This ‘N that Chitchat
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 17th, 2010
I got into a deep conversation in regards to the world this morning and unfortunately I could not pull myself away so therefore it interrupted my world. But hey, the info was worth it. So instead of writing an article or posting something of interest, I’ll just chat it up and say a few things that I want to say.
Norman: I can’t imagine the stress of having a loved one in the hospital and not being able to visit and support, let alone be with the one you love while they pass. It is just so cold and inhuman. I’m sorry that you had to go through that experience.
Lin: Thanks for writing in. I am sorry to hear that the people of Tibet are not being supported by the Chinese, but I am not surprised. As usual, when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese’s response remains the status quo. Thank god for the monks.
Ricky: I was just discussing that new Arizona law this morning. Once again when it works in the favor of the whites they see no problem implementing such a law. But don’t ever try it use it against their own kind or they will come back kicking and screaming.
Fay: Me too but we can’t leave it up to god to do all of the work. I’m praying that the people who believe in Obama will step up to the plate too.
June: Thanks for the reminder.
Anita: No worries. Thanks for your persistency and for the article.
Howard: In regards to your blog comment yesterday about those transactions that bet the bonds would fail: I was just listening to NPR the other day, and only caught the end of that exact story (Of course this was before the fraud charges against Goldman Sachs). It was about the Magnetar Hedge Fund that made millions of dollars when the housing market collapsed: An obscure hedge fund called Magnetar offers new details into the world of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and how the instruments cost investors billions while yielding a payday bonanza for Magnetar. And that’s the irony. What Magnetar did appears to be legal.
NPR came up with a snazzy show tune called, “Betting against the American dream”. Catchy tune; unfortunately sad, all too true.
Bet Against The American Dream from Planet Money on Vimeo.
The only way that the whites will stop their ‘white’ collar crimes, the crimes that ruin our country and far exceed the impact that other crimes, such as drugs, have on our country, is if Obama makes the punishment for these ‘white’ collar crimes more severe. If those that are so greedy knew that their crimes would put them in jail, and they could no longer hide behind their corporations, only then would the evil stop.
ZL: To answer your question, I will ask you a question: Why should saving a house come before health care, and people dying? 10 times, perhaps even 100 times, more people need health care than those that are losing their homes. And people are losing their homes too because they can’t afford to pay for their health and homes; hence, all of their money is going towards their health bills.
And what if the housing/banking market was resolved first? What then? Then all of those people needing to cover their health bills would have to resort to pulling money out of their homes to pay their health bills, possibly putting them back in the same position of having to choose whether they save their homes or their lives. It’s obvious which one they’re going to save.
I agree with you that having hospitals get paid via taxes dollar is not the best fix for people without health insurance. Not only has it been done for years but it also just plain doesn’t work, which is one of the reasons why we needed it to change. It’s easy to say that those without health care can just go wait in line at harbor general or whatever hospital in your area, when people who can afford health care, have it – but it will be those same people who bitch that their tax dollars are paying for the uninsured, if health care didn’t pass.
In my opinion, the logical thing to do first was what Obama did: Get health care passed.
Oops, I am way late…got to run.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my ‘loyal’(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Peace out.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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April 17th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
NEW BRAIN WAVE THERAPY FOR PAIN, PARKINSON’S AND MORE
People with epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or addictions may be able to learn how to “think themselves better” by altering their brain waves to improve their symptoms.
A new form of treatment called neurotherapy (also known as neurofeedback) is similar to biofeedback but has a unique focus on controlling brain wave activity rather than skin temperature, heart rate, breathing and muscle tension. (Read more about biofeedback in Daily Health News, March 17, 2009.)
My interest was piqued when I read that neurotherapy now is used with a wide scope of health issues, including not only those listed above but also autism, chronic pain, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. I got in touch with medical psychologist and bioneurofeedback therapist Celeste De Bease, PhD, to find out how.
HIGH-TECH MIND-BODY MEDICINE
According to Dr. De Bease, many neurological problems involve disordered brain waves. Neurofeedback helps patients learn to set them right.
The brain produces brain waves at varying electrical frequencies measured in hertz (cycles per second). (Just to compare, I looked up the current for household electricity — it’s 60 Hz here in the US.) Brain wave electrical frequencies include…
Delta — 1 to 3 Hz and the slowest of all, is mostly seen during sleep.
Theta — 4 to 7 Hz, a state of deep relaxation that can bring bursts of creative insight. It occurs during daydreaming and advanced meditation.
Alpha — 8 to 13 Hz, a pleasurable, relaxed state associated with being calm and lucid. it occurs in some forms of meditation and sometimes with dream sleep.
Beta — 14 to 30 Hz, is the frequency produced during normal waking activities, when you are processing information for daily living, problem solving and the like.
High Beta — any Beta over 21 Hz, these waves show that the brain is in its racing mode associated with anxiety and tension.
Many patients with neurological problems tend toward either under- or over-arousal of the brain. Neurofeedback teaches methods to gain control by using video display (like a video game) images that correspond to different brain waves.
Working with the therapist, people can learn ways to produce faster or slower waves. Even children can do this.
MIND CONTROL?
Dr. De Bease explained that people with ADD or depression, or who suffer from mental fog and lethargic thinking in general, benefit from learning how to speed up their brain waves — those who need to slow them down to calm over-arousal include people with compulsions, autism, posttraumatic stress disorder, chronic-pain disorders, epilepsy and insomnia.
Parkinson’s disease patients can benefit from slower brain waves that relax their nervous systems and contribute to better motor functioning.
Neurofeedback technology is continuing to evolve, Dr. De Bease said. Where there used to be just a few approaches, therapists now have many well-researched training protocols to work with, and their techniques become more customized as the science and training are refined.
For instance, placement of electrodes varies depending on the issue being addressed — for people with ADD, Dr. De Bease told me that she places electrodes on the scalp directly above the frontal cortex, which controls the function of paying attention.
PRACTICAL ADVICE
The goal of neurotherapy is to recognize how it feels to operate in the desired brain wave activity range and to then learn how to get there at will. Effective training typically takes 10 or more sessions, depending on the problem.
Prices vary by area and may range from $50 to more than $100/session. Some health insurance plans cover neurofeedback for some conditions, but usually only after you get a diagnosis and prescription from your doctor.
Dr. De Bease calls neurotherapy “a powerful technique,” but cautions that it is crucial to find a Biofeedback Certified Professional (BCP) who is well-trained specifically in this technique, especially in light of the fact that many who call themselves qualified have completed just a weekend training program.
Look for a practitioner who is certified by the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America (http://www.bcia.org/). This means that, among other credentials, the practitioner has had 25 hours of practice mentored by a BCIA-approved practitioner and 100 patient/client sessions reviewed and approved by BCIA.
Neurofeedback can benefit healthy people, too. Dr. De Bease said she works primarily with medical conditions but knows many therapists who focus on performance enhancement, which includes training athletes, business professionals and even members of the military in the use of neurofeedback.
Certainly this is a therapy worth looking into — it’s noninvasive and drug-free, not terribly expensive, and may help with many conditions.
Source(s):
Celeste De Bease, PhD, medical psychologist and bioneurofeedback therapist, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
April 17th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Subject: Take two aspirin…
Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.
These excerpts are published each year for their amusement.
Here are last year’s winners…
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
April 17th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
The republicans are so predictable. They have launched a campaign against ALL of Obama’s likely Supreme Court nominees.
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NEW PETITION against all OBAMA’S LIKELY liberal SUPREME COURT NOMINEES. Please select, sign, and WE WILL FAX your petition automatically to ALL 100 U.S.
SENATORS right away (saving you hours of labor!) Together we sent 1.2 million faxes against the anti-Jesus Judge David Hamilton and flipped 8 Senators to vote against him.
Analysis: Obama’s 7 Supreme Court candidates ALL liberal extremists. Take action!
Call all 17 swing-vote Senators listed below. Demand filibuster of all 7 possible nominees.
The Obama Administration has confirmed to the Associated Press the identities of 7 of 10 possible Supreme Court nominees, the “short list” of what the President has promised will be a fast nomination process to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
We evaluate each of the 7 below, and we must oppose all 7 as liberal activists, much further left than the military veteran Justice Stevens, a former Republican nominee. Let’s demand Obama keep his promise in 2009 that he would never appoint a “bomb-thrower” to the Supreme Court, when all 7 of the identified candidates are liberal extremists to the max.
Republican Judiciary Committee Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) promised, “There’s going to be a whale of a fight if he appoints an activist to the court. And that’s not good for him, it’s not good for the Senate and it’s not good for the country. The law should control the judge, and not the other way around. President Obama has already picked some of the most activist judicial nominees that I have seen in my 34 years in the Senate. He has a propensity to choose people who don’t care what the law is. They’re going to make the law from the bench. Judges are not supposed to do that.” Let’s help Senator Hatch…
PLEASE SELECT HERE, SIGN PETITION, AND WE’LL AUTOMATICALLY FAX YOUR PERSONALIZED PETITION TO ALL 100 U.S. SENATORS, OPPOSING ALL SEVEN OF THESE ANTI-LIFE, LIBERAL EXTREMIST JUDGES TO THE SUPREME COURT
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How does one take seriously a group who says they are against someone before they even find out who that someone is?
More importantly who are the people willing to send in money to fight the nomination of a person who hasn’t been named. I guess if you are a bigot, any nomination by a black man is no good.
Mike
April 17th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Because these corporations get a criminal pass, the owners get to pollute the environment with dangerous chemicals and if caught they only have to pay a fine.
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15 Apr 2010
UPDATE 1-Exxon settles over air pollution in Guam, Marianas
Fri Apr 16, 2010 4:06pm EDT
Stocks
Exxon Mobil Corporation
XOM.N
$67.93
-0.33-0.48%
12:00am PDT
* Exxon to pay $2.4 mln, upgrade two terminals for $15 mln
STOCKS | GLOBAL MARKETS | ENERGY
* Company says discovered problems through internal review
SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) will pay a fine for alleged Clean Air Act violations in Guam and the Mariana Islands and upgrade facilities to prevent them from emitting hundreds of tons of pollution every year.
The largest U.S. oil company said on Friday it discovered the problem through internal reviews and reported its findings to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Exxon’s two local units had agreed to pay $2.4 million for allegedly violating the U.S. Clean Air Act, and they expect to spend $15 million to bring two gasoline terminals into compliance, reducing their annual discharge of volatile organic compounds by close to 400 tons.
“We are in the process of installing new air emission control equipment on tanks and loading racks for the Cabras and Saipan terminals,” the Irving, Texas-based company said of the two sites, which store gasoline before it is hauled to filling stations.
According to a complaint filed with the settlement, Mobil Oil Guam and Mobil Oil Mariana Islands allegedly failed to install vapor pollution controls on 13 storage tanks and all of their loading racks at the storage facilities, the Justice Department said.
“This enforcement action should serve as a warning to other large companies that they need to ensure that each part of their operations complies with the law — even facilities that are more than 7,000 miles from their headquarters,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA’s administrator for the Pacific Southwest.
The settlement, lodged in Guam’s U.S. District Court, is subject to a 30-day comment period and final court approval. (Reporting by Braden Reddall. Editing by Robert MacMillan)
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So white men come to Guam and the Marianas with their death. When caught they pay a fine and continue to poison the people of Guam and the Marianas until caught again.
Hafa adai
Sherry
April 17th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Hold on Sherry, I’m white and I don’t think the polluters care if the people they are killing is not. They are equal opportunity polluters. They created the superbug with all the antibiotics they have encouraged us to use.
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New bacteria on the rise
The superbugs are here–and their microscopic army is growing at an alarming pace.
A new report shows how a once-rare bug has rapidly turned into the top bacterial threat in hospitals throughout the southeast–and quite possibly around the nation.
The bug’s name is Clostridium difficile, or C-diff for short, and it’s number one with a bullet, according to a study of 28 hospitals in the region. It’s overtaken the granddaddy of all drug-resistant bacteria, Methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), as it tears a path through the south.
In fact, C-diff is now 25 percent more common than MRSA in southeastern hospitals, according to the study presented at the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare- Associated Infections.
It may be even more widespread–probably is–but the researchers only looked at that one region.
That’s some pretty bad news, because this new Number One lives long, spreads easily, and is incredibly difficult to kill.
It sickens up to half a million people a year… and kills thousands.
The bug was once largely confined to sick, elderly people in hospitals and nursing homes, but that’s no longer the case: Another new study finds that the number of children hospitalized with C-diff infections doubled between 1997 and 2006.
That study, published in Emerging Infectious Disease, found cases among children to be rising at 9 percent each year.
And what’s really shocking about this one is that it’s truly a superbug, emphasis on the word “super.” C. difficile spores can live on hard surfaces for months, and withstand even the alcohol-based cleaners commonly used in hospitals.
Then again, it should be easy enough to keep them off those surfaces in the first place. Since C-diff generally spreads through fecal contact, better bathroom habits could quite literally save thousands of lives.
That’s some potty talk everyone should hear.
I told you a little about C-diff back in December. Many of us have some of these bacteria in our stomachs, but when everything is in balance our other gut bacteria will keep these critters in check.
Throw in some antibiotics, however, and you’ll kill off most of those good bacteria, giving the more resistant C- diff a chance to thrive. More than 90 percent of infections hit after an antibiotic course, which is just one more reason to use these meds sparingly.
And when you do, watch out. Because C-diff is so resistant to drugs, around 25 percent of all patients experience relapses, sometimes more than once.
C-diff symptoms include fever, vomiting, cramps, chills, abdominal tenderness and loss of appetite… but the first sign is usually diarrhea. If you or a loved one comes down with the runs following an antibiotics course, seek help fast.
Quick action can help prevent you from becoming a new statistic.
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It’s about money. The easiest way to make it is the route they will always take.
Clark