Thursday, September 15, 2011

‘New Reality’ for postal service, Pat Robertson says it’s okay to divorce spouse if they have Alzheimer’s, and a dazzling fireball in the Southwest skies

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Grab a chair and a cup of hot Joe and off we’ll go! Today’s headlines are a mixed bag of realities. Pat Robertson says it’s alright to divorce your spouse if they have Alzheimer’s. Where’s the love? Your mail is not going to be as fast anymore, and people are dazzled by bright lights in the Southwest.

Struggling Postal Service announces ‘new reality’

The U.S. Postal Service, burdened with huge financial losses, said Thursday that it was facing a "new reality" that would include shutting a slew of processing facilities, changing service standards for first-class mail and cutting up to 35,000 positions.

The moves will mean mail will no longer reach most customers the day after it was mailed. "We are forced to face a new reality today,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe in a statement. “First-Class Mail supports the organization and drives network requirements. With the dramatic decline in mail volume and the resulting excess capacity, maintaining a vast national infrastructure is no longer realistic." The news comes after the agency recently announced it was studying shutting hundreds of post offices across the nation as its business erodes amid the growing use of e-mail and other Internet tools. The agency has reported a series of financial losses that have pushed it to the edge of insolvency.

Pat Robertson: Divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's is justifiable

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's is justifiable because the disease is "a kind of death."

During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said.

Multicolored fireball in sky dazzles Southwest

A brilliant bright light seen streaking over the Southwestern sky Wednesday night was most likely a fragment of an asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere, a NASA scientist said.

Residents from Phoenix to Las Vegas to Southern California's coastal areas reported to local authorities and media outlets that they saw the light move quickly from west to east at around 7:45 p.m. PT (10:45 p.m. ET). Experts said a fireball — or very bright meteor — was likely to blame.

"I saw something that looked like a falling star but it must have been a fireball in the atmosphere," one witness told NBCLA. "It was huge. It had a green glow in front of it and a white tail. It looked like green fireworks going across the sky."

Time to walk on down the road…

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Ban proposed on electronic cigarettes on planes

(AP) -- The Obama administration Wednesday proposed banning the use of electronic cigarettes on airline flights, saying there is concern the smokeless cigarettes may be harmful.

"Airline passengers have rights, and this new rule would enhance passenger comfort and reduce any confusion surrounding the use of electronic cigarettes in flight," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

The ban would clarify an existing Transportation Department rule prohibiting smoking cigarettes or similar products on airline flights. The proposal would apply to all domestic airline flights, as well as scheduled flights of U.S. and foreign carriers to and from the U.S. The department is also considering whether to extend the ban to charter flights.

E-cigarettes, as they are popularly called, are designed to deliver nicotine or other substances to the smoker in the form of a vapor. They are powered by small lithium ion-batteries. Industry officials say there is no possible harm to the public from their use.

"Everybody knows that when you are smoking on an airplane that's an absolutely a no- no. But this is not smoking. This is vaping," Ray Story, CEO of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, said.

The Transportation Department is "asking for something that makes zero sense because this product emits nothing," Story said. "I don't think the masses have been educated enough to know this isn't smoking."

But the department said there is a lack of scientific data and knowledge of the ingredients in electronic cigarettes. The Air Force Surgeon General issued a memorandum highlighting the safety concerns regarding electronic cigarettes and placed them in the same category as tobacco products, the department said.

Several states have taken steps to ban either the sale or use of electronic cigarettes. Amtrak has banned the use of electronic smoking devices on trains and in any area where smoking is prohibited. The U.S Navy has banned electronic cigarettes below decks in submarines.

The e-cigarette association, which represents 25 manufacturers and distributors, says on its website that there are five ingredients in the devices: nicotine, water, coriander, citric acid, and fragrant orchid element.

The Satirical Art of Paul Kuczynski - Stop and Think

 

Go to this website to see numerous other examples of this talented artist’s work.

Study says laughter is physical, Cherokee Indians oust black members, and the truth about eye boogers

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Here we are again. It’s that time when the coffee is on and we greet the day with a few news items. It looks to be another nice today. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy:

Laughter is a physical, not a mental, thing, study suggests

Laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and well being, but it has been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts feels so good. The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing.

The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar ha, ha, ha, he said, trigger an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect. His results build on a long history of scientific attempts to understand a deceptively simple and universal behavior. “Laughter is very weird stuff, actually,” Dr. Dunbar said. “That’s why we got interested in it.” And the findings fit well with a growing sense that laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans.

confederategroup

Cherokee Indians: We are free to oust blacks

The nation's second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls. "The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA," Joe Crittenden, the tribe's acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe's self-governance. The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote.

The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves. After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves.

Are yours crusty or wet? The truth behind eye boogers (ew)

Some of the evidence of a night's sleep are visible when you lift your head off the pillow -- bed head, morning breath, dried-up drool, and eye boogers.

And while the cause of most of these sleep remnants is fairly obvious, the reason behind those sometimes-sticky, sometimes-crusty gobs of crud that can dot the lashes or cling to the corners of the eye is less clear. Why do our peepers churn out this gunk at night and what's in the stuff? For answers to these important questions, Body Odd turned to an eye expert.

"The general consensus is that this debris is the stuff leftover from dried out tears," says Dr. Sherleen Chen, director of the cataract and comprehensive ophthalmology service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Tears are made up of water, protein, oils, and a mucous layer known as mucin, which typically coat the surface of the eye to moisten and protect it from viruses and bacteria.

But when your eyes are closed and your eyelids are not blinking, dirt and debris within the eye isn't continually washed over by tears, which would help to dilute them. So at night, dryness causes the stuff in tears to precipitate out, explains Chen. Then the crud collects toward the inside corner of the eye, where tears usually end up.

Time to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

New Fisher House opening has special meaning to me and my family

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My wife Shirley (photo right) had the opportunity to talk with Senator Elizabeth Dole (photo left) during the opening of the most recent Fisher House in Washington D.C.

marching guys

The Fisher House Foundation welcomed the newest Fisher House on the grounds of the Washington DC VA Medical Center on Thursday, September 8. The 16,800 square foot, 20-suite home is just walking distance from the VA medical center, offering first-class accommodations.

shirley & sheriShirley (left) and our Sister-in-Law Sheri Holloway (right). Sheri’s husband (and Shirley’s brother) Tom, was being treated at the Washington D.C. hospital for Leukemia. Shirley and Sheri were honored at the opening as the first official guests in the new facility for families with veterans in the hospital for extended stays.

The Thursday evening reception/dedication was filled with nearly 200 well-wishes, including Senators Bob and Elizabeth Dole, to celebrate the opening of another home to support our service members and their families.

boohfisher

I expect to see my bride of 37 years on September 30th, when I pick her up at Sacramento Airport. She’s been there for six weeks. The really good news is that Tom’s cancer is in remission (tested his bone marrow a couple of days ago) and his treatments seem to be doing the job. Shirley reports that all the staff at the VA hospital have been fantastic. She was especially impressed by the Fisher House representatives and Elizabeth Dole (who she said was a sweetie). Special thanks to Ashley Estill who took these photos.
Photos by Ashley Estill - Media Relations Assistant | *Fisher House Foundation  To see more photos go here.

Itchy things, Insulin nasal spray may slow Alzheimer’s, and new Dad’s may be wired for nuturing

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Welcome to this morning’s coffee klatch. Grab a cup of coffee and join us. With all the things happening today I picked these three for your amusement and edification. Enjoy:

Spiders! Ants! Did that make you itchy? Here's why

WARNING: Reading the following post will make you itchy.

There probably aren’t any tiny ants feeling their way over your limbs and across the back of your neck right now. But wouldn’t you feel better scratching anyway?

Why is it that seeing, discussing, or even just thinking about creepy crawlers makes us feel itchy all over? It turns out the experts aren’t sure.

Insulin nasal spray may slow Alzheimer's

A new study released Monday shows that insulin applied daily through a special nasal spray might be a treatment that slows or stops the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. That’s hopeful news for millions facing the memory-robbing disease, because nothing has been successful at halting its awful progress.

In the small study, called a Phase II, researchers from the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, enrolled 104 people with Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment. The participants were given 20 IU (international units) of insulin, 40 IU of insulint or a saline placebo. Memory, cognition and functional ability were measured before and after treatment. Some of the participants also received lumbar punctures to test cerebrospinal fluid and brain scans before and after treatment.

Image: father and baby

Testosterone takes a dip in new dads, may wire them to nurture

Fathers may no longer have the excuse that they aren’t born for child care. Actually, they’re designed for it, according to a new study that finds a significant drop in testosterone levels in new dads, suggesting that men may be wired to nurture.

Northwestern University anthropologists speculate that the drop in the primary male sex hormone signals that fathers evolved to care for kids, not just to hunt for game and drop it in mom’s lap.

Their findings are published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Time to walk on down the road…

 

Monday, September 12, 2011

British use cannabis in hospital treatment for cancer sufferers

Cannabis-based medicine spray (Pic:PA)

CANCER sufferers will be prescribed a spray containing cannabis as a new form of pain relief treatment. Experts say the medication – derived from marijuana plants – works by numbing the muscles.

It will be given to terminally-ill hospital patients as part of a ground-breaking trial. But Sativex does not get users high. Research nurse Sam Jole said: “Patients using the spray do not experience the euphoria associated with illegal recreational use of cannabis.

“It has passed strict tests for quality, safety and efficacy and doctors already prescribe it to other patients.” Multiple sclerosis sufferers have been able to get Sativex on prescription since last summer but the medication has never been used in hospitals anywhere in the world before.

Patients taking part in the trial at North Manchester General Hospital and Fairfield General Hospital in Greater Manchester will be asked to spray it under their tongue up to 10 times a day. Eight patients have signed up and 32 others will be recruited over the next two years. If the trial is a success, Sativex could be passed for use in hospitals across the country.

Dr Iain Lawrie, a consultant at North Manchester General Hospital, said: “This study is an exciting development in the field of cancer pain management. Initial observations suggest Sativex will have an important role to play in palliative care.”

Daily Mirror 3/09/2011

A blind man shocks researchers with what he sees

Patient TN was, by his own account, completely blind. Two consecutive strokes had destroyed the visual cortex of his brain, and consequently, his ability to see.

It is not uncommon for stroke patients to suffer brain damage, but the case of TN — referenced by his initials, the general practice in such studies — was peculiar. His first stroke had injured only one hemisphere of his visual cortex. About five weeks later, a second stroke damaged the other hemisphere. An assessment of his brain function revealed that after two strokes, TN, in his 50s, was clinically blind.

Known as selective bilateral occipital damage, TN’s unusual injury made him the subject of much interest while recovering at a hospital in Geneva. Researchers began examining him and discovered that despite his blindness, he had maintained the ability to detect emotion on a person’s face. He responded appropriately — with emotions such as joy, fear, and anger — to a variety of facial expressions. Observed activity in his amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions — confirmed the curious results.

To further test the extent of TN’s abilities, researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands devised a simple yet decisive experiment: an obstacle course. They arranged boxes, chairs, and various other objects down a long hallway. The team then asked TN to navigate the course without any sort of assistance. TN was skeptical, as he required the aid of a cane and a guide to get around. But eventually, he decided to participate. Researchers recorded the result in their recent paper: “Astonishingly,” the report reads, “he negotiated [the course] perfectly and never once collided with any obstacle, as witnessed by several colleagues who applauded spontaneously when he completed the course.”

TN’s rare condition is known as blindsight. Because his stroke damaged only his visual cortex, his eyes remain functional and as a result can still gather information from his environment. He simply lacks the visual cortex to process and interpret it. Sight has changed for TN from a conscious to a largely subconscious experience. He no longer has a definitive picture of his surroundings, but he has retained an innate awareness of his position in the world. He is, to some degree, able to see without being aware that he is seeing.

The researchers explained that TN’s success indicates that “humans can sustain sophisticated visuo-spacial skills in the absence of perceptual awareness.” Similar abilities have been observed in monkeys, but TN’s is the first study of these abilities in humans. According to Beatrice de Gelder, a neuroscientist from Harvard and Tilburg, who helped conduct the study, “we see what humans can do, even with no awareness of seeing or any intentional avoidance of obstacles. It shows us the importance of these evolutionarily ancient visual paths.”

- New Ideas / by Joe Kloc / January 14, 2009

Behind bars for being poor, SpongeBob in trouble again, and M-16s scramble after ‘Mile-High Club’ couple raises alarm

They compare the plight of such parents to the poor people consigned to infamous “debtors’ prisons” before such institutions were outlawed in the early 1800s.

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Pull up a seat and have a cup of coffee with me as we examine a diverse trio of headlines to start this week;

Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars

I try very carefully not to exaggerate, but I do think that’s an apt comparison,” said Sarah Geraghty, the attorney handling the Georgia case for the Southern Center for Human Rights.

And I think anyone who went down and watched one of these proceedings would agree with me. … You see a room full of indigent parents — most of them African-American — and you have a judge and attorney general, both of whom are white. The hearings often take only 15 seconds. The judge asks, ‘Do you have any money to pay?’ the person pleads and the judge says, ‘OK you’re going to jail,’” she added.

Image: SpongeBob SquarePants

Pants-wearing sponge blamed for kids' poor attention spans

Poor SpongeBob.

Back in 2005 he caught flak from a Christian evangelical group because its leader thought he was gay. Now a small new study suggests he could be turning preschoolers' minds to mush.

The study, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics, found watching a snippet of a SpongeBob cartoon negatively affected 4-year-olds’ attention spans. Watching a more realistic PBS cartoon did not.

Citing law enforcement sources, ABC News reported the couple had been "making out" in the restroom.

Mile-high club? F-16s sent after 'long' bathroom visit

Fighter jets were scrambled to escort two commercial flights into New York City and Detroit "out of an abundance of caution" after crews reported suspicious activity on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks , officials said.

The bathroom use by some passengers aroused the suspicion Sunday, but all were released after being questioned by authorities on the ground.

On an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles, three passengers who made repeated trips to the bathroom were cleared after the plane safely landed at New York's Kennedy Airport.

Time to walk on down the road…

Sunday, September 11, 2011

As It Stands: There’s hope for the ‘Made in the USA’ label

   imagesCA1RV3P4                                                    

   By Dave Stancliff/for the Times-Standard
 I’m not going to make any wild claims about an American manufacturing renaissance restoring our country to it’s 19th century dominance. I do think there’s hope for more production here in the future.
 The “Made in the USA” label is adapting to the global market. Products made in the USA are now about 22 percent higher than the average of nine of its largest trading partners. This is actually an improvement.  In 2006 our products cost 32 percent more in those same nine countries, according to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
Here’s another positive sign; after years of American companies shipping jobs and contracts overseas, some are choosing local manufacturers or even "re-shoring" — bringing jobs and work back to the United States.
 In a June survey by MFG.com - an online global manufacturing marketplace for sourcing specialists and manufacturing companies - 21 percent of North American manufacturers said they'd brought production into, or closer to, the U.S. in the past three months. That’s up from 12 percent in the first quarter.

imagesCA6RJGAY We’ve been fighting an unequal wage battle for decades with  countries like China, where workers earn a tenth of what U.S. workers make. U.S. manufacturing employment, after peaking at 19.4 million in 1978, now hovers around 11.6 million, according to NAM. We have lost more than 2 million factory jobs since the recession hit.
 In the last decade, Chinese factory workers have organized into unions and begun to strike. The result, their wages have increased by 15 percent. On top of that, shipping costs have gone up by about 71 percent in the last four years as a result of higher oil prices.
  Ships and containers have been cut back because of a slump, according to HIS Global Insight, a country and industry forecasting company which offer economic and financial analysis, forecasting, and market intelligence for 204 countries.
  Don’t get me wrong. The Chinese worker still gets paid considerably less than an American worker doing the same job. What’s happening is the production cost gap between the U.S. and other countries is narrowing. 

immnvu5ages  Another positive thing for American manufacturers is quality control. The spotty quality of foreign goods has made an opening that Americans are starting to exploit.
A good example is Sleek Audio, which makes high-end earphones. Fed up with the Chinese contractors turning out shoddy goods, Sleek Audio moved most of it’s manufacturing back to its plant in Manatee County, Florida last year.
 Another American company, The Outdoor GreatRoom, had similar problems with Chinese contractors who couldn’t keep up production schedules and account for shipping lags. The Outdoor GreatRoom company CEO, Dan Shimek, decided to move the manufacturing of fire pits and some outdoor shelters back to the U.S. this past year.
Other American companies moving all or part of their manufacturing back to the states are: General Electric Co., who recently announced plans to invest more than $400 million to bring refrigeration and appliance manufacturing back from South Korea to plants in four U.S. states. General Motors, which is investing heavily in electric cars, is moving electric motor production to Michigan from plants in Europe, and Caterpillar. There are many others, for similar reasons.
Making products closer to home also appeals to U.S. companies because protecting thimagesCAYML3P5eir intellectual property from being stolen is a problem in the Asian markets.
One-fourth of more than 850 companies surveyed by MFG.com, returned work to North America from overseas in the last quarter of 2010.

 For prospective, that’s more than double the number of companies that took such a step in the first three months of last year. Examples like Zenteck, an American manufacturer starting to win business that in the past might have gone to overseas factories are becoming more common.
  My favorite successful example has to be a small American company called Georgia Chopsticks. They are growing so fast - two million pairs of chopsticks per day- they can barely keep up with the demand from China, Korea, and Japan.
  As It Stands, for those of you who thought American manufacturing was doomed, it isn’t so - American ingenuity is still alive and well.

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...