A notice about debt

This is a public service announcement for any Occupiers, or people who call themselves the 99%-ers, or those earning the new Girl Scout badge for good credit. If you believe ads like this that promise "rewards," or "deals," or "savings," or "earnings," or "shopping made easy," or "20% off," or "cash back," please know that they are asking you to spend money and go into debt. Debt has to be paid back, sometimes with interest, sometimes after the item wears out! You are making the 1% richer if you don't realize that "save" actually means "spend." Don't say you weren't warned or that you didn't know, and go whining to the banks or the President that life is unfair.

He's the best horse in the race, but I don't have to like it

The College Board and News Corp. sponsored a forum on education with four GOP presidential candidates last week . . .

Michele Bachmann (local control), Rick Santorum (moral values) and Herman Cain (business principles) stuck mainly to their talking points, but Mr. Gingrich kept the crowd of 1,000 or so engaged and entertained with a wide-ranging tutorial on everything from the failures of "L.A. Unified" to Jeb Bush's Florida "virtual school." The session was a reminder of Mr. Gingrich's knowledge of government and rhetorical skills, which were overwhelmed by his early campaign missteps.

Political Diary - WSJ.com

Health, abortion issues split Obama administration and Catholic groups

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops organization, in line with the church’s teachings, has refused to refer trafficking victims (sex slavery) for contraceptives or abortion. The American Civil Liberties Union sued, and HHS officials said they made a policy decision (ignoring the review board recommendations) to award the grants to agencies that would refer women for those services.

The bishops conference is threatening legal action and accusing the administration of anti-Catholic bias, which HHS officials deny. . .

Under HHS policies, career officials usually oversee grant competitions, and priority consideration is given to the review board’s judgment. The policies do not prohibit political appointees from getting involved. “I think it’s a sad ma­nipu­la­tion of a process to promote a pro-abortion agenda,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the conference. She has written on the organization’s blog that the decision reflects an HHS philosophy of “ABC (Anybody But Catholics)’’. "

Health, abortion issues split Obama administration and Catholic groups - The Washington Post

NYPD Union Warns of Lawsuits Against ‘Occupy’ Supporters

Looks to me that patience is wearing thin, according to this story in the Wall Street Journal today. Twenty police officers have been injured policing these cry babies, and apparently those within the encampment aren't reporting things like assaults and rapes for fear of bringing bad publicity on the group (reported in The Blaze). Haven't women learned anything from making the coffee and providing the sex during so many revolutionary movements?

"Ed Mullins, president of the New York Police Department’s Sergeant’s Benevolent Association, said Thursday that if one of his sergeants is assaulted while policing the protests, his union would file civil lawsuits seeking monetary damages against individual protesters as well as any groups whose support has sustained the demonstrations in lower Manhattan. Any civil suit would be in addition to criminal charges faced by those protesters involved.

“What I’d like to make clear is people can protest, that’s their right, it’s done every day of the week (in New York City),” Mullins said. “But if a sergeant gets injured we are going to hold you accountable.”

Mullins specified that it wasn’t just a warning to the protesters. “We’re going to hold those who allow this to fester accountable too,” he said.

He said the list of those potentially liable could include people providing financial support, food and other supplies to the protesters, the city itself and even Brookfield Properties, owner of Zuccotti Park, where protesters have camped since Sept. 17

So far, Mullins said, more than 20 officers have received injuries while policing the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. He said in many instances the protesters have “intentionally and maliciously” instigated violent confrontations with police."

NYPD Union Warns of Lawsuits Against ‘Occupy’ Supporters - Metropolis - WSJ

The pro-communist, anti-capitalist, Jew-hating roots of Occupy Wall Street

Interesting collection of anti-semitic immigrants, billionaires, non-profits, and U.S. media all getting a foot in the door. I never liked our home-grown hate terrorists like David Duke, or the skin-heads but when they turn out to be ungrateful, rich immigrants whose countrymen were killed by the thousands by the Communists, like George Soros and Kalle Lasn, then I get testy. I remember feeling that way when I was a student at the University of Illinois and we had well-heeled, snooty foreign students who were perfectly happy to have their government paying their way for a foreign education, but looked down on Illinois' African American students (aka Negroes in those days). To me they were worse than our home-grown racists.

Adbusters is one of the big and early promoters of Occupy Wall Street.

Adbusters Media Foundation, which publishes Adbusters, was founded in 1989 by two radicals, Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz. Lasn, the intellectual driving force behind the magazine, was born in Estonia in 1942. He spent his childhood in a German refugee camp and in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Toyko, and in 1970, moved to Vancouver. For 20 years, he produced documentaries for PBS and Canada’s National Film Board.

But then, somewhere along the line he developed an intense hatred of the American consumer economy and became an anti-capitalist revolutionary. The magazine has fostered the development of an international anti-consumerist movement.

As a Christian who grew up in the anabaptist tradition, I'm well aware that worshipping material wealth is a sin. But so is attempting to destroy the livelihood of a billion people. And Lasn certainly isn't campaigning against capitalism for his spiritual health.

The technology of candy corn

The ingenuity, quality control and passion for making candy corn just amazes me. It's a big seller at Halloween time.



HT Neo-Neocon

Today's new word--acidulous

Sure it has the word "acid" in it, but is that what it means? Yes. Sometimes that's a fooler. But it does mean "bitter, sour in taste," with the synonyms, acerbic, biting, piquant, pungent, sharp, tart, vinegarish, and vinegary. I saw it in a book notice in Books and Culture in this context,

In this week's podcast, Stan Guthrie and I discuss Janet Malcolm's Iphigenia in Forest Hills, an acidulous account of a sensational murder trial.

What's Your Kid Getting From College?

Most college debt amounts to that of buying a new Prius--about $28,000--says this author in today's WSJ, but it's the wrong question. What are they getting in exchange for their (your) money?

"At WhatWillTheyLearn.com, students can click onto ACTA's recent survey of more than 1,000 American four-year institutions—and find out how their colleges and universities rate. Two findings jump out. First, the more costly the college, the less likely it will require a demanding core curriculum. Second, public institutions generally do better here than private ones—and historically black colleges such as Morehouse and service academies such as West Point amount to what ACTA calls "hidden gems."

McGurn: What's Your Kid Getting From College? - WSJ.com

But whatever the Occupiers are protesting (and many have absolutely no idea), it's misplaced. It's not the banks' fault their parents and teachers let them slide; that they spent more time on gaming or gaming the system or shooting the breeze at the union than they did hitting the books; that they choose a major without ever checking out the facts about the job opportunities. The ability to communicate either orally or in writing or both is still critical, unless the student plans to live at home in mom's basement and sell internet ads--and for that he doesn't need a $250,000 Harvard education.

Is Obama campaigning Like It's 1936?

Yes, and like FDR, he'll drag this out to achieve his political ends--more government in our lives.

FDR needed more revenue to support his big-government schemes. More importantly, he needed a villain to explain why, given the passage of his New Deal legislation, government spending and regulations, the economy was still struggling.

So he proposed raising taxes on the rich, which he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.” As he explained to Congress in June 1935, “Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent the unjust concentration of wealth and economic power. … Social unrest and a deepening sense of unfairness are dangers to our national life which we must minimize by rigorous methods.” President Obama couldn’t have said it better himself.

Obama: Campaigning Like It's 1936 - Forbes

Did the muffins really cost $16 a piece?

Apparently not. A review of costs of workshops, conferences and meetings sponsored by the Department of Justice issued a correction of its September audit in October, 2011. It just didn't give the revised figure for a muffin.

However, the DOJ did spend about $73 million to host conferences during FY 2009, which is $25.5 million (53 percent) more than what was reported spent on conferences in FY 2008. One of them I looked at (actually it was several) was for Native American nations for sex offender training and was held in a plush Palm Springs Resort. Although that's much cheaper than the multi-million dollar one held in Turkey about drugs.

The audit I was reading found that one DOJ event in Los Angeles, California, featured a 2-entrée lunch for 120 attendees that cost $53 per person. In another instance, a DOJ component spent $60,000 on a reception that featured chef-carved roast beef and turkey, a penne pasta station, and platters of Swedish meatballs at a cost of nearly $5 per meatball.

You eat very well at DOJ events.

"AUDIT OF DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE CONFERENCE PLANNING AND FOOD AND BEVERAGE COSTS" Rev. October 2011, U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, Audit Report 11-43

Do you like cooked cabbage?

I really like cooked cabbage, but I could do without the ginger and vinegar; still useful information about cutting it. Very nutritious and low in calories. Steaming it is better than microwaving because "two minutes of microwaving destroys the same amount of myrosinase enzymes as seven minutes of steaming, and you need those myrosinase enzymes to help convert cabbage's glucosinolates into cancer-preventive compounds." After I grill it in a pan, I put the lid on and turn off the heat--I call that "steaming."

"A recent study showed that a 100 gram (about 3 ounces) serving of raw red cabbage delivers 196.5 milligrams of polyphenols, of which 28.3 milligrams are anthocyanins. Green cabbages yielded much less per 100 grams: 45 milligrams of polyphenols including 0.01 milligram of anthocyanins. The vitamin C equivalent, a measure of antioxidant capacity, of red cabbage is also six to eight times higher than that of green cabbage. Red cabbage is one of the most nutritious and best tasting vegetables around and a great addition to your Healthiest Way of Eating."
WHFoods: Cabbage

Today's new word--tranche

as in tranches of money. (see USAToday article of previous blog).

Tranche
A part of an issue. A tranche sometimes refers to a single issue of a security released at different times. For example, a company may announce that is intends to issue $10,000,000 in bonds in two tranches of $5,000,000. Tranches are important to collateralized mortgage obligations, which are backed by pools of mortgages. These mortgages are arranged in tranches that mature at different times, for instance in 10 years, 15 years, and 30 years.

U.S. tracks 'millions' of dollars stolen by Iraqi officials

Seems to be some money missing and not trackable. Wouldn't you think that the brightest minds in the Bush administration and the Obama administration would have at least one person who knew how to do this?

Overall, Bowen said, he has found indications that huge amounts of money were stolen in Iraq. Asked how much, he said it is "impossible to say, but I know just from talking to Iraqis and just my travels to Iraq — I've been there 30 times. What I've learned is that hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of development fund for Iraq money was stolen by senior Iraqi officials for their own personal gain."

The Inspector General's mandate does not include looking at the tens of billions that were sent from the New York Fed to the Baghdad government after the Coalition Provisional Authority went out of existence in 2004.

U.S. tracks 'millions' of dollars stolen by Iraqi officials – USATODAY.com

Lawrence Welk Halloween Show

The Lawrence Welk Show reruns are mostly new for me since I didn't watch it when it was current (I think it was going even when I was in high school because I do remember the Lennon Sisters were popular, but my parents didn't have TV). Here in Columbus it's on WOSU, and I've seen it on the PBS stations in Toledo also. Some great old songs, and Welk always included contemporary songs, too, which now are also old songs. On the close-ups you can see that in those days not as many TV stars had their teeth capped and straightened. Guy and Ralna I've learned from a Google search, are now divorced, so apparently, he did stop loving her. They really were a great duet.



Lennon Sisters from 1956

And every time I see an entire orchestra in orange or aqua suits, I do wonder how they did that.

“We Are All Scott Olsen.” Agreed!

I don't want to see anyone get hurt at the Occupier demonstrations, but you could almost see and hear them salivating for a martyr. And they found one, and he's a 2-fer, a U.S. Iraq War Veteran. It would have been better if he had been a minority, or a transvestite, but you can't have it all, even in Occupy Town. However, if you watched the video, I'd say the police, who are quite accustomed to Oakland periodically rioting about something, were quite restrained.

As you would expect, his background has been checked (and his website quickly taken down). According to Big Government dot com, he revealed his colors and is "Anti-military, anti-Israel, anti-semitic and pro-drugs." It's the drugs thing that may have gotten him his discharge and caused his anger at the military. Don't know. More will come out I'm sure, but he is definitely the face of the movement.

» #Occupy Says: “We Are All Scott Olsen.” Agreed! - Big Government

The Norway Maple

In the beginning God. . . made dioxobilane

"Bernhard Kräutler and colleagues at the University of Innsbruck, in Austria, have discovered a new chlorophyll decomposition product in autumn leaves of the Norway maples. The new structure hints at a decomposition pathway dissimilar to that observed in other deciduous trees. "Essential pieces of the puzzle of this biological phenomenon have been solved only within the last two decades," explains Kräutler but he and his colleagues found none of the typical breakdown products in yellow-green or yellow Norway maple leaves. The main product was a dioxobilane, which looks more like a chlorophyll breakdown product from barley leaves or even bile pigments formed by heme breakdown." The Alchemist, The ChemWeb Newsletter

I'm not fooled by Obama’s bite-size initiatives, are you?

"Almost every day this week, Obama rolled out a program aimed at some troubled sector of the economy: mortgage relief for homeowners Monday, tax credits to spur job growth for veterans Tuesday, college loan relief for students Wednesday, regulatory and information shortcuts for small businesses Friday.

The plan-a-day strategy is an approach designed to portray Obama as decisive as the White House complains about Congress’s failure to pass his jobs bill. Senior administration aides said they expected the effort to continue as long as Congress balks at his proposals."

The student loan relief should save the debtor between $4 and $8 a month. The Mortgage relief didn't work the first time around, and combined with the huge mortgages involved, it's a sop for the wealthy. And what small business wants more regulations to strangle them in exchange for hiring a worker taken from another firm?

Obama’s bite-size initiatives reminiscent of Clinton reelection - The Washington Post

Vitamin A supplements for preventing mortality, illness, and blindness in children aged under 5

According to the World Health Organization, more than 10 million children die each year, almost all in low-income countries or poor areas of middle-income countries, most from one of a short list of causes: diarrhea, pneumonia, measles, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and the underlying cause of undernutrition for deaths among children younger than 5 years. Poverty is always given as the culprit, but I say it's the dysfunctional governments in those countries, many with leaders who have great wealth contributed by gullible western governments who've accepted promises the millions in aid payments will be used for roads, schools or clean water. Clean water and nutritional supplementation could solve a lot on this list. DDT could take care of malaria until a vaccine is found. A stable government could also help with the HIV/AIDS problem if millions of men stayed home rather than travel for work.

WHO estimates, for example, among children living in the 42 countries with 90% of child deaths, a group of effective nutrition interventions including breastfeeding, complementary feeding, vitamin A, and zinc supplementation could save about 2·4 million children each year (25% of total deaths). Effective and integrated case management of childhood infections (diarrhea and dysentery, pneumonia, malaria, and neonatal sepsis) could save 3·2 million children each year (33% of total deaths). Breastfeeding is on the list, I assume, because it's dangerous to use formula when you don't have safe water.

I wish I could say I don't understand why black and brown children in developing countries are still being used like lab rats for vitamin studies by westerners when we've known for nearly 100 years the importance of Vitamin A, and how to supplement food with it since the 1930s. This particular data report published in the British Medical Journal which looked at 43 studies says using placebo trials is unethical because of the high mortality rate for the children who didn't get the supplements.

But the mortality figures don't even begin to factor the blindness and other illnesses. American children have been eating vitamin fortified foods since the 30s and 40s, plus mothers have been getting prenatal vitamins at least since I was pregnant 50 years ago, and maybe longer, and children have been receiving vitamin tablets for over 50 years, so why not just give the African or Asian children a multivitamin tablet high in vitamin A and save the cost of the study? Well, there it is. People make a living doing these studies. Research centers publish results in journals which need advertising revenue. Pharmaceutical companies need reasons to provide the testing material. Meanwhile, a lot of children die or are damaged the rest of their lives for want of a tablet that costs pennies a day.

Vitamin A supplements for preventing mortality, illness, and blindness in children aged under 5: systematic review and meta-analysis -- Mayo-Wilson et al. 343 -- bmj.com

How many child deaths can we prevent this year?

Now Occupiers can get down to living without comforts provided by industry and corporations

After 6 weeks of lovely fall weather, it's time for reality, for the Occupiers of [your city]. Yes, unseasonable cold weather has arrived in both Denver (although their weather is always a bit dicey) and the northeast. Police have confiscated some generators in NYC as a safety hazard, and some people in Denver have been hospitalized for hypothermia, and now they can enjoy all the advantages of a modern society provided by the many they villify, in a hospital.

Of course, that won't stop them in Oakland where protests are a cottage industry and the populace is well prepared.

Ohio Watercolor Society show at the Church at Mill Run

Ohio Watercolor Society will be holding a unique raffle fundraiser at the Church at Mill Run, Hilliard, Ohio, starting October 27, with the raffle drawing November 20, 2011. Here's the way the raffle works.

OWS members are donating framed original watercolors to the raffle. So far 28 paintings have been donated.

Tickets for the raffle are being sold for $100 each (the church does not sell them, btw).

The number of tickets sold will be equal to the number of paintings donated. Everyone who buys a ticket will get a framed original watercolor.

All of the paintings will be on exhibit at the Church at Mill Run from October 27 - November 20. There will be a reception with light refreshments from 4pm - 6pm on Sunday, November 20th. The drawing for paintings will begin at 5:00pm

When your name is drawn you can take your choice of any painting still on the wall.

This is a great opportunity to own an original watercolor by some of the state's best watercolorists. Attached is a flyer with a form and instructions for purchasing a raffle ticket if you's like top participate.