Human feces taint more than half of swimming pools says CDC study -

Human feces taint more than half of swimming pools says CDC study - 


Human feces taint more than half of public swimming pools, a finding U.S. health officials are using to urge better personal hygiene as the summer months approach.
E. coli, which indicates the presence of fecal matter, was detected in 58 per cent of samples taken from pool filters by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, according to data released Thursday by the Atlanta-based agency. Pools frequented mostly by children were more likely to test positive for E. coli, which can cause stomach and respiratory illness.
Municipal pools open to all were worse than public pools requiring membership, the CDC said. Acute gastrointestinal illness related to recreational water sports has substantially increased since 1978, with diarrheal incidents and other poor swimmer hygiene being a major contributor, the CDC said.
“Finding a high percentage of E. coli-positive filters indicates swimmers frequently contaminate pool water when they have a fecal incident in the water or when feces rinse off of their bodies because they do not shower thoroughly before getting into the water,” the agency said in a statement.
The CDC tested pool water from filters around the Atlanta area in June through August 2012. It’s unlikely that swimmer hygiene differs in other areas, the CDC said.
E. coli was in 70 per cent of municipal pools tested and 49 per cent of pools that require membership or are at a club. The bacteria was detected in the same percentage of pools whether they were outdoor or indoor, the data show. Pools used primarily by children tested positive 73 per cent of the time.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria that can cause rashes and ear infections, was found in 59 per cent of the pools sampled, the CDC said. The contamination comes mostly from dirt, either from humans or pool toys, and underscores the need to clean pools and keep chlorine at proper levels, the CDC said.
The CDC recommended swimmers shower with soap before getting in a pool, don’t swim when they have diarrhea and wash their hands with soap after using the toilet or changing diapers. Also, don’t swallow pool water, the agency said.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/05/16/human_feces_taint_more_than_half_of_swimming_pools_says_cdc_study.html

Dairy Associations Lobby The FDA To Alter The Definition Of “Milk” To Include Aspartame -

Dairy Associations Lobby The FDA To Alter The Definition Of “Milk” To Include Aspartame - 


It’s not quite as bad as some have reported – cancer-causing artificial sweetening additives such as as aspartame likely would still need to be listed in tiny letters as ingredients. But the milk could otherwise be packaged, marketed, and sold as just “milk.” The stated goal is to reverse the trend of lagging dairy consumption by children, particularly in school.  From the U.S. government’s Federal Register:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing that the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) have filed a petition requesting that the Agency amend the standard of identity for milk and 17 other dairy products to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient.

IDFA and NMPF request their proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity to allow optional characterizing flavoring ingredients used in milk to be sweetened with any safe and suitable sweetener—including non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame. IDFA and NMPF state that lower-calorie flavored milk would particularly benefit school children who, according to IDFA and NMPF, are more inclined to drink flavored milk than unflavored milk at school.

Read more - 

http://disinfo.com/2013/05/dairy-associations-lobby-the-fda-to-alter-the-definition-of-milk-to-include-aspartame/

Handbags May Have More Bacteria Than A Toilet Seat -

Handbags May Have More Bacteria Than A Toilet Seat - 


Many ladies love their handbags and will spend a lot of money for the latest and greatest, but a new study says what is inside those bags may be covered in germs worse than what you’ll find in the bathroom.

As CBS 2′s Cindy Hsu reported Wednesday, the study said your purse may, in fact, have more bacteria than your average toilet seat.

Some people admit that the inside of the purses is less than orderly. Susan Ecker said hers is a disaster.

“You’ll find chocolate that’s fallen out of its wrapper and all sorts of things that are buried at the bottom,” she said.

Even a toothpick, loose mints and some crumbs were down there.

Clara Fernandez also opened her bag.

“I have a cell phone, I have make-up, candy, my medicine,” she said.

A new study by Initial Washroom Hygiene Solutions said a lot of the stuff we stuff in our bags is covered in germs. Topping the list is hand cream, which can carry more bacteria than a toilet seat.

“That’s gross,” Fernandez said. “I can’t believe that.”

Also up there are lipstick and mascara, and even hand-sanitizer bottles.

Doctor Sorana Segal-Maurer with New York Hospital-Queens said cell phones are also covered in bacteria.

“We don’t want to put it down. It goes into the bathroom with some people — not a good idea,” Segal-Maurer said. “You really need to wipe it down.”

And when it comes to fruit, don’t throw it in your bag.

“Number one, you’re probably not going to wash your hands before you go reaching for it, and number two, it’s floating around next to all the other stuff in your bag and then you want to put it in your mouth — it’s not a good idea,” Segal-Maurer said.

Another thing to keep in mind is the outside of the bag. Very often when we hit the restroom, there is no hook in sight to hang it, so we take our bags and we drop them on the restroom floor.

Segal-Maurer said you should never do that, and you should make sure you use anti-bacterial wipes to clean the bottom of your bag along with the handles. She said there’s no reason to panic, and it’s unlikely you’ll get sick from the bacteria in your bag, but it’s back to the basics of washing your hands

The study also found leather handbags tend to carry the most bacteria because the spongy texture makes a perfect breeding ground.

Read more - 

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/05/15/study-handbags-may-have-more-bacteria-than-a-toilet-seat/

'Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World'... -

'Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World'... - 


They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable.

Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned.


The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.

“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.

Dr. Wednesday Martin, social anthropologist who discovered scheme.
“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”

The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.

Disney allows each guest who needs a wheelchair or motorized scooter to bring up to six guests to a “more convenient entrance.”

The Florida entertainment mecca warns that there “may be a waiting period before boarding.” But the consensus among upper-crust moms who have used the illicit handicap tactic is that the trick is well worth the cost.

Not only is their “black-market tour guide” more efficient than Disney World’s VIP Tours, it’s cheaper, too.

Disney Tours offers a VIP guide and fast passes for $310 to $380 per hour.

Passing around the rogue guide service’s phone number recently became a shameless ritual among Manhattan’s private-school set during spring break. The service asks who referred you before they even take your call.

“It’s insider knowledge that very few have and share carefully,” said social anthropologist Dr. Wednesday Martin, who caught wind of the underground network while doing research for her upcoming book “Primates of Park Avenue.”

“Who wants a speed pass when you can use your black-market handicapped guide to circumvent the lines all together?” she said.

“So when you’re doing it, you’re affirming that you are one of the privileged insiders who has and shares this information.”

Ryan Clement runs Dream Tours Florida with girlfriend Jacie Christiano, whom the rich Manhattan mom indicated was her family’s guide.

A working phone number for Christiano couldn’t be found, and Clement refused to put The Post through to her. A message left on Facebook was not immediately returned by Christiano.

Clement denied that his gal pal uses her disability to bypass lines. He said she has an auto-immune disorder and acknowledged that she uses a scooter on the job.

Disney did not return repeated requests for comment.

Read more - 

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/disney_world_srich_kid_outrage_zTBA0xrvZRkIVc1zItXGDP

Bugs are the food of the future - insects are “nutritious, with high protein, fat and mineral contents" -

Bugs are the food of the future - insects are “nutritious, with high protein, fat and mineral contents" - 


Beetles, caterpillars and wasps could supplement the diets of billions of people globally and help feed livestock, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Monday, calling for more investment in edible insect farming.

“One of the many ways to address food and feed insecurity is through insect farming,” the report said, pointing out that insects were “nutritious, with high protein, fat and mineral contents”.

“Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint,” it said.

But the authors admitted that “consumer disgust remains one of the largest barriers to the adoption of insects as viable sources of protein in many Western countries”.

It suggested that the food industry could help in “raising the status of insects” by including them in new recipes and putting them on restaurant menus.

The report also called for better regulation and mechanisation for using insects as feed — an industry that at present “cannot compete” with traditional sources of feed.

“The use of insects on a large scale as a feed ingredient is technically feasible, and established companies in various parts of the world are already leading the way,” it added.

Read more - 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/13/bugs-are-the-food-of-the-future-un/

Seeking sex after 17 years, Billions of Cicadas about to emerge from underground -

Seeking sex after 17 years, Billions of Cicadas about to emerge from underground - 


The bugs have been waiting a metre underground. This year, when the temperature is right, they will surface in search of sex.

Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast of the U.S.
They will arrive in such numbers that people from the southern state of North Carolina to Connecticut in the northeast will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.
But ominous as that sounds — scientists’ horror-movie name for the infestation is Brood II — they’re harmless. These insects won’t hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won’t ever see them.
“It’s not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people,” says May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois entomologist.
They’re looking for just one thing: sex. And they’ve been waiting quite a long time.
Since 1996, these 25-mm bugs, in wingless nymph form, have been one-metre underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 18 C. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.
“It’s just an amazing accomplishment,” Berenbaum says. “How can anyone not be impressed?”
And they will make a big racket, too. The noise all the male cicadas make when they sing for sex can drown out your own thoughts, and maybe even rival a rock concert. In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud “you don’t hear planes flying overhead.”
There are ordinary cicadas that come out every year around the world, but these are different. They’re called magicicadas — as in magic — and are red-eyed. And these magicicadas are seen only in the eastern half of the United States, nowhere else in the world.
There are 15 U.S. broods that emerge every 13 or 17 years, so that nearly every year, some place is overrun. Last year it was a small area, mostly around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Next year, two places get hit: Iowa into Illinois and Missouri; and Louisiana and Mississippi. And it’s possible to live in these locations and actually never see them.
This year’s invasion, Brood II, is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say they don’t have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like one trillion.
Even if it’s merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they would reach the moon and back.
“There will be some places where it’s wall-to-wall cicadas,” says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp.
Strength in numbers is the key to cicada survival. There are so many of them the birds can’t possibly eat them all, and those that are left over are free to multiply, Raupp says.
But why only every 13 or 17 years? Some scientists think they come out in these odd cycles so that predators can’t match the timing and be waiting for them in huge numbers. Another theory is that the unusual cycles ensure that different broods don’t compete with each other much.
And there’s the mystery of just how these bugs know it has been 17 years and time to come out, not 15 or 16 years.
“These guys have evolved several mathematically clever tricks,” Raupp says. “These guys are geniuses with little tiny brains.”
Past cicada invasions have seen as many as 1.5 million bugs per acre. Of course, most places along the East Coast won’t be so swamped, and some places, especially in cities, may see zero, says Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut. For example, Staten Island gets this brood of cicadas, but the rest of New York City and Long Island don’t, she says. The cicadas also live beneath the metro areas of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.
While they stay underground, the bugs aren’t asleep. They go through different growth stages and moult four times before ever getting to the surface. They are some of the world’s longest-lived insects. They drink up a low-protein tree fluid called xylum, which isn’t essential to the tree. Then they go above ground, where they moult, leaving behind a crusty brown shell, and grow a half-inch bigger.
The timing of when they first come out depends purely on ground temperature. That means early May for southern areas and late May or even June for northern areas.
The males come out first — think of it as getting to the singles bar early, Raupp says. They come out first as nymphs, which are essentially wingless and silent juveniles, climb on to tree branches and moult one last time, becoming adult winged cicadas. They perch on tree branches and sing, individually or in a chorus. Then when a female comes close, the males change their song, they do a dance and mate, he said.
The males keep mating (“That’s what puts the ‘cad’ in ‘cicada,’ ” Raupp says jokingly) and eventually the female lays 600 or so eggs on the tip of a branch. The offspring then dive-bomb out of the trees, bounce off the ground and eventually burrow into the earth, he says.
“It’s a treacherous, precarious life,” Raupp says. “But somehow they make it work.”

Read more -

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/05/11/seeking_sex_after_17_years_billions_of_cicadas_about_to_emerge_from_underground.html

U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars … That It Will Publicly Admit -

U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars … That It Will Publicly Admit - 


And Many More Covert Wars Without Congressional Oversight … Let Alone Public Knowledge
Fire Dog Lake’s Kevin Gosztola notes:
Linda J. Bilmes and Michael D. Intriligator, ask in a recent paper, “How many wars is the US fighting today?”
Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti,Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK. Some of these are vast, such as the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which has recently been expanded to accommodate up to 10,000 troops and 120 aircraft.
Citing a page at US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) website, they highlight the “areas of responsibility” publicly listed:
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is active in 20 countries across the Middle Eastern region, and is actively ramping-up military training, counterterrorism programs, logistical support, and funding to the military in various nations. At this point, the US has some kind of military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, U.A.E., Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM), according to the paper, “supports military-to-military relationships with 54 African nations.”
[Gosztola points out that the U.S. military is also conducting operations of one kind or another in Syrian, Jordan, South Sudan, Kosovo, Libya, Yemen, the Congo, Uganda, Mali, Niger and other countries.]
Altogether, that makes 74 nations where the US is fighting or “helping” some force in some proxy struggle that has been deemed beneficial by the nation’s masters of war.
***
A Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides an accounting of all the publicly acknowledged deployments of US military forces
But those are just the public operations.
Gosztola notes that the covert operations are uncountable:
Beyond that, there are Special Operations forces in countries. Jeremy Scahill in Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, writes, “By mid-2010, the Obama administration had increased the presence of Special Operations forces from sixty countries to seventy-five countries.
***
Scahill also reports, based on his own “well-placed special operations sources”:
…[A]mong the countries where [Joint Special Operations Command] teams had been deployed under the Obama administration were: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in Baluchistan) and the Philippines. These teams also at times deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC was also supporting US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico…
Since President Barack Obama has been willing to give the go ahead to operations that President George W. Bush would not have approved, operations have been much more aggressive and, presumably, JSOC has been able to fan out and work in way more countries than ever expected.
Global assassinations have been embraced by the current administration, opening the door to night raids, drone strikes, missile attacks where cluster bombs are used, etc. Each of these operations, as witnessed or experienced by the civilian populations of countries, potentially inflame and increase the number of areas in the world where there are conflict zones.
***
The world is literally a battlefield with conflicts being waged by the US (or with the “help” of the US). And, no country is off-limits to US military forces.
Of course, JSOC is not accountable to Congress … let alone the public:
JSOC operates outside the confines of the traditional military and even beyond what the CIA is able to do.
***
But it goes well beyond the war zones. In concert with the Executive’s new claims on extra-judicial assassinations via drone strikes, even if the target is an American citizen, JSOC goes around the world murdering suspects without the oversight of a judge or, god forbid, granting those unfortunate souls the right to defend themselves in court against secret, evidence-less government decrees about their guilt. As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh said at a speaking event in 2009:
Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.
***
There are legal restrictions on what the CIA can do in terms of covert operations. There has to be a finding, the president has to notify at least the “Gang of Eight” [leaders of the intelligence oversight committees] in Congress. JSOC doesn’t have to do any of that. There is very little accountability for their actions. What’s weird is that many in congress who’d be very sensitive to CIA operations almost treat JSOC as an entity that doesn’t have to submit to oversight. It’s almost like this is the president’s private army, we’ll let the president do what he needs to do.

Read more -

http://www.prisonplanet.com/u-s-currently-fighting-74-different-wars-%E2%80%A6-that-it-will-publicly-admit.html

Canada simply gives up competing for the American tourist -

Canada simply gives up competing for the American tourist - 



The Canadian Tourism Commission says trying to lure American tourists is a waste. Its campaigns are not getting value for money.

Ottawa no longer wants to waste time and money trying to lure American tourists to the land of moose, mountains and Mounties.
According to a new report, the U.S. has become one of Canada’s poorest performing tourism markets, and this country isn’t getting full value from expensive marketing campaigns aimed south of the border.
U.S. visitors spent, on average, only $518 per trip to Canada last year, the lowest amount spent by an international visitor group. It was the third straight year of declines. By contrast, tourists from Brazil spent an average of $1,874 per trip.
The Canadian Tourism Commission, in its 2012 annual report, released last week, describes its strategic plan to stop promoting Canada in poorly performing markets such as the U.S.
The CTC — the Crown corporation that acts as a national tourism marketing board — has halted direct-to-consumer advertising and marketing through travel agents and tour operators in the U.S. It has also discontinued all media relations, public relations and social media work in the U.S., including an interactive Twitter wall in Chicago.
The commission has decided to “cede leadership in the U.S. leisure market to provincial and territorial partners,” Paul Nursey, vice-president of strategy and corporate communications for the CTC, told the Star.
The U.S. market has bottomed out, and Canada needs to reallocate resources to higher-yielding countries to compete in the trillion-dollar global tourism market.
“Dollar for dollar, advertising in overseas markets was proven to generate a higher return on investment than the United States,” Nursey wrote in an email.
“While U.S. leisure has traditionally been — and remains — important to Canada’s tourism industry, it is also ferociously competitive,” the CTC report says, and the commission’s “limited resources prevented us from having an adequately strong impact in the U.S. leisure market.”
David Goldstein, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, told the Star the CTC’s decision was “a difficult one based on steep federal funding cuts.”
“Canada competes in an extremely competitive marketplace, but other destinations are outspending us drastically to attract international visitors,” he wrote in an email. For instance, just this past week New York state announced it will triple its tourism marketing budget to $60 million.

Read more - 
http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/05/11/canada_simply_gives_up_competing_for_the_american_tourist.html

"Proof of Self" - Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform -

"Proof of Self" - Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform - 


The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

Read more - 

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/

Texting While Driving Now More Deadly Than Drinking And Driving... -

Texting While Driving Now More Deadly Than Drinking And Driving... - 


Texting while driving has now surpassed drinking and driving as the leading cause of death among teens, according to a new study.

More than 3,000 teens die annually from texting while driving, compared to about 2,700 for driving under the influence of alcohol, according to a study by Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park.

Despite a national ad campaign and a national dialogue on the dangers, the study reveals stunning new numbers: 50 percent of students text while driving and half of high school kids who drive said they text behind the wheel, CBS 2′s Carolyn Gusoff reported.

“The reality is kids aren’t drinking seven days per week — they are carrying their phones and texting seven days per week, so you intuitively know this a more common occurrence,” Dr. Andrew Adesman, Chief Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Cohen Children’s Medical Center told Gusoff.

Adesman, the chief author of the study, found that laws against texting while driving are not effective. Fifty-seven percent of boys said they text while driving in states with texting laws, and 59 percent  said they text while driving in states that don’t have texting laws, according to the study.

Many are not surprised by the results.

“People are texting and driving all the time,” one man told WCBS 880′s Mike Xirinachs. “I don’t know the exact way to do it, but something’s gotta be done.”

“Every single day I see it,” one driver said. “People driving along, texting, talking on their phone. They’re not supposed to do it, but they do it — kids, grown-ups, everybody does it.”

“I’ve seen it firsthand, it does cause accidents, it’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible,” a former police officer told 1010 WINS’ John Montone. “A vehicle is a weapon, just as a gun or a knife, and you can kill people. You don’t deserve to have a driver’s license and that level of responsibility where you can kill people if you’re not willing to take precautions, such as not texting and driving.”

Read more - 
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/05/09/study-texting-and-driving-kills-more-teens-annually-than-drinking-and-driving/