Internet Generation at Risk of Rickets
January 23rd, 2010I really had to laugh at this:
“Fifty years ago, many children would have been given regular doses of cod liver oil, but this practice has all but died out,” noted co-author Tim Cheetham, also a professor at Newcastle.
The good professor should visit our home!
Rebecca, my wife, did a lot of research into cod liver oil. To cut a long and complicated story very short, there is exactly one brand of cod liver oil in the world that is done properly: Green Pasture’s Blue Ice.
The cost is breathtaking, but we order by the case and always keep a lot on hand.
Becky, Owen and I all take it daily. I take the capsules. Becky and Owen take it by the spoonful and chase it with butter or cheese.
Note: The only association that I have with Green Pasture Products is that I buy their cod liver oil. If they had an affiliate program, I’d definitely participate!
Via: AFP:
Bone-bending rickets can now be added to the list of ills linked to children spending uncounted hours before a computer screen, British researchers said Friday.
Youngsters with rickets, caused primarily by a chronic lack of vitamin D, develop painful and deformed bow-legs that do not grow properly.
The condition is linked mainly with extreme poverty and the 19th-century Victorian England of Charles Dickens, and can be easily avoided through a balanced diet and exposure to sunlight.
But doctors reported this month that cases of the debilitating disease have once again become “disconcertingly common” in Britain.
“Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air,” said Simon Pearce, a professor at Newcastle University in northeast England and lead author of a new study on Vitamin D deficiency.
“This means their vitamin D levels are worse than in previous years,” he said in a press release.
Half of all adults in Britain — especially in the north — have Vitamin D deficiency in winter and spring, with one-in-six having severe deficiency.
The condition has been linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, several kinds of cancer and a soft-bone condition in adults called osteomalacia.
While the study focused on Britain, the same trend is likely elsewhere in the industrialised world, the researchers suggested.
The solution? Soaking up sunrays helps boost Vitamin D levels, but can also increase the risk of skin cancer.
The other option is adjusting diet. The rickets-preventing vitamin is present in oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines and herring.
“Fifty years ago, many children would have been given regular doses of cod liver oil, but this practice has all but died out,” noted co-author Tim Cheetham, also a professor at Newcastle.
But if foul-tasting oils and expensive fish are not options, there is another ready mode of transmission: milk.
The study, published in the current issue of the British Medical Journal, called for new regulations recommending the addition of vitamin D to milk and similar food products, as has been done in several other countries.
Excessive time spent in front of a computer has also been linked to increased obesity, a jump in attention deficit disorder, and anti-social behaviour.
More: Cod Liver Oil:
Once a standard supplement in traditional European societies, cod liver oil provides fat-soluble vitamins A and D, which Dr. Price found present in the diet of primitives in amounts ten times higher than the typical American diet of his day. Cod liver oil supplements are a must for women and their male partners, to be taken for several months before conception, and for women during pregnancy. Growing children will also benefit greatly from a small daily dose.
Dr. Price always gave cod liver oil with butter oil, extracted by centrifuge from good quality spring or fall butter. He found that cod liver oil on its own was relatively ineffective but combined with butter oil produced excellent results. Your diet should include both good quality, organic butter and cod liver oil.
Iraq Spent $85 Million Useless Bomb Detectors
January 22nd, 2010Via: BBC:
A BBC Newsnight investigation has found that a so-called “bomb detector”, thousands of which have been sold to Iraq, cannot possibly work.
Leading explosives expert Sidney Alford told Newsnight the sale of the ADE-651 was “absolutely immoral”.
“This type of equipment does not work,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind betting that lives have been lost as a consequence.”
Questions have been raised over the ADE-651, following three recent co-ordinated waves of bombings in Baghdad.
…
Anti-theft tag inside
Claims of such almost magical technical abilities would almost be comic, if the potential consequences were not so serious.
Newsnight obtained a set of cards for the ADE-651 and took them to Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory where Dr Markus Kuhn dissected a card supposed to detect TNT.
It contained nothing but the type of anti-theft tag used to prevent stealing in high street stores.
Dr Kuhn said it was “impossible” that it could detect anything at all and that the card had “absolutely nothing to do with the detection of TNT”.
“There is nothing to program in these cards. There is no memory. There is no microcontroller. There is no way any form of information can be stored,” he added.
Research Credit: JH
Taking Tea with the Lizards
January 22nd, 2010Via: Joe Bageant:
But we know the truth. And the truth is that the same pack of greaseball oligarchs have done it again. Managed to slip the schnickle to the proles – again. Because in the big picture, the one where the money is counted (and money is the only thing that counts in capitalism’s big picture) they own the game and make the rules.
As George Orwell said, some truths are just too big for people to face.
Chavez: U.S. Weapon Test Caused Haiti Earthquake
January 22nd, 2010If you know of better sources for this information, please send them over.
UPDATE: Hugo Chavez Did Not Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake
It turned out that the dodgy sources for the Chavez thing lived up to their reputations.
Via: The Anti Press:
On January 19, Spanish newspaper ABC, a newspaper of record in Spain, published a story entitled Chavez accuses US of causing earthquake in Haiti.
The story was quickly picked up by websites around the globe – most quoting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. used a new tectonic weapon to induce the Haitian earthquake. This was, according to Chavez – “only a drill, and the final target is destroying and taking over Iran”.
Within the actual story, ABC noted that the information came from an obscure opinion post on the website of a Venezuelan state television channel, VIVE Television. The post referenced a supposed Russian military report on American seismic weapons.
All quotes subsequently attributed to Chavez regarding Haiti and earthquake weapons were in fact direct quotes from this web posting – none of which was ever uttered by Chavez.
—End Update—
Via: Russia Today:
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has once again accused the United States of playing God. But this time it’s Haiti’s disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is … destroying and taking over Iran.
More: Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake
Related: PENTAGON DISASTER RELIEF EXERCISE FOR HAITI WENT LIVE AFTER EARTHQUAKE HIT
UPDATE: 1997: U.S. Secretary of Defense, William S. Cohen, Mentions Electromagnetic Earthquake and Volcano Weapons
Via: The Memory Hole:
Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.
Research Credit: Lagavulin
Supreme Court: Corporations Can Spend What They Want in Political Races
January 22nd, 2010Via: MSNBC:
In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.
By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
TSA Employee Planted Bag of White Powder in Traveler’s Bag as a Joke
January 22nd, 2010Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Via: philly.com:
In the tense new world of air travel, we’re stripped of shoes, told not to take too much shampoo on board, frowned on if we crack a smile.
The last thing we expect is a joke from a Transportation Security Administration screener – particularly one this stupid.
Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.
She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.
What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.
After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.
A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.
Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.
She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”
Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.
She’d left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.
Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.
Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.
Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.
Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.
Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.
Royal Navy Flotilla Withdrawn to Cut Costs, Weeks Before Haiti Disaster; First Gap in Cover in Caribbean Since 17th Century
January 21st, 2010See: PENTAGON DISASTER RELIEF EXERCISE FOR HAITI WENT LIVE AFTER EARTHQUAKE HIT
Via: Times Online:
A Royal Navy flotilla that might have provided relief in the first hours after the Haitian earthquake was withdrawn weeks before the disaster because of budget constraints, the Ministry of Defence said last night.
Naval sources told The Times that the unpublicised cut marked the first time that the Royal Navy has had a significant gap in cover in the Caribbean since the 17th century.
The force, which usually includes a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel and a frigate, is deployed in Caribbean waters to provide support to British overseas territories, particularly during the May-December hurricane season, and to support Britain’s counter-narcotics role in the region.
During the summer, Prince William was deployed on board the frigate Iron Duke in the Caribbean.
However, the fleet replenishment ship Fort George was ordered back to Britain in October and the Iron Duke arrived back last month.
Neither was replaced, though the Navy has previously maintained a rolling deployment of Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels in the region to provide disaster relief. When Fort George arrived in the Caribbean in June it was as a replacement to HMS Largs Bay, which had provided cover in the region since the end of the previous hurricane season in November 2008.
Unfunded Benefits Dig States’ $3 Trillion Hole
January 21st, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Everyone seems to know the current path of federal fiscal policy is a deathtrap over the long term. What’s peculiar is the relative inattention to the balance sheets of state and local governments.
Hidden behind accounting fictions, the politically unspeakable reality is that public employee pension systems are under-funded by more than $2 trillion. Add more than $1 trillion in unfunded health-care benefits for retired public employees, and state governments face protracted structural deficits ranging from challenging to insurmountable.
Unfunded promises are the equivalent of government debt. The burden of promises made by state governments to their employees — effectively an invisible wealth transfer from future taxpayers to current and prospective public-sector employees — amounts to about one quarter of U.S. gross domestic product. The strength and durability of the current economic recovery are unknowable; that state and local governments, which employ one in nine workers, will be a drag on that recovery is certain.
Ultimately, mathematically unsustainable trends must reverse. As with New York City in the late 1970s, eventually the federal government may get involved in redefining the services state and local governments provide, the benefits paid to public employees and the burdens on taxpayers. States cannot kick the can down the road ad infinitum.
Initial Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise
January 21st, 2010Green shoots continue to drive the recovery.
Via: AP:
A surprising jump in first-time claims for unemployment benefits is a painful reminder that jobs remain scarce six months into the economic recovery.
The increase deflated hopes among some analysts that the economy would produce a net gain in jobs in January.
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 482,000. Wall Street economists expected a small drop, according to Thomson Reuters.
The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the first time since August, to 448,250.
A Labor Department analyst said that much of the increase last week was due to administrative backlogs leftover from the winter holidays in the state agencies that process the claims.
Still, that would indicate that claims totals in previous weeks were articifically low, many economists said. Those drops had raised hopes that layoffs were ending and that employers would add a modest number of jobs in January.
The January employment report will be issued Feb. 5. But the surveys that are used to compile that report were conducted last week, so economists pay are paying close attention to the jobless claims figures from that week.
“The trend in the data is still discouraging,” Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial, wrote in a note to clients. “Hopes for a positive employment number in January … are rapidly dimming.”
Photo Gallery: Haiti Six Days Later
January 21st, 2010Via: Boston Globe:
Haiti remains a place of profound need, anguish, desperation and danger, with a few glimmers of hope and slowly growing capabilities to receive and distribute the international aid now flowing in. Sporadic looting, sometimes violent, was met with force by security oficials and ordinary citizens, resulting in a number of further deaths and injuries. The tenuous security situation has led to at least one temporary evacuation of a medical facility, to protect the care-givers. Despite the long time since the earthquake, at least five people were pulled from the rubble alive this weekend, including a young girl trapped inside a supermarket who was fortunately surrounded by food, and survived on fruit snacks.
