We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

...We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

Please read full from the late George Carlin here:
http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-message-from-george-carlin.html

The Road to 7 Billion People by the Numbers

The Road to 7 Billion

Hong Kong, Choked By Smog, Bans Most Polluting Vehicles

Choked by smog, the city of Hong Kong has finally cried "enough!" Despite setting clean air targets, the city's smog problems have been increasing every year, and authorities have finally brought in measures to ban the highest-polluting vehicles. According to Bloomberg (via Treehugger), that includes many of Hong Kong's 121,300 commercial diesel...

Please continue reading at:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081294_hong-kong-choked-by-smog-bans-most-polluting-vehicles

Despite tragedy in CT, stricter gun control laws are not the solution - focus on Mental illness & medications are keys to Preventing another crisis

While sensible gun regulations are in order, addressing the root causes of the mass shootings is more important if real preventative measures are to be taken.

In the wake of the horrible tragedy at an elementary school in Connecticut...many will look for quick and easy measures that can prevent something like that from happening again. Stricter regulations of firearms seem like the easy answer, but that is not the solution.

More gun control legislation, while sensible on many levels, is akin to plugging a small hole in a dam that is already cracked and gushing. That simply will not solve the problem of gun violence in this country.

The latest in a series of mass murders involving firearms will undoubtedly reignite the debate about gun control laws. Many will validly argue that laws should be stricter and the emotions of most Americans will be with them. Unfortunately, stricter gun control laws are only a small part of the solution to preventing firearm violence, because it is too late for them to have much of an effect. Political, social and economic changes, while more difficult to pinpoint and achieve, are the only hope for ending the culture of violence that the U.S. has become known for.

Even if the U.S. banned the sale of every firearm to everyone, which is unrealistic, that would still leave millions of guns already in the hands of Americans. A 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service estimated that as of 2009, there were about 310 million nonmilitary firearms in the U.S. and firearm sales have skyrocketed since then. Banning the sale of guns, like illegal drugs, would only make matters worse by creating a truly unregulated black market for them.

Please continue reading at: http://www.examiner.com/article/despite-tragedy-ct-stricter-gun-control-laws-are-not-the-solution

Unsolvable Economic Issues have: More than half a million adults in California seriously thought about committing suicide during the previous year,

More than half a million adults in California seriously thought about committing suicide during the previous year, according to a new study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

 
The study, which uses data from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), is the first by the center to focus on suicide ideation.
 
In California, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death, the researchers noted. An average of nine deaths by suicide occur each day in the state.
 

read more

CDC - recommendations for safe Infant Formula in Communities with Water Fluoridation

The proper amount of fluoride from infancy through old age helps prevent and control tooth decay.Community water fluoridation is a widely accepted practice for preventing and controlling tooth decay by adjusting the concentration of fluoride in the public water supply.

Fluoride intake from water and other fluoride sources, such as toothpaste and mouthrinses, during the ages when teeth are forming (from birth through age 8) also can result in changes in the appearance of the tooth's surface called dental fluorosis. In the United States, the majority of dental fluorosis is mild and appears as white spots that are barely noticeable and difficult for anyone except a dental health care professional to see.

Recent evidence suggests that mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis may increase the chance of a child developing the faint, white markings of very mild or mild enamel fluorosis.

You can use fluoridated water for preparing infant formula. However, if your child is exclusively consuming infant formula reconstituted with fluoridated water, there may be an increased chance for mild dental fluorosis. To lessen this chance, parents can use low-fluoride bottled water some of the time to mix infant formula; these bottled waters are labeled as de-ionized, purified, demineralized, or distilled.

What is the best source of nutrition for infants?

Breastfeeding is ideal for infants. CDC is committed to increasing breastfeeding throughout the United States and promoting optimal breastfeeding practices. Both babies and mothers gain many benefits from breastfeeding. Breast milk is easy to digest and contains antibodies that can protect infants from bacterial and viral infections. More can be learned about this subject athttp://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/.

If breastfeeding is not possible, several types of formula are available for infant feeding. Parents and caregivers are encouraged to speak with their pediatrician about what type of infant formula is best suited for their child.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm

No level of fluoride safe for infants... fluorosis effects associated with fluoride in infant formulas

OBJECTIVES:

The authors describe associations between dental fluorosis and fluoride intakes, with an emphasis on intake from fluoride in infant formula.

METHODS:

The authors administered periodic questionnaires to parents to assess children's early fluoride intake sources from beverages, selected foods, dentifrice and supplements. They later assessed relationships between fluorosis of the permanent maxillary incisors and fluoride intake from beverages and other sources, both for individual time points and cumulatively using area-under-the-curve (AUC) estimates. The authors determined effects associated with fluoride in reconstituted powdered infant formulas, along with risks associated with intake of fluoride from dentifrice and other sources.

RESULTS:

Considering only fluoride intake from ages 3 to 9 months, the authors found that participants with fluorosis (97 percent of which was mild) had significantly greater cumulative fluoride intake (AUC) from reconstituted powdered infant formula and other beverages with added water than did those without fluorosis. Considering only intake from ages 16 to 36 months, participants with fluorosis had significantly higher fluoride intake from water by itself and dentifrice than did those without fluorosis. In a model combining both the 3- to 9-months and 16- to 36-months age groups, the significant variables were fluoride intake from reconstituted powder concentrate formula (by participants at ages 3-9 months), other beverages with added water (also by participants at ages 3-9 months) and dentifrice (by participants at ages 16-36 months).

CONCLUSIONS:

Greater fluoride intakes from reconstituted powdered formulas (when participants were aged 3-9 months) and other water-added beverages (when participants were aged 3-9 months) increased fluorosis risk, as did higher dentifrice intake by participants when aged 16 to 36 months.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS:

Results suggest that prevalence of mild dental fluorosis could be reduced by avoiding ingestion of large quantities of fluoride from reconstituted powdered concentrate infant formula and fluoridated dentifrice.

Please continue reading at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20884921?dopt=Abstract

BP Gulf Oil Spill Judge Approves $7.8 Billion Settlement - via @Bloomberg

BP Plc (BP/) and the lead lawyers representing victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spillwon approval of the economic and environmental loss portion of a proposed $7.8 billion partial settlement of claims.

The agreement resolves most private plaintiffs' claims for economic loss and property damage related to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and subsequent spill. It doesn't cover suits brought by the U.S. government and the states of Alabama and Louisiana over the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Please read full and follow at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-22/bp-gulf-oil-spill-judge-approves-7-8-billion-settlement.html

Chart Of The Day: The Death Of America's Middle Class | via @ZeroHedge

There is one chart that everyone should see that is part of Reuters' must read special series: The Unequal State of America: Redistributing Up - it is the chart we have said over the past 4 years is the only one that matters for America -that showing the flattening of America's wealth distributon Gaussian curve, aka the plunder and accelerating destruction of America's middle class, at the expense of the poorest and the wealthiest...

The chart in question:

How does Reuters frame this ever so critical topic that only impairs the ever more disenfranchised, ever declining middle class, and thus few actually bother discussing:

In the town that launched the War on Poverty 48 years ago, the poor are getting poorer despite the government's help. And the rich are getting richer because of it.

 

The top 5 percent of households in Washington, D.C., made more than $500,000 on average last year, while the bottom 20 percent earned less than $9,500 - a ratio of 54 to 1.

 

That gap is up from 39 to 1 two decades ago. It's wider than in any of the 50 states and all but two major cities. This at a time when income inequality in the United States as a whole has risen to levels last seen in the years before the Great Depression.

 

Americans have just emerged from a close presidential election in which the government's role as a leveling force was fiercely debated. The right argued the state does too much; the left, too little. The issue is now at the center of tense negotiations over whose taxes to raise and what social programs to cut before a Jan. 1 deadline. And the government's role will be paramount again next year if Congress takes up tax reform.

 

The federal government does redistribute wealth down to struggling Americans. But in the years since President Lyndon Johnson took aim at poverty in his first State of the Union address, there has been an increasingly strong crosscurrent: The government is redistributing wealth up, too - especially in the nation's capital.

 

The beneficiaries are not the billionaire financiers and celebrities who
have come to personify income inequality in the 21st century. Yet the
Washington elite are just as much part of the trend, having influenced
laws and decisions that alter the entire country's distribution of
income. Read more here.

Please also read full and follow source at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-18/chart-day-death-americas-middle-class

Training Under Way For New Nuclear Plant Operators In S. Carolina

excerpts from ABC News:"Southern Co. in Georgia and SCANA Corp. in South Carolina are the first to prepare new workers to run a recently approved reactor designnever before built in the United States. Training like it will be repeated over the decades-long lifetime of those plants and at other new ones that may share the technology in years to come. Both power companies are building pairs of Westinghouse Electric Corp. AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta and SCANA Corp.'s Summer Nuclear Station northwest of Columbia, S.C. While the nuclear industry had earlier proposed a larger building campaign, low natural gas prices coupled with uncertainty after last year's disaster at a Japanese nuclear plant have scaled back those ambitions."Getting a new nuclear plant approved is a long haul.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/12/20/1537215/training-under-way-for-new-nuclear-plant-operators-in-s-carolina

Officals warn Hurricane Sandy victims of mold, asbestos, lead paint exposure

As residents and business owners start to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy, state and federal officials are trying to get one message out loud and clear: Beware of hidden health hazards.

At a forum Monday to discuss the health impacts the storm can have on New Jerseyans, the representatives said mold, asbestos and lead paint are of particular concern because of all the do-it-yourselfers who don't know what they're doing.

"These are issues that can affect workers, residents that are living in homes and tenants, and also volunteers who are graciously donating their time and their energy to clean up their communities," said Judith Enck, regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. "We want to make sure that as the clean up is occurring that there are not problems with exposure to mold, exposure to lead, exposure to asbestos."

Exposure to mold can cause respiratory problems, particularly among those who do not wear the appropriate attire when removing moldy wall board.

Enck was one of six panelists who addressed a crowd of about 100 at the Wall Township headquarters of the Local Union 400 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is starting to fine contractors whose failure to adhere to safety regulations puts workers at risk of health dangers, said Robert Kulick, regional administrator for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration..

Kulick said OSHA is enforcing regulations aimed at preventing the four leading causes of fatalities after hurricanes: falling from high elevations, being electrocuted, being struck by objects and being caught between objects, such as heavy equipment.

"Right now we are looking for those four hazards throughout the impacted areas of New Jersey, New York and Long Island," Kulick said. "We are intervening and we're removing employees from risk, and when appropriate, we're issuing citations and penalties to employers who are not responsible and not doing what needs to be done to protect their workers. 

Please read full at:
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/officals_warn_hurricane_sandy.html

TSA (Finally) Studying Health Effects of Body Scanners

Slashdot

"A 2011 ProPublica series found that the TSA had glossed over the small cancer risk posed by its X-ray body scanners at airports across the country. While countries in Europe have long prohibited the scanners, the TSA is just now getting around to studying the health effects."

Please continue reading at:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/18/1629258/tsa-finally-studying-health-effects-of-body-scanners

The World's Fastest-Growing Cause of Death Is Pollution From Car Exhaust

Slashdot - "Cars, once again, are killing us. They're killing us in crashes and accidents, yes, and they're encouraging us to grow obese and then killing us a little more slowly. But, more than ever before, they're killing us with their pollution. Particulate air pollution, along with obesity, is now the two fastest-growing causes of death in the world, according to a new studypublished in the Lancet. The study found that in 2010, 3.2 million people died prematurely from the air pollution – particularly the sooty kind that spews from the exhaust pipes of cars and trucks. And of those untimely deaths, 2.1 million were in Asia, where a boom in car use has choked the streets of India and China's fast-expanding cities with smog."

Please continue reading at:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/12/18/1818248/the-worlds-fastest-growing-cause-of-death-is-pollution-from-car-exhaust

Mississippi River bedrock is being blasted to clear way for barge traffic,

irjci - Barge operators along a key stretch of the Mississippi River are bracing for months of shipping delays as the Army Corps of Engineers prepares to blast rock formations that are impeding river traffic because of low water levels, The Associated Press reports. Contractors from Iowa and Ohio will begin drilling holes into the river's bedrock near Thebes, Ill., and detonating explosives this week. They expect to remove enough rock to fill 50 dump trucks.

The decision to blast the rock comes at the same time as a Corps decision to release water from Carlyle Lake in southern Illinois to increase the river's depth by six inches so barges can pass the rock formations as the rubble is hauled away. A six-mile stretch of the river will be closed to shipping today until 10 p.m. so the explosives can be detonated safely. Then, barges will have to line up, waiting to be flagged through the stretch one at a time, a process that could take up to eight hours.

(Read more)

NRA says it will make 'meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again'

irjci - The National Rifle Association, which has remained mum since the Dec. 14 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., and increased calls for renewal of the ban on so-called assault weapons, said this afternoon that it would make an announcement at a news conference Friday.

"Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting," the group said in a news release. "The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

Is Safe, Green Thorium Power Finally Ready For Prime Time? - via @Slashdot

"If you've not been tracking the thorium hype, you might be interested to learn that the benefits liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) have over light water uranium reactors (LWRs) are compelling. Alvin Weinberg, who invented both, favored the LFTR for civilian power since its failures (when they happened) were considerably less dramatic — a catastrophic depressurization of radioactive steam, like occurred at Chernobyl in 1986, simply wouldn't be possible. Since the technical hurdles to building LFTRs and handling their byproducts are in theory no more challenging, one might ask — where are they? It turns out that a bunch of U.S. startups are investigating the modern-day viability of thorium power, and countries like India and China have serious, governmental efforts to use LFTRs. Is thorium power finally ready for prime time?"

Please read full and follow at:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/12/19/2112239/is-safe-green-thorium-power-finally-ready-for-prime-time

Without debt deal, About 2.1 million Americans will lose their extended jobless benefits Dec. 29

About 2.1 million Americans will lose their extended jobless benefits on Dec. 29, leaving many on the brink of poverty, if Washington doesn't renew them as part of a deal on the package of tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff."

An additional 930,000 people will run out of unemployment insurance in early 2013 when their 26 weeks, give or take, of state benefits end, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP).

Although the issue is far less publicized than other parts of the fiscal cliff, such as income-tax increases and entitlement reform, an abrupt cutoff of benefits would have a far more dramatic impact on the well-being of millions of Americans.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/17/extended-unemployment-benefits/1775065/

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) addresses solar flare concerns.

NRC TO FURTHER EXAMINE SOLAR FLARE ISSUES RAISED IN RULEMAKING PETITION

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined its rulemaking process can appropriately consider a petition on maintaining the safety of used nuclear fuel at U.S. reactors if an extreme solar flare disables the electrical grid.

The petition, filed by Thomas Popik on March 14, 2011, suggests a massive solar flare could potentially disable large portions of the U.S. electrical grid for an extended period of time. The petition further suggests that nuclear power plants would then run out of fuel to power the emergency systems that maintain pools of water where used nuclear fuel is kept safe. Popik's petition asked the NRC to amend its regulations so that U.S. reactors would have backup spent fuel pool systems capable of operating automatically for two years without fuel resupply.

The NRC posted the petition online and took comments through early summer 2011. The staff has examined the comments and available information to analyze Popik's assumptions and proposed solution. The staff's analysis took into account how several agencies have an impact on both the electrical grid and responding to natural disasters. The analysis also considered existing research into solar flare effects on the grid, as well as into protecting transformers and other critical grid infrastructure, along with ongoing NRC efforts to implement lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

The staff's analysis concludes the NRC rulemaking process can appropriately handle further examination of the issues in Popik's petition. The first step will be monitoring the progress of several Fukushima-related activities designed to enhance plants' abilities to keep spent fuel pools safe. If the staff concludes these activities fall short of resolving the petition's concerns, the agency will work todevelop a technical basis for the petition's suggested rule change. If such a basis cannot be established, the NRC will update the public on why the petition's suggestions were not adopted.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2012/12-129.pdf

Food stamps to be cut... To pay NFL's taxes?

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - As policymakers deliberate over the "fiscal cliff" and calls are coming from some quarters for major cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), they should take this into account:  SNAP benefits are already scheduled to fall next November 1, when the 2009 Recovery Act's temporary benefits boost ends.  Any further cuts would come on top of these significant reductions and would cause further hardship.

Benefits will decline for every SNAP household.  For families of three, the cut likely will be $25 to $30 a month — $300 to $360 a year.

That's a serious loss, especially in light of the very low size of basic SNAP benefits.  Without the Recovery Act's boost, SNAP benefits average only about $1.30 per person per meal.  Nutrition experts have long held that these levels are inadequate to meet families' basic food needs.

Please continue reading at: http://www.offthechartsblog.org/snap-benefits-scheduled-to-be-cut-next-november/

HAASE - Our nation can not afford to continue to support our growing welfare programs in America, but can let the NFL and some of the most profitable corporations in the world claim welfare status to take a pass on paying taxes?

Anyone else have a problem with this?

http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/21414-is-nfls-tax-exempt-status-corporate-welfare.html

Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs

Time Magazine, Vol. 152 No. 19

About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.

Before we look at the details, a heartfelt plea from the Save the CEO's Charitable Trust:

There's so much suffering in the world. It can all get pretty overwhelming sometimes. Consider, for a moment the sorrow in the eyes of a CEO who's just found out that his end-of-year bonus is only going to be a paltry $2.3 million.

"It felt like a slap in the face. Imagine what it would feel like just before Christmas to find out that you're going to be forced to scrape by on your standard $8.4 million compensation package alone. Imagine what is was like to have to look into my daughter's face and tell her that I couldn't afford to both buy her a dollar sign shaped island and hire someone to chew her food from now on, too. To put her in that situation of having to choose… She's only a child for God's sake."

It doesn't have to be this way. Thanks to federal subsidies from taxpayers like you, CEO's like G. Allen Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland was able to take home almost $14 million in executive compensation last year. But he's one of the lucky ones. There are still corporations out there that actually have to provide goods and services to their consumers in order to survive. They need your help.

For just $93 billion a year the federal government is able to provide a better life for these CEO's and their families. That's less than the cost of 240 million cups of coffee a day. Won't you help a needy corporation today?

Please continue reading at:

http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/

EPA Issues New Boiler and Solid Waste Incinerator Rules

With much anticipation, on December 21, 2012 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a suite of air pollution rules regulating hazardous air emissions from combustion sources such as industrial boilers and process heaters. This package of combustion rules includes a revised version of the Industrial Boiler Maximum-Achievable Control Technology standard (Boiler MACT). The agency first finalized the Boiler MACT rule package in March 2011, but on the same day announced it would undertake an administrative reconsideration of the rule to address numerous concerns that had been raised by stakeholders. During the nearly two years it took EPA to reconsider the Boiler MACT rule, the agency collected additional emission information from certain categories of boilers and industrial incinerators which it used to better inform the rule revisions.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.michaelbest.com/pubs/pubDetailMB.aspx?xpST=PubDetail&pub=3223

People Are Living Longer, With More Disabilities Than Ever

SlashDot: "Worldwide, people are living longer. Their lives are starting to look more like the lives of Americans: too much food is a problem, death in childhood is becoming less common, and so on. Yet with a population that lives through what would once have killed us, disabilities are starting to become the norm. A research report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has a good glimpse into the new emerging world we find ourselves in." The Guardian has a nice visualization of the mortality data (but take note of shifting scales on the Y-axis).

Downloading Tweets... And all social networking becomes a complete, waste of time

Twitter is starting to roll out the ability to download all your Tweets. What could possibly go wrong? The Joy of Tech knows. Link -via @LaughingSquid

Source blog

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/12/17/Downloading-Tweets/

Meet Google’s energy innovation czar | via @SmartPlanet

Arun Majumdar, the former chief of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, has been hired by Google to drive energy initiatives at its philanthropic arm Google.org, a sign the company might revive its in-house research and investment program.

Majumdar also will advise the company on its broader energy strategy, Google said in an announcement Monday.

Majumdar was the founding director of ARPA-E, the equivalent to the Department of Defense’s DARPA, which funds basic research and supports development of innovative technologies. Last month, ARPA-E awarded $130 million to 66 such projects.

Prior to his stint at ARPA-E, Majumdar worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley.

More than a year ago, Google shut down Renewable Cheaper Than Coal, or RE<C, an initiative developed to drive down the cost of renewable energy. Under the RE<C banner, Google.org awarded more than a $1 million in grants to Stanford University, San Diego State University, Southern Methodist University’s geothermal lab and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The initiative also invested in companies, such as eSolar and Brightsource Energy to expand their work on concentrating solar power technology and in Potter Drilling to advance its geothermal drilling technology.

Please read full and follow at:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/meet-googles-energy-innovation-czar/8312

Pb (Lead) the "Criminal Element" upcoming article by @kdrum of @motherjones

Environmental Pb's effects on crime, IQ explain 90% of time-related variance. So are criminals routinely tested for lead?

Unfortunately the magazine contents aren't yet online, but the article's author has blogged several times (quite briefly) about this topic.
 
Less Lead, Less Crime
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/less-lead-less-crime

Lead, Prisons, and Crack: Why Violent Crime is Down
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/lead-prisons-and-crack-explaining-drop-violent-crime
 
Lead is Bad for You
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/lead-bad-your
 
The argument in the magazine is very compelling.

It seems Pb has a tighter correlation than policing-styles, abortion rates, crack's popularity, poverty effects, etc.

The hidden villain behind rampant crime, lower IQs, even the ADHD epidemic? Pb(CH2CH3)4

Follow Kevin Drum for new article about lead the "Criminal Element"

Here's the site where it should soon appear:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum
 

"I told them ... I love you all very much."

"I told them ... I love you all very much." A dispatch from Newtown father Ross MacDonald.

As seen on frontpage of www.motherjones.com

Quotation of the day: Taxing the poor

“With all the talk about taxing the rich, we hear very little talk about taxing the poor. Yet the marginal tax rate on someone living in poverty can sometimes be higher than the marginal tax rate on millionaires.”

“The biggest and most deadly “tax” rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits– food stamps, housing subsidies and the like– if their income goes up. Someone who is trying to climb out of poverty by working their way up can easily reach a point where a $10,000 increase in pay can cost them $15,000 in lost benefits that they no longer qualify for. That amounts to a marginal tax rate of 150 percent– far more than millionaires pay. Some government policies help some people at the expense of other people. But some policies can hurt welfare recipients, the taxpayers and others, all at the same time, even though in different ways.”

~Thomas Sowell

E-bike gets 200 miles per charges, 80 miles per hour priced at $16,000

SmartPlanet...The Hanebrink X-5 electric bicycle weighs 120 lbs and has a dual suspension monocoque chassis made of aircraft-grade aluminum tubing. Its lithium-ion liquid-cooled batteries will get 200 miles per charge, according to the manufacturer, while a 14-speed transmission allows the driver to reach a top speed of 80 miles per hour.

Please continue reading at:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/e-bike-gets-200-miles-per-charges-80-miles-per-hour/7654

6 rooms into 1: morphing apartment packs 1100 sq ft into 420

faircompanies...Today the 420-square-foot space can be expanded to include the functionality of 1,100 square feet: walls, drawers and beds move and unfold to create 6 rooms: living room, dining room, office, guest office, master bedroom and guest bedroom. If you include the kitchen and the bathroom which morphs into a phone booth or meditation room, the apartment includes 10 total rooms.

To create the bedroom, Hill lowers his Murphy bed (designed by the Italian firm Clei-- see our video with distributor Resource Furniture: Space-saving furniture). He grows his dinner table from inches to feet. His office is a simple desk-in-a-drawer. The truly tricked-out element is the moving wall that is packed with storage (2 desks, drawers, closets, etc) and opens to create a full second bedroom (with 2 Clei bunk beds that fold out of the wall)*. Magnetized curtains close for privacy, both visual and acoustic.

It all feels very futuristic, and given the experimental nature of the project it wasn’t cheap. The hardware for the moving wall cost about $4,850- sourced from a maker of library stacks. Hill admits this iteration of the home is too expensive, though his long-term plan is to provide rental housing (via his company LifeEdited). And he’s open to people hacking his ideas.

Please read full and follow at:

http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/6-rooms-into-1-morphing-apartment-packs-1100-sq-ft-into-420/

The world now has an obesity problem that is 25% of global deaths| via @SmartPlanet

It’s no longer just developed countries like the United States that are dealing with obesity. Now, overeating is more of a global problem than people not having enough to eat.

The U.N.’s Global Burden of Disease report — a five-year research effort of nearly 500 scientists in 50 countries — looked at the prevalence of disease and causes of death around the world in 1990 and compared it with health statistics in 2010 and noticed this trend, reported by New Scientist...Heart disease and stroke, which can be caused by being overweight, account for 25 percent of deaths worldwide. And, globally, it’s more likely that we will die from non-infectious diseases than infectious diseases like HIV or malaria. Overall we are living longer but “spending more of our lives living in poor health and with disability.”

The top 10 most burdensome global risk factors are: high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol use, household air pollution, low fruit intake, high body-mass index, high fasting plasma glucose, childhood underweight, particulate matter pollution, and physical inactivity (which wasn’t in the top 30 in 1990).

Overeating now bigger global problem than lack of food [New Scientist]

Please read full and follow at:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/the-world-now-has-an-obesity-problem/8163

Nine out of ten organizations lack proper tech skills: study | Is #socialmedia killing our productivity?

Is digital distraction the cause of this headshot to our nations productivity?

...findings of a new survey of 1,200 executives, just released by the IBM Center for Applied Insights. The survey report examines the rise of four technology areas – mobile, business analytics, cloud and social business – concluding that only one in ten organizations has all the skills it needs. “These shortages are not trivial or isolated,” it continues. “Within each area, roughly one-quarter report major skill gaps, and 60 percent or more report moderate to major shortfalls.”

Plus, there doesn’t seem to be much help coming down the pipeline either. In a parallel academic survey, IBM says close to half of the educators and students responding said there were major gaps in IT skills coverage – “a deficit nearly twice the size of what businesses are already experiencing. Including those with
moderate gaps, totals rise to 73% or more.”

As Jim Corgel, IBM general manager for academic and developer relations, puts it: “Today we are faced with one of the largest skills gap in history.” He advises more aggressive actions on the part of businesses to invest in skills development among current employees. 

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http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/nine-out-of-ten-organizations-lack-proper-tech-skills-study/8205

Drought’s a Grinch – years from now | Great Lakes Echo

...In Michigan, the $40 million annual crop is also at risk,  reports theGreat Lakes Echo of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. Christmas trees, traditionally grown in poor soil, have always been at the mercy of weather -- of all kinds. Wisconsin's Miller explained that even those few trees that survived the summer are at risk. A deep frost isolates a sapling's roots from moisture, he said, explaining he hopes a large snow pack will insulate the ground from extreme temperatures. However, Miller said, even if an early spring arrives, “We’ll probably lose more over the winter.” (Read more)

Military weeding out obese and overweight troops... 15 times increase in number discharged

irjci - Between 1998 and 2010, CNN reports, the number of active-duty military personnel deemed overweight or obese more than tripled. In 2010, 5.3 percent of the force -- or 86,186 troops -- received at least a clinical diagnosis of overweight or obese, according to the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center. The trend has prompted the Pentagon to re-examine its training programs, and it is now actively weeding out soldiers deemed unfit to fight. It is also a tidy way to trim the budget at the same time as federal cuts loom. (CNN photo)

During the first 10 months of this year, 1,625 soldiers were dismissed for being out of shape. That's  about 15 times the number discharged for that reason in 2007 at the peak of wartime deployment, CNN reports. Overweight are considered "substandard" fighting units and a threat to national security and the nation' ability to maintain an adequate defense. Obesity is now the leading cause of ineligibility for those wishing to join, say military officials.

Rural America is more obese than America as a whole. In Kentucky, a state that ranks high in obesity, military recruitment rates (as a percentage of the recruits per 100,000 youth aged 18-24) have dropped steadily from 2007, when it was 2.53 percent, to 2010, when it was 1.94 percent. Perhaps the state's high obesity rate was a reason. (Read more)

Solar Panels For Every Home?

Slashdot..."David Crane and Robert F.Kennedy Jr. write in the NY Times that with residents of New Jersey and New York living through three major storms in the past 16 months and suffering sustained blackouts, we need to ask whether it is really sensible to power the 21st century by using an antiquated and vulnerable system of copper wires and wooden poles. Some have taken matters into their own hands, purchasing portable gas-powered generators to give themselves varying degrees of grid independence. But these dirty, noisy and expensive devices have no value outside of a power failure and there is a better way to secure grid independence for our homes and businesses: electricity-producingphotovoltaic panels installed on houses, warehouses and over parking lots, wired so that they deliver power when the grid fails. 'Solar panels have dropped in price by 80 percent in the past five years and can provide electricity at a cost that is at or below the current retail cost of grid power in 20 states, including many of the Northeast states,' write Crane and Kennedy. 'So why isn't there more of a push for this clean, affordable, safe and inexhaustible source of electricity?' First, the investor-owned utilities that depend on the existing system for their profits have little economic interest in promoting a technology that empowers customers to generate their own power. Second, state regulatory agencies and local governments impose burdensome permitting and siting requirements that unnecessarily raise installation costs. While it can take as little as eight days to license and install a solar system on a house in Germany, in the United States, depending on your state, the average ranges from 120 to 180 days."

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http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/12/14/1412245/solar-panels-for-every-home

Our $202 Trillion Destiny, We cannot mathematically solve this debt problem. We can only slow its progression."

How we destroyed the future in one generation:

... As Cashin so wisely points out: "Somewhat lost in the posturing is the fact that the Fiscal Cliff was put in place to force Washington to address the exploding government debt problem. That problem is greatly exacerbated by the rapidly changing demographics in this country. If you fast forward 20 years until all the boomers are retired government debt (taking into account unfunded liabilities) soars to $202 trillion.  Perhaps worth remembering that "The real problem is that regardless of the resolution it will not solve anything. We have passed the point of no return. We cannot mathematically solve this debt problem. We can only slow its progression."

Via Art Cashin of UBS: Demographics, Destiny And The Fiscal Cliff – Somewhat lost in the posturing is the fact that the Fiscal Cliff was put in place to force Washington to address the exploding government debt problem. That problem is greatly exacerbated by the rapidly changing demographics in this country. Bill Gross, Bill Frezza and others have recently explored this connection and complication. Here's a bit from a tenured veteran of Wall Street, Jim Brown of the Option Investor:

That December 7th attack launched the greatest economic boom of our time once the war was over. That was the baby boom generation. A population explosion in the years after the war increased births by more than four million a year. The "leading edge" boomers (1946-1955) total more than 38 million and the "late boomers" 1956-1964 accounted for another 37 million. Since population demographics have shown the most consumptive years are those between age 40-55 we are heading into a period where consumption (spending) is going to decline sharply as the boomers retire.

Please read full and follow at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/461020

It is about time...US gun website sued for alleged ties to slayings

CHICAGO - A prominent U.S. gun control group on Wednesday sued a gun auction website it says is linked to a mass shooting at a Wisconsin spa in October and the stalker slaying of a woman near Chicago in 2011.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence alleges that the design of armslist.com facilitates illegal online sales to unlawful gun buyers with no background checks, and enables users to evade laws that permit private sellers to sell guns only to residents of their own state.

"We as a nation are better than an anonymous Internet gun market where killers and criminals can easily get guns," said Jonathan Lowy, the Brady Center's legal action project director, in a statement.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the family of Jitka Vesel, 36, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who was shot and killed last year by Demetry Smirnov, a stalker.

The suit, which the Brady Center says is the first of its kind, alleges that Smirnov illegally bought the gun from a private seller he located through armslist.com.

Please continue reading at:

http://news.msn.com/us/us-gun-website-sued-for-alleged-ties-to-slayings-3