03.31.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:14 pm by livefood
In an article:
“Study: Range of pharmaceuticals in fish across US
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer”
…and partially quoted as…
“Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday.”
…the article is either telling us that the fish are really going to be screwed up, but won’t know it…but will be smiling all the time…and certainly not depressed…perhaps able to leap buildings with a single bound and lift trains OR
…be extremely healthy and “potent” (well if they soak up that little blue pill in the mix.
But the article is very disturbing in many ways. It’s really a simple matter of not flushing the unused meds down the toilet for the most part. Pretty simple. Take them back to the pharm you got them at when you pick up your next batch of pills.
Sometimes we read about “green” programs and ideas thinking that we are just a single person and can’t do too much to help the planet one way or another…but not flushing meds down the hole is a simple thing that can make difference…about as difficult at choosing paper over plastic…another thing we can all do.
Read a story in the paper the other evening about Mendota, CA…an unemployment rate of 41% (that’s right OVER FORTY)…yikes. Just nothing happening. Stores with gross receipts of just $5 a day…farmers looking to hire 2-3 for the harvest when typical would be 25…on top of the economic problems of the rest of us…the West side of the Valley is short of water (we’re in an unofficial drought)…so farmers “got nuttin” and the construction jobs of the past that might have floated the workers through the lean time…well the economy took care of those jobs. It’s so bad that some Mom’s have taken to washing and reusing disposable diapers.
It’s a sad story in Mendota.
Fargo, ND…wow. Talk about grits. Those folks should be proud of their town. They are working together and watching “hell freeze over”…they may have won this battle. I hope that they have beaten the river, but even with a levee break, that town can claim a huge victory. They worked together and did something…most of us just whine in corner, suck our thumb and blame it on someone else.
Local folks kicked butt in Fargo…and while there were National Guard that came to help, I’m sort of thinking that Fargo folks would have done it all without the outsiders coming by. Just get that feeling that those folks got the innards to make it happen.
So with all this grit in Fargo and desperation in Mendota, the least the rest of us can do is to NOT flush meds down the toilet.
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03.30.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:03 pm by livefood
From an AP wire…
“(HARRISBURG, Pa.) A retired police chief said he was robbed by “probably the dumbest criminal in Pennsylvania,” at a police officers’ convention on Friday morning. John Comparetto said as he came out of a stall in the men’s room, a man pointed a gun in his face and demanded money. There were 300 narcotics officers from Pennsylvania and Ohio at the gathering.
Comparetto gave up his money and cell phone. But when the man fled, Comparetto and some colleagues chased him. They arrested a 19-year-old man as he was trying to leave in a taxi.
The suspect is also awaiting trial on four previous robbery charges.
The suspect was arraigned and taken to Dauphin County Prison. When a reporter asked the suspect for comment as he was led out of court, he said, “I’m smooth.”
Dude…not too smooth. Still have a few details to work out in your routine. I’d say “keep your day job” but apparently that’s not working too well.
I’ve always been saddened that stupidity is not a terminal condition and seems instead to be linked to reproductivity…or is just me that seems to think that stupid is growing exponentially and smart is not.
At least no body got hurt and I got a chuckle for the day…while I shook my head. I had to read some of twice…how dumb can this guy be?
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:28 am by livefood
I try not to watch too much television…sort of like reading online news…or reading tabliods…your brain turns to a gooey semi-solid when you watch too much TV. Of course in my cse that might be a step up from the current state…but still, I don’t find all that much on the boob toob too be all that interesting.
But tonight, for whatever reason I watched “60 Minutes” for the first time in what must seem like “forever”…and man does Andy Rooney look older. Still the same humor (or not)…but I could tell my his age and the change of faces of the reporters, it’s been a while since I watched “50 Minutes.”
Watched a piece about computer virus/worms…yikes that was scary.
Watched a nifty piece on LeBron James…was a fan and now a bigger one. What a star in so many ways.
But there was a very disturbing piece on the Lions being poisoned in Africa…the piece was on Kenya, but there is appartently the same type of thing happening all over the continent…the Lions kill a cow, the owner poisons the carcass, the pride of Lions eat during the night, the hyenas get the leftovers, the vultures eat the left over leftovers and THEY ALL DIE. No surviving the chemical poison. It’s made by a US firm…banned in the US…banned in the UK…but made by the FMC Corporation. It’s a pesticide and suppose to be used on crops. And while FMC has since stopped shipping to Kenya…not so to the neighboring countries…and the poison finds it’s way to Kenya and for a whopping $2…the whole pride…ALL the females and ALL the adolencents and ALL the cubs die…along with the hyenas and the vultures. It’s a painful dealth…wasn’t easy to watch the film.
So while FMC might think they are making a great gesture to stop shipping their poison to Kenya and properly labeling their poison and condemming the misuse of their poison…I think it would be fair to say is was not a great gesture, nor a big gesture, but mearly a gesture…one that could be larger and more moral. They should stop making that stupid dumbass product and skip the money/profit they make from it…do the right thing and stop this insanity.
When firms are only concerns about their profits and loose sight of the common good that needs to take place…when they turn a blind eye to the harm that they are causing by making a product such as the FURADAN that is used to kill the Lions…that company should not exist. I certainly wish that I was controlling the decision for a multi-million dollar contract with the idiots at FMC right about now…and I would take a great deal of pleasure in telling them that they are not a good enough firm to do business with. Of course the government is probably in a position to leverage FMC into giving up the product…but will government step up and put the pressure on…HA HA HA.
So who will step up…the US Government…the Kenyan Government…who?…anyone?
FOR MORE use “60 miuntes lions” in Google and follow one of several links from several angles…not good.
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03.28.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:01 am by livefood
Sometimes I just would rather not know some information. The airplane crash in Butte, MT for example. This tragedy instantly created a bad feeling for me. It was (and continues to be) sad. When I thought that the children were going to be something along the order of teens…it was very sad. So hear that they some as young as two years old…the oldest on board was 10…I was very sad…to see their pictures on the wires…even sadder. For most of them to be related…wow. I could have stopped at just knowing that the plane carried passengers…the more I knew the sadder the deal has become. Shy is that?
…and where is Octomom?
I need to stop getting my news from FOX and CNN…the Journal only has real stuff…the CSM only has really real stuff…I need some questionable stories…I think I’ll get hooked up with one of those London “News”papers…nearly tabloidish stuff…that’s what I need. More Octomom and children fathering more children…that’s good stuff. News? Probably not…but entertainment…geeze it can’t get much better than an English newspaper…not even the NBA, NFL and Idol combined can begin to compare with the entertainment of a British rag.
Another tangent.
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03.27.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:05 am by livefood
This was reported through the AP wire:
(SHEBOYGAN, Wis.) A 60-year-old Washington woman arrested for drunken driving three times in three days while vacationing in Wisconsin has been sentenced to a month in jail.
Of course there is more to the story…but there is nothing that mitigates her drunkness…the second time she told the officer that she was only finishing off the box of wine in her car from yesterday…that would be the first time she was arrested.
What’s wrong with this picture. She was driving and drunk…THREE times in THREE days…and she only gets a 30 day sabatical? Does anyone really think this will solve her problem. She’s sick…send her to to the hospital or at least give her enough time to dry out…in 30 days?…well do you think she will head off to the nearest quiky mart and pick up another box of wine…after all ya just know that first one will be a little on the flat side.
The article does not mention taking her license away…you’re kidding right? She will still get to drive. Why?
Oh yeah…she needs to work…to buy the BOX of wine. Must be a crummy job if she can’t afford wine with glass around it. If she is on a budget perhaps she can find a ripple-like product to save some bucks…for the GAS so that she can drink and then DRIVE.
Take away her license. Never give it back. She will save on the car insurance, the gas, the payments, the dings and dents and she can drink more…drive less…
…and while she didn’t hurt anybody driving around this time…if she is not allowed to drive perhaps it will save a life (or two)…
…so you think she would drive without the license? Perhaps…and when she is caught, perhaps a sentence of 15, 20 or 30 years would be enough to convince her otherwise. Maybe that long sentence is the promise that the government should make to her (and others) so that innocent folks might be spared the injustice of being hit by this moronic drunk. She’s old enough to know better, just not smart enough to know better.
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03.25.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:52 pm by livefood
In a very reent article entitled “Remittances Epected to Drop by $15B,” CNN reports on various statistics and situatiions where money being sent by folks to family in their original home is dropping significantly. This is primarily because the economies of the destination countries (generally the more developed ones) are hurting.
Now one could think that this is a USA specific problem, but one of the cases cited in the article was about a woman doing house work in Hong Kong and sending money to family in the Philippines. Get that?…she works in a “low end” job, probably with limited skills…earns only $600 a month and sends HALF to family to support what the article says is generally basic needs. I don’t know of too many people who would love their family as much to give them HALF of their gross pay…or even to feel obligated to do so. So before we go down that path of beating up the illegal aliens/immigrants…think about what they might be going through.
I was speaking with the custodian at our Church a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me that the money that his friends have been able to send is down more than half. Where one of his buddies was sending $200 a month, he is now only sending $20…which is Mom back in Mexico tries to save $10 because she is not sure if any money will be coming the next month. I’m not sure what the immigration status of the friend is, our custonidan is a legal resident and working two jobs to support his wife and new baby…hard working, nice guy. But listening to him talk about the problems that the funds (or the lack of) were going to cause back in Mexico was chilling.
I’ll play that illegal emigrant card now…so what…in this case, I really don’t care. I could immediately see a much bigger and far worse problem. If folks don’t have their basic needs covered, they will continue to seek ways to have that happen…legal or illegal. Drugs was the first thing that came to mind…the cartels and their ability to recruit folks…how easy do you think that is in this environment…do you think that more folks are trying to cross borders? Do you like reading about beheaded folks? Don’t care?…it’s coming this way as I write this.
Of course, the economy and illegal immigrants working here doesn’t create the drug problem and the lack of money being sent home is not the only reason that the drug cartels are going nutz…its a complicated series of events and situations…I think we’re all smart enough to see that. But those working (or want to be working) folks who stand on the street corner have a small role to play in the economic stability (and the basic needs) of their families “back home”…where ever that might be.
In one breath the news reports that the government is thinking that the cartels and drug lords will be moving into the USA…in the next article the news reports drug related murders in El Paso with direct ties to drug lords in Mexico…it’s here NOW…how bad will it get is anyone’s guess. I think that will have something to do with demand (in the USA) and the financial situations in both countries.
So when you see day laborers standing on the corners looking for opportunities to break up and remove that concrete for you…or to remove the berry bushes you kids don’t want to rip out…or remove that 12 inches of rock hard adobe (I live in CA…it’s “interesting” soil in my yard)…try to remember that they are looking for work…any and usually hard work…and the money they receive is not going to drugs but a large portion is going “home” to support families who have no opportunity to support themselves…and the cartels know that. When that money goes home…think about your kids…would they go to another country and send money back to support you? It’s a situation that I can hardly put by arms around…
…and then to build a fence along the border? Are you kidding me? What a waste of money that is. Like folks are not going to stuff themselves into boxes and be sent here (or some variation on a variety of methods)…if there was no opportunity for employment here there would be far fewer immigrants…legal or illegal…and why no fence for the Canadian border? The 9/11 cells came through Canada…not Mexico…perhaps the fence is being put in the wrong place? That’s a stupid argument…of course the Canadians wouldn’t have wanted those idiots to come into their country to get here to do the stupid things they did. Of course you could argue that there are far few Canadians coming across the border…well you could also argue that there are far fewer Canadian to be able to come across ANY border…the entire country has a population smaller than the state of CA…so none of the arguments really hold water…and from a personal point of view…I’ve never been detained coming or going from Mexico…I can not say that about Canada (really anal guards who obviously like the power of that uniform but check the brain at the door)…
The remittance industry is big…huge…worldwide…and very complex. To try to separate and isolate the parts and bits and to argue for or against those bits and parts outside of the larger context just doesn’t solve the whole problem…and despite what is said about fences creating good neighbors…I’m pretty sure that a fence creates more curiosity to find out what is on the other side.
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03.24.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:11 pm by livefood
Why is it that South Africa is putting a governmental effort into the curbing of Baboon behavior and at the same time will not issue a visa for the Dali Lama?
What are they thinking (or not) down there…I say “down there” in a map sense…nothing else intended.
The government of South Africa seems to have their issues a bit out of priority…perhaps the visa issue is a big bigger than they think it is…so Tutu says he won’t go if the ban stands…go to what A PEACE CONFERENCE…so the SA government is not wanting the Dali to draw attention to the Tibet/China issue…maybe they should look at the Taiwan issue coming up…or the Kashmir…heck, throw in the Hawaiian independence issue.
To be a free country you need to have the gutz to let some ideas float around (the town, the country, the world) that you might not agree with…one can not BE free if one doesn’t allow others that same ability.
So go Baboons…break into the cars…steal those bananas and snacks…run free…be wild…while you can still get that visa.
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03.23.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:56 pm by livefood
Lifelong learning is important, but the gutz it takes to go back to school and sit in those little tiny chairs is pretty special. Usually I just like to jump on things and pound it to death…football, pedestals and pay…idiot politics…stupid human tricks and the like.
I guess I’m a product of the media environment of sorts. Of course it doesn’t hep my situation when I see things a bit differently. Every so often I see something that just really stricks a chord…and the floowing article does that for me.
I think it strikes the same chord that got plucked a couple of years ago when on American Idol ran their program “Idol Gives Back” where they ran a bit on the schools in West Virginia…sad state of affairs…basically no funds to buy books.
So Mr. Williams…you have done a good thing. I think you send a strong message. Don’t stop learning…and create opportunities for others to learn with you.
“At 71, Mo. third-grader leaves legacy in literacy
Friday, March 20, 2009
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Alferd Williams of Missouri is a lot of things: 71-year-old. Sharecropper’s son. Third grader.
Make that award-winning third grader.
Williams was honored Wednesday in St. Joseph by the Toys for TotsLiteracyProgram with the first-ever “Alferd Williams Literacy Award.” His teacher at Edison Elementary, Alesia Hamilton, also received the award.
Williams returned to school at age 68 to fulfill his lifelong dream of learning how to read. He said at a ceremony in the school gym he hopes to be a student for the rest of his life.
The Toys for Tots program run by the Marines provides disadvantaged children with books and other educational materials.”
Thank you for brightening my day.
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03.20.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:36 pm by livefood
Who cares that the guy is on the list at all…he’s killing folks to get the money. Any legitimacy that is given to him through what should be honorable media helps him and hurts our societies…both the Mexican and the USA.
What is Forbes thinking on this? Did they think?
Usually I look to the magazine lists like this with interest. I won’t look at Forbes again. EVER. Now that I know that they are just a tabloidish as some of that grocery store news stand crap, Forbes is not worth my time or money. I think I’d rather but a sucker than be one. If we can’t have the media help us build than they are helping us destroy. “News” doesn’t have to be everything that is happening out there…some of it, like putting this guy on the list with Bill Gates is just worthless journalism.
CNN wrote:
“MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — What do software mogul Bill Gates and banking investor Warren Buffett have in common with wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera?
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, pictured in 1993, ranks 701th on Forbes’ yearly report on billionaires.
They are all featured in Forbes magazine’s world’s billionaires report as “self-made” billionaires.
Guzman Loera, whose nickname means Shorty, escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001. He heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, investigators say. Authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border blame the Sinaloa and other cartels for a surge in violence in the region.
He ranked 701th on Forbes’ yearly report, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion”
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03.19.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:28 pm by livefood
If you have been following my posts to this never ending mantra of crud I blab about, you will know that I don’t ahve a whole lot of respect for the folks in governemtn…well maybe I cut the slack for the local ones, but typically I think the folks in Sacramento (for us unfortunate in CA) and in Washington.
Let’s face it, they do and say some really stupid things…so one way to beat them at their own game is to get even dumber and “stupider”…find folks that might be even sillier and elect them to office…that way we can reduce the governemt to the really worthless level and sweep it under the rug with the rest of the worthless stuff…you know, like the cousins you have that you can’t really find the time to talk with…WHAT!?…]
you don’t have any of those…you want a couple to adopt? I have spares.
But for the really dumb-ass ideas that are a waste of tax payer and/or constituent money…follow this story…the title on the article was “FPA Sued for Letting Air Pollution Cross STate Lines”…
Complete Story
It’s an AP story…they stoop low sometimes too…
I’m just wondering who they think the government is going to change the way the wind blows…well maybe if all the politicians face the same way and talk at the same time they can push the wind in a different direction…depending on which orifice the wind is leaving them of course.
Around here, something like 80% of the pollution in our air is coming to us courtesy of China…I live near the coast…no industry up wind on a typical day…until you get to the other coast…that would be an Asian coast to the West. The folks in NM need to think a bit before they contract with more attorneys…if they continue along their path, people like me might loose any respect for them (do you think) and lump them up with the idiots in Washington…
but it all these idiots keep talking, doesn’t that just increase the global warming and kll the polar bears. Perhaps that alone would be a good reason for some of these idiots to just shut up. Even a smidge of gas coming from the mouths of folks that waste time on wind crossing state lines that adds to the global warming should stop…really stupid people…perhaps they consult with the lawyers working on the case of Florida man who thinks his small cell is cruel punishment for the murders he created…maybe the lawyers in FL are cousins to the folks in NW concerned about the wind?…do you think?
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