted, store-brand white vinegar. Here’s what all that greenery looked like this morning:[update: add a few drops of dish soap to it to break the water tension. It will stick to the plant better]

I’d say those weeds are deader than dead. And that’s why I use vinegar on the gravel paths, brick walk-ways, and blue-stone patio here at A Garden for the House. For me it has proven an effective, eco-friendly answer to Roundup.
And speaking of Roundup, this year Monsanto, the product’s evil manufacturer, agreed with the New York Attorney General’s office to discontinue their use of the terms “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly” in ads promoting Roundup. Why? Because these terms were bald-faced lies. Roundup is neither biodegradable nor environmentally friendly.
The next time you want to murder your weeds, why douse them with something that will remain in the soil for who knows how long? Maybe you should reach for vinegar instead. Vinegar is cheap. It’s easy to use. I keep gallons of it in my garden shed.
How to Apply: You can use a watering can, a spray bottle or a pump-sprayer to apply vinegar. I use a pump-sprayer, because it is more efficient. Be sure to rinse your sprayer after use, or metal parts (if any) can corrode.
Make your application on a warm, sunny, calm (not windy) day. Vinegar is not selective; it can potentially harm plants you wish to keep, should you accidentally spray them. As I said earlier, I use vinegar on walkways, where grass and ornamental plants are not an issue.
Will vinegar kill every weed in every garden? That I can not say. I only know that it has kept my pathways free of unwanted growth.