4 reasons songs get stuck in your head, oil boom in ND raises rents, pushes seniors out, and study links solvent to Parkinson’s disease

          Good Morning Humboldt County!

I’m glad you could make it today. I have some hot coffee on so grab a cup, pull up a seat, and check out the trio of headlines I picked to start your day.

    4 reasons a song gets stuck in your head

“Known as earworms, these random snippets of songs or melodies pop into our minds repeating themselves again and again like a broken record. For me, another one was that silly jingle from the McDonald's filet-of-fish commercial, which undoubtedly would delight advertisers but I found both amusing and mildly annoying.

So it helps to know that earworms are an incredibly common experience: Studies suggest that 90 percent of people get them at least once a week. Over the last decade, researchers have spent time collecting data to learn who gets earworms, how often they occur, how long they last and which songs won't budge from our brains.

Now, a new British study in the journal Psychology of Music has tried to understand their origins. They looked at how earworms, which psychologists call involuntary musical imagery, get started in the first place.”

Oil boom raises rents in ND, pushes seniors out

After living all of her 82 years in the same community, Lois Sinness left her hometown this month, crying and towing a U-Haul packed with her every possession.

She didn't want to go, but the rent on her $700-a-month apartment was going up almost threefold because of heightened demand for housing generated by North Dakota's oil bonanza.

Other seniors in her complex and across the western part of the state are in the same predicament. "Our rents were raised, and we did not have a choice," Sinness said. "We're all on fixed incomes, living mostly on Social Security, so it's been a terrible shock."

                Study links Parkinson's disease to industrial solvent

Researchers found a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson's in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE). Although many uses for TCE have been banned around the world, the chemical is still used as a degreasing agent.

In 1997, the US authorities banned its use as an anaesthetic, skin disinfectant, grain fumigant and coffee decaffeinating agent, but it is still used as a degreasing agent for metal parts.

Time to walk on down the road…

Alert Reader Warning: Your help is needed to protect the Internet

I received the following information from a reader, Jim Popenoe, and believe it’s important enough to share with you:

“The House Judicial Committee holds a hearing November 16 on new internet legislation called "SOPA".  So far the only people invited to participate have been the proponents.  I have a feeling that the normally busy, quiet, technical folks out there may not
get heard.  They may oppose SOPA, but they will be vastly over-spent.  So, in spite of their common-sense opposition, they simply will be shouted down, that is, unless there is a huge grass-roots effort.
We need that grass-roots effort right now.  I am personally trying to light a fire under it, and I pray that I am not the only person doing so.  Please view my link below.  If it looks okay to you, please forward to whomever you think may be interested enough to take action.  It is not so difficult.  But the only way to turn the
tide is if enough good people take the time to read, to tell their friends and colleagues, and to express their views to Congress.   http://pages.suddenlink.net/popenoe/SOPA/Action-Plan.htm” – Jim Popenoe

The Golden Age of opposition research, Russian military gets into badminton, and the expense of bringing water to the southland

                       Good Morning Humboldt County!

There’s a thin layer of fog rapidly disappearing outside as shafts of sunlight break through this morning. In other words, looks like another beautiful day. Pull up a seat and grab a cup of hot coffee and check out the trio of stories I’ve collected for your morning entertainment:

The golden age of opposition research

The sort of search tools that discovered presidential candidate Joe Biden's plagiarism in 1987 have become more sophisticated and the outlets to shop damaging information are now virtually unlimited. "This is a golden age" of opposition research, said Jeff Berkowitz, who dug dirt on Democratic candidates for the Republican National committee from 2002 to 2010.

Rick Perry was addressing a tiny audience of about 10 in New Hampshire last Friday. He told the story of a 38-year-old Occupy Wall Street protestor named Jeremy, who had complained that bankers got to work so early that he never managed to get out of bed in time to insult them face-to-face.

"I guess greed just makes you work hard," joked Perry, who said that his son had told him about the lazy protestor. What Perry didn't realize is that "Jeremy" was fictional, part of a satirical column by the Toronto Globe and Mail's Mark Schatzker mocking reactions to the Occupy movement.

Also in the small crowd at the Barley House was a "tracker" from American Bridge, a newly formed SuperPAC doing research for the Democratic Party. The tracker was videotaping Perry's every word and gesture, and even though the gaffe was a relatively minor one, the candidate was about to become a victim of the latest, state-of-the-art opposition research.

Your serve! Russian military takes up badminton

Forget nuclear missiles. Russia's military arsenal will soon be bristling with badminton rackets.

Hoping to keep soldiers and recruits in fighting form without great expense, the Defence Ministry plans to buy 10,000 badminton rackets and tens of thousands of shuttlecocks next year, the newspaper Izvestia reported on Monday. Call it military exercise.

The energy, and expense, of bringing water to the Southland

The twin forces of power costs and climate-change regulations are threatening Southern California's long love affair with imported water, forcing the region to consider more mundane sources closer to home.

"It will further encourage retail water suppliers to use less imported water," said Edward Osann, a former federal water official who is a policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's that simple."

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: If you survive reading this column you’ll be better off

                      

"Out of life's school of war: what does not destroy me, makes me stronger."
Friedrich Nietzsche, from The Twilight of the Idols "Maxims and Arrows" sec. 8

                  By Dave Stancliff/For The Times-Standard
  “What doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger,” is a modern version of an old phrase I’ve always embraced. I don’t have the space here to list every time this philosophy has carried me through hard times. 
  Instead, to support this wise saying, I’m  going to talk about three deadly poisons that also save lives. 
  A few months ago my brother-in-law Tom was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia. It’s the deadliest form you can get, but also the most treatable if caught early enough.

  The treatment they gave him surprised me. Arsenic, which has a long and deadly history. Back in the 15th and 16th century it was the poison of choice for the infamous Borgias in Italy.
  I was aware that arsenic was used as a pigment, a pesticide, and a sure way to kill someone, but to learn that Tom was getting it in a series of infusions caught me off guard. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I told my wife when she called and told me about this treatment plan.  
   He’s still getting arsenic infusions and will continue to receive them for a year. The positive news is he’s now in clinical remission. His future looks good.
   The irony of something so deadly being a medical cure actually occurs with many minerals and plants.
    Take Foxglove (Digitalis) a summer flower which was unfamiliar as a medicine to people in ancient times, but is now used in a number of medicines highly valued by cardiologists and is irreplaceable for many patients.
   Unlike most poisonous plants used in medicine, Foxglove has no ancient myths or mysteries surrounding it. The first reports of it being used in medicine date back to 1542. A German physician and professor of botany, Leonard Fuchs, put together a list of herbs of the time and gave Foxglove it’s scientific name digitalis (meaning a small finger) because it’s blossoms were similar to a thimble.

  Foxglove (pictured left) is a perennial herbaceous plant with long leaves. It’s native to West Europe (Ireland) and flourishes in many countries around the world. This is a common wild flower in California, Oregon and Washington. The whole plant is poisonous because every part of it contains the cardiac glycosides digitoxin (the most important one), gitoxin, digoxin and also some saponins, according to Websters New World Dictionary.
   The Irish and the Scots both used the plant, but it first became officially noted in a London pharmacopoeia in 1722. Later it was recognized for it’s medicinal properties in Edinburgh in 1744, and Paris in 1756.
   It was a trial and error situation as far as how much to give, and was administered in enormous doses as a laxative drug that led to many severe poisonings and deaths. Needless to say, it got a bad reputation and fell out of use for a long time.
  Nowadays, Foxglove has been redeemed, and doctors know its safe limits.

  The third deadly plant used in medicine (and other applications) is Atropa belladonna (pictured right) commonly known as Belladonna, Devil's Berries, Death Cherries or Deadly Nightshade. It’s native to Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. The foliage and berries are extremely toxic, containing tropane alkaloids. These toxins include scoploamine and hyoscyamine which cause a bizarre delirium and hallucinations. Belladonna is also used as pharmaceutical anticholinergics. The drug atropine is derived from the plant.
  It has a long history of use as a medicine, cosmetic, and poison. Before the Middle Ages, it was used as an anesthetic for surgery; the ancient Romans used it as a poison (the wife of Emperor Augustus and the wife of Claudius both used it to murder contemporaries); and predating this, it was used to make poison tipped arrows, according to Wikipedia.
   As It Stands, it still strikes me as odd to think the same substance I once put out in our garage to kill rats is now saving my friend and brother-in-law’s life!

Doggone! Pooch eats couple's $1,000 cash stash

One Florida family unwittingly helped serve a very expensive meal to their dog — $1,000 in cash — and then forced the pet to cough it up.

"I just think this is hilarious," the dog's owner, Christy Lawrenson of St. Augustine, Fla., told WJXT in Jacksonville, Fla on Friday.

She laughs now, but it was a different story two weeks ago.

"My husband and I are trying to pay off my car, and so every time we save $1,000, we just take it to the bank and we just put it in the account," she told the Jacksonville station.

This time, she took the cash, paper-clipped it and left it in an envelope on the counter, she said. The couple then said goodbye to their dog Tuity, a Labrador Retriever/chow/bulldog mix, and left for work.

When her husband came home for lunch, the envelope was gone and he saw shards of $100 bills strewn across the floor. The rest, including the paperclip, was in Tuity's stomach, she said. Lawrenson told WJXT that her husband induced the dog to vomit by feeding Tuity hydrogen peroxide. "I took the money from the vomit and put it in a bag and saved it for him because I didn't want to puzzle it back together. It was still not real to me even though I had dug through vomit all afternoon," Lawrenson said.

They pieced $900 back together, but the last $100 bill had one too many serial numbers missing, she said.The couple sent it to the Department of Treasury with a letter of explanation. "I didn't really see that one coming, and I guarantee we'll keep money away from him for now on," Lawrenson said.

Loo Rider–a poop powered bike, Drug Cartel tries to silence the internet, and Boy born at 11:11 on 11-11-11 to vet on Vets Day

         Good Morning Humboldt County!

What a morning…it’s beautiful outside. Still and warm. Birds calling out greetings. It’s a perfect day for you to have stopped by. Grab a cup of hot coffee and a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’ve got a few short reads for you to start your day:

Loo Rider: bike will get you where you want to go

Toilet Bike Neo, a three-wheeled motorcycle with a toilet like seat, is not a people "poop-powered bike" as reported by Huffingtonpost and other English-language websites, toilet maker Toto Ltd. said.

Toilet Bike Neo, the sole purpose of which is to advertise Toto's environmental activities, is powered by biogas fuel made from livestock waste (can you say cow shit?) and household wastewater. The trike carries two tanks containing biogas behind a toilet lid.

Mexican drug cartel tries to silence Internet

Mexico's hyper violent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what may be one of the first campaigns by an organized crime group to silence commentary on the Internet.

The cartel has already attacked rivals, journalists and other perceived enemies. Now, the target is an online chat room, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, that allows users to comment on the activities of the Zetas and others in the city on the border with Texas. Already, three apparent site users have been slain, and a fourth victim may have been discovered Wednesday, when a man's decapitated body was found with what residents said was a banner suggesting he was killed for posting on the site.

Boy born at 11:11 on 11-11-11 to vet on Vets Day

Jacob Anthony Saydeh won't have any trouble remembering precisely when he was born. A U.S. hospital says Jacob entered the world at 11:11 a.m. on Friday — 11-11-11. And to make the Veterans Day birth even more remarkable, the boy's mother is an Air Force veteran and his father is serving in the Air Force.

It's the second child for Staff Sgt. Christopher Saydeh and his wife, Danielle. They are a third-generation military family.

Time to walk on down the road…

Veterans Day reflections : what does this holiday mean to you?

             Good Morning Humboldt County!

C’mon in and have a cup of hot steaming coffee with me this chilly Fall morning. Have a seat and share a few moments with me on this holiday. It’s always been a special day for me as my father - a Marine in the South Pacific during WWII - also served this country. As a veteran (Army/Vietnam) I’m honored to have served. What does this day mean to you? Please feel free to comment below.

On Veterans Day, Americans cheer newly returned veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and honor them with parades. Jobs would be better.

Veterans who served since 9/11 have been hit particularly hard. The unemployment rate for them is 12.1%; the national rate is 9%. The hardest-hit group is male veterans ages 20-24. One in three are jobless. The problem may get worse as more men and women return from Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House projects 1 million will enter civilian life in the next five years.

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For a good read about Veterans try this:

          “Building on the Dignity of each Veteran”

by Ken Smith

“The Department of Labor (DOL) has a “Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project” that is operated out of the office of the Assistant Secretary of Veterans Employment and Training. 

Currently the position of Assistant Secretary is vacant, so the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) of DOL-VETS , who is a good guy named Junior Ortiz runs the agency.”

Here’s another good article:

Honor a Veteran; Understand PTSD -

By P.J. Skerrett, Editor, Harvard Health

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I’ll never forget those men I served with in Vietnam. Some never came home. Some did, but forever changed. They’re all ghosts now. Once vibrant young men. I was 19 years-old when I did my tour in 1970. Now I’m 61, but the same heart beats in this chest as that 19 year-old kid who survived chaos.

Why me? Part of me never left that land where bad things happened. I hear that young man’s gasps of horror at the sight’s he witnessed. The sights that would forever change him (me). I remember…

Time to walk on down the road…

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A thought - How about remembering veterans year round ?

          Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day.

Today, a 35-year-old military veteran shot himself in an Occupy Wall Street encampment in Burlington Vermont. I don’t know why. I just know that these young Iraqi and Afghan veterans are coming back with PTSD in bigger numbers than my fellow Vietnam veterans. Multiple employments play a part in that sad statistic.

Over in Oakland, news has come out that a second Iraq war veteran was injured in a conflict with police after Wednesday's general strike. 32-year-old Kayvan Sabeghi was taking part in protests earlier in the day but had left to go have dinner with a friend in the evening hours. He was walking home, down 14th Street near Frank Ogawa Plaza, when he encountered a protest faction and a line of police who would not let him pass, despite his being able to see his apartment from where they stood. He asked repeatedly to be allowed to pass to go home, but he ended up getting beaten by police with batons so severely that he suffered a lacerated spleen. He was hospitalized, but remains in good spirits. Meanwhile injured Marine vet Scott Olsen released a message urging everyone to remain non-violent in the face of police brutality. [ABC 7, Tribune]

Although flawless counts are impossible to come by – the transient nature of homeless populations presents a major difficulty – VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Over the course of a year, approximately twice that many experience homelessness. Only eight percent of the general population can claim veteran status, but nearly one-fifth of the homeless population are veterans.

Roughly 56 percent of all homeless veterans are African American or Hispanic, despite only accounting for 12.8 percent and 15.4 percent of the U.S. population respectively. About 1.5 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.

My point in sharing all this information with you is that if you want to really honor a veteran…don’t wait until Veteran’s Day. There’s many ways to help year around. Locally, here in Humboldt County we have North Coast Veterans Stand Down every year. There’s veteran organizations nationwide helping other veterans that you can support with your time or money.

Two women arrested in santanic sex ritual stabbing, Nixon unplugged, and Kawasaki disease may be blowing in the wind

                            Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s another beautiful morning outside. A deer is nibbling on the wildflowers near our front porch. It’s still and warm. The birds are greeting one another happily. In the midst of all this it’s just another day when good things and bad things happen. Grab a cup of coffee and a seat and I’ll share three stories reflecting other realities.

Two women arrested in satanic sex ritual stabbing

Two women were arrested in Milwaukee this week after a man told police they had bound and stabbed him hundreds of times in a sexual encounter that "got quickly out of hand."

Rebecca Chandler (pictured here), 22, of Milwaukee is in jail after an 18-year-old man endured 300 puncture wounds when their sexual encounter "got out of hand," a police affidavit says

'Nixon unplugged': Secret Watergate testimony unsealed

Richard Nixon's grand jury testimony about the Watergate scandal that destroyed his presidency is finally coming to light.

Four months after a judge ordered the June 1975 records unsealed, the government's Nixon Presidential Library was making them available online Thursday. Historians hoped that the testimony would form Nixon's most truthful and thorough account of the circumstances that led to his extraordinary resignation 10 months earlier under threat of impeachment.

"This is Nixon unplugged," said historian Stanley Kutler, a principal figure in the lawsuit that pried open the records. Still, he said, "I have no illusions. Richard Nixon knew how to dodge questions with the best of them. I am sure that he danced, skipped, around a number of things."

Kawasaki disease may be blowing in the wind, researchers say

Doctors have struggled for decades to understand why thousands of children a year in the U.S. get Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that can cause serious heart damage if untreated, but is often mistaken for an everyday virus.

Now, a team of international scientists have announced the surprising finding that the answer may be blowing in the wind. The team’s leader, Dr. Jane C. Burns, professor of pediatrics and director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California San Diego, says cases of the disease are linked to large-scale wind currents whipping throughout Asia to Japan and around the North Pacific.

Time to walk on down the road…

Stephan King Shines: Author Helps Ease Mainers’ Oil Bills

I have to hand it to author Stephen King, he’s one of the 1% ers who cares about the rest.

It was inspiring to see the author of “The Shinning” cast a helpful light on his neighbors in the real world. Read about how Stephen King is helping ease Mainers' oil bills here.

King’s latest book “11/22/63” is now available. The master of suspense provides a new glimpse of a fateful chapter in history. Read an excerpt here.

Prop 215 supporters protest today at noon, Would you know if the government put a GPS device on your car? and pro basketball season is scuttled

                     Good Morning Humboldt County!

Looks like Mother Nature is going to be kind with another sunny day with a touch of hawk wind. Step right in my humble blog, and grab a cup of coffee. There’s plenty of seats to go around. Here’s what I have for you today:

Prop. 215 supporters from around the state will be protesting the federal government's attack on medical marijuana at the U.S. Courthouse in Sacramento, 501 I Street, today at noon.The protest is sponsored by a coalition of organizations including California NORML.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Several justices on the U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday they have reservations about allowing law enforcement to do such monitoring without a warrant

Has the government attached GPS to your car?

Most of us really appreciate the benefits of GPS — except when it's surreptitiously attached to our vehicle by the government. And how would you know?

You wouldn't. That's the point, of course: Feds and police agencies investigating bad guys don't want them to know they're being tracked.

But what if you're not a bad guy? What if you're just ... you?

The Supreme Court is expected to rule before June on the issue of whether a warrant is needed for GPS monitoring. Until then, wouldn't hurt to check your car or ask your mechanic to do so. Just in case.

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           NBA Basketball season probably isn’t going to happen

On Tuesday NBA players’ union team representatives met, rejected the owners offer on the table and said they wanted more negotiations. According to tweets from Marc Stein at ESPN, the consensus at that meeting was to go with the 50/50 split of league revenues the owners want if the owners will give a few more things on system issues.

Then just more than an hour later David Stern went on NBA TV and said the owners were not changing their offer. At all. Neither system or revenue. When David Aldridge asked Stern if there was wiggle room on the owners offer, he replied: “As of Sunday morning at 3 in the morning there was none left.”

Time for me to walk on down the road…