Translate

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Darwin's Antithesis

Extreme right wing Republicans are calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortions without specific exemptions for rape or incest. Congressman Todd Akin remarks that he opposes abortion because somehow women's bodies are able to block unwanted pregnancies. With these and many other examples of retrograde thinking (e.g., anti-contraception beliefs) manifesting itself in partisan politics, I sardonically reconsider what once seemed laughable -- that humans are de-evolving. [Do I hear the gathering sound of furry footed bipeds congregating in Tampa?]

http://www.kchronicles.com/comics/2012-07-14_deevolution-68179b28.gif

Monday, August 20, 2012

Downy Fabric Softeners: Healthy Fragrance or Asphyxiating Toxins?

Whenever someone uses Downy fabric softener sheets in their dryer upwind in our neighborhood, I can tell immediately . The chemically produced scented fragrance ingredients are designed to attach themselves to the receptors in your sinuses to create a lingering effect. They're also designed to attach for long lasting embedded effect on the clothing fibers as well. Since the product label does not include all ingredients because there are so many, I decided to look and see what my malodorous neighbors are inflicting me with (both those that I can and cannot smell). Those who use the liquid don't offend me until I get trapped in an enclosed space with them. I am not 'chemical sensitive', so I can only imagine the effects of this stuff on people who are.

It seems to me that baking soda or white vinegar would make more sense as fabric softeners.

According to the Allergy and Environmental Health Association, both liquid and dryer sheet fabric softeners are “the most toxic product produced for daily household use.”  Most of the popular brands of fabric softeners contain many neurotoxins (substances that are toxic to the brain and nervous system) and other types of toxins.

Search:
fabric softeners + health risks

Sunday, August 19, 2012

A Silently Growing Middle Class Tax

Social Security benefits are taxable at highly variable rates, with the poor and the rich benefiting the most. The middle class tax burden has been doubling each ten years -- and will triple in the next decade. Why? Because this tax is not 'inflation-indexed' -- means that more and more retirees at lower levels will be sending some of their SS benefits back to the Treasury. It's a silent tax increase that keeps on growing and growing.

http://www.statesman.com/business/personal-finance/the-middle-class-tax-that-keeps-on-rising-2437978.html?printArticle=y

http://www.statesman.com/business/personal-finance/the-middle-class-tax-that-keeps-on-rising-2437978.html

Thursday, August 16, 2012

One Bacteria Kills As Many Americans As Auto Accidents

"Clostridium difficile', "c. diff", is infecting a number approaching a half million Americans annually and currently killing 30,000+ annually.
Symptoms begin with severe diarrhea. It's spread easily by tough to kill bacterial spores that can survive for months on surfaces. Once they're on a person's hands, it's a short trip to the mouth. And now a hyper-virulent strain has evolved ans spreading through hospitals, etcetera.

Far more could be done to stop the deadly bacteria C. diff:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-08-16/deadly-bacteria-hospital-infections/57079514/1

One hospital wins a round against C. diff:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/usaedition/2012-08-16-hospital-infections-sidebar_st_u.htm?csp=obinsite

Sunday, August 12, 2012

The Prince Who Kept The Saudis In Line

Obituary:
Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, 1934–2012

"Even within the ultraconservative Saudi royal family, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud was regarded as a hard-liner. During his four decades as interior minister, he cracked down on even the smallest real or imagined threat to the ruling House of Saud, arbitrarily imprisoning thousands of dissidents—including liberals, women’s-rights campaigners, and religious minorities. But in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., his ruthlessness made him a crucial ally of Washington, which looked on approvingly as he crushed Islamic militants inside Saudi Arabia....

"As overseer of Saudi Arabia’s internal security, he confronted three of the gravest domestic challenges the monarchy has ever faced. In the late 1970s, his security forces crushed a wave of protests by the country’s marginalized Shiites, and played a key role in ending the two-week takeover of Mecca’s Grand Mosque by Iranian-backed extremists. Following the attacks of 9/11, Nayef peddled the theory that the attacks were a Jewish plot, and denied that 15 of the 19 hijackers could have come from Saudi Arabia. But his attitude changed in 2003, after al Qaida bombed government facilities and targeted members of the royal family.
http://theweek.com/article/index/229668/nayef-bin-abdul-aziz-al-saud-1934ndash2012

"Prince Nayef, who could be equal parts charming and irascible, had long used his close alliance with the more traditional elements of Saudi Arabia’s puritan brand of Islam, Wahhabism, to block any movement toward political change. Political activists said they believed that his death would allow for greater openness in the kingdom because there is no other prince who wields such broad authority with such conviction."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/world/middleeast/saudi-crown-prince-nayef-dies-led-crackdown-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all

Comment: Remember that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are Sunni fundamentalists.

Fracking Made Legal Via Loopholes

596 chemicals are used in hydraulic fracturing, "fracking" -- 65 of these are known to be hazardous to organic life forms aka 'us'. Millions of gallons of this chemical laden water is forcefully injected into rock formations to crack shale layers and release trapped oil and gas. The modern fracking technology uses chemicals not previously used with the old fracking methods that also only used thousands, not millions, of gallons of water.

The oil and gas industry enjoy special exemptions and loopholes that would prevent other industries from operating in similar ways. The frackers are exempt from the Resource Conservation Act which would regulate the hazardous water from fracking. The Halliburton loophole exempts drillers from revealing what chemicals are being injected, thus bypasssing water safety laws. And yet another loophole bypasses the Superfund lw which requires polluters to remediate for carcinogens released into the environment.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/insight/the-case-against-fracking-2434266.html?printArticle=y

Comment: Perhaps the word 'frackin' can be used as slang to express when something is vulgar and especially 'venile' (giving false comfort and false sense of security , usually caused by falling into a ruse and lies).

Additional easy to understand information:
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/josh-fox/

Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCibwj396I&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/613/index.html

Friday, August 10, 2012

July 2012: Hottest Month Ever in USA

July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-08/july-hottest-month-on-record-in-lower-48-states.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-heat-julybre8770y2-20120808,0,1794675.story

http://www.weather.com/news/noaa-report-july-20120808

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/us-has-hottest-month-on-record-in-july-2012-noaa-says/2012/08/08/0fae675c-e169-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html

Fat: Preferred Fuel For Your Body

During the Paleolithic period, many thousands of years ago, our ancestors ate primarily vegetables, fruit, nuts, roots and meat—and a wide variety of it. This diet was high in fats and protein, and low in grain- and sugar-derived carbohydrates.

The average person’s diet today, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, and the average person’s health is a testament of what happens when you adhere to a faulty diet. Humans today suffer more chronic and debilitating diseases than ever before.

http://tinyurl.com/8nj8qz3

Deaths Of 10,000+ Londoners Caused By Volcano

Thousands of 13th-Century Londoners May Have Been Killed By A Distant Volcano
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/08/09/thousands-of-13th-century-londoners-may-have-been-killed-by-a-distant-volcano/

The Mysterious Missing Eruption of 1258 A.D.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/the-mysterious-missing-eruption-of-1258-a-d/

Graph of global temperatures:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/02/MFRFigu2d.jpg

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Truisms: Wisdom?

PicklesB.C.





The Official Dilbert Website featuring Scott Adams Dilbert strips, animations and more

Rose is Rose


Pickles Cartoon for Aug/10/2012
Things that you cannot get back in life:

  1. The stone ...after it's thrown,
  2. The word ...after it's said,
  3. The occasion ... after it's missed
  4. The time ... after it's gone
  5. Human beings ...after they die
Pickles


Morality Vs. Ethics


Live Life Quotes:
http://www.livelifehappy.com/
http://www.livelifehappy.com/live-life-happy-quotes-live-life-quotes-live-happy/

The Wonder-ful Life:
http://anetizen.blogspot.com/

Thoughts Are Things:
http://michers.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog


Google: 'funny truisms'
              'life quotes'
              'comic life quotes'

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Obamacare: Not A Mandate

"The health-care law does not truly compel Americans to have health insurance; it simply levies a tax on those who refuse to get it, with no other means of enforcement. As a result, millions of people may decide that it's cheaper to pay that tax penalty than to buy a policy. Even with subsidies from the government, for example, it will likely be cheaper for a family of four living on $45,000 a year to pay the penalty than to get the most basic and cheapest plan offered on the exchanges. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 4 million people will opt to pay the tax instead of buying health insurance by 2016..."

http://theweek.com/article/index/230357/the-road-ahead-for-obamacare-a-guide