More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes as miserable economy takes its toll -

More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes as miserable economy takes its toll - 



Suicide is a bigger killer than car crashes, according to an alarming new study.
The number of people dying from suicide has drastically increased, while car accident deaths haven lessened, making suicide the leading cause of injury death.
Suicides via falls or poisoning have risen significantly and experts fear there could be en more going unrecognised, specifically in cases of overdose.

'Suicides are terribly under-counted,' said Ian Rockett, author of the study, published on Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.
'I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe. We have a situation that has gotten out of hand.'

He added that his goal is to see the same attention paid to other injuries as has been paid to traffic injuries.
The results were compiled using National Centre for Health Statistics data gathered from 2000 to 2009. 
Researchers noted a 25 per cent decrease in car accident deaths, medicalxpress.com reported, while deaths from falls rose 71 per cent, from poisoning 128 per cent and from suicide 15 per cent.

Former U.S. Senator Gordon Smith spoke at a news conference to launch the suicide prevention programme
Higher automobile standards were credited for the traffic deaths drop, with harsher penalties for underage drinking and failing to wear seat belts named as contributing factors.
Previous research has suggested that suicide rates go up during recessions and times of economic crisis.
'Economic problems can impact how people feel about themselves and their futures as well as their relationships with family and friends,' Feijun Luo of CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention told Bloomberg.
'Prevention strategies can focus on individuals, families, neighborhoods or entire communities to reduce risk factors.'
The shift makes suicide the most frequent cause of injury deaths, followed by car crashes, poisoning, falls and murder.
The study also looked at gender and race, concluding that fewer women die from the top four causes than men, while Hispanics have fewer car crashes and suicides than whites but a higher murder rate.
In 2009, more than 37,000 Americans took their own lives, a number that the government and private groups such as Facebook are fighting to lower.
A suicide prevention programme is being launched under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, backed by $56 million of federal money. 
The Act was signed by George Bush in 2004, in memory of suicide-victim Garrett, son of former U.S. Senator Gordon Smith.
Speaking at a September 10 news conference Smith said: 'Our goal is, in the next five years, we will save 20,000 human lives.
'This issue touches nearly every family. It is something we can do something about. It's the work of angels.'
Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, said while much is known about how to prevent suicides there are 'centuries of stigmatic attitudes' that need to be overcome. 
'Both global and national increases in the number and rate of suicides should concern all of us,' he added, pushing for a 'collaborative effort to turn these many lives from despair and hopelessness to ones of meaning and brighter futures'.

Read more -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207089/56-million-suicide-prevention-programme-launched-study-reveals-Americans-lives-die-car-crashes.html

Facebook: Snitchgate! - Facebook Tries To Make People Snitch On Their Friends -

Facebook: Snitchgate! - Facebook Tries To Make People Snitch On Their Friends - 


A story about Facebook went around twitter last night that provoked quite a reaction in privacy advocates like me: Facebook, it seems, is experimenting with getting people to ‘snitch’ on any of their friends who don’t use their real names. Take a look at this:




Facebook has had a ‘real names’ policy for a while: this is what their ‘Help Center’ says on the subject:


People in my field have known about this for a long time – it’s been the cause of a few ‘high profile’ events such as when Salman Rushdie had his account suspended because they didn’t believe that he was who he said he was – but few people had taken it very seriously for anyone other than the famous. Everyone knows ‘fake’ names and ‘fake’ accounts – my sister’s dog has a Facebook account – so few believed that Facebook was going to bother enforcing it, except for obvious trolls and so forth. Now, however, that appears to be changing.

Initially, I wondered if this was just a fake – the screenshot could easily have been faked – but there seems now to have been confirmation. It has been covered in the TMP Idea Lab (here), where they say that Facebook has confirmed that they are doing it, and the German online magazine Heise Online (here, in German) where they report that it is a ‘limited test’. Given that this kind of a test fits in with the official strategy, it seems likely that it is indeed true.

So what’s wrong?

There are lots of argument against the whole ‘real names’ policy to start with – it was a trigger for the ‘nymwars’. Many people can only really function online with the ability to remain pseudonymous, from bloggers like Nightjack to whistleblowers, from victims of abuse to people living in oppressive regimes. When their pseudonymity is ‘broken’, the result can be catastrophic – when Nightjack’s cover was blown, his blog ceased to exist and a valuable and entertaining source of information was lost. Mexican bloggers have suffered much worse – a number have lost their lives in the most gruesome way when the drugs cartels have been able to find them. The link between the ‘online’ and the ‘offline’ personality is one that can often need to be protected. When the ‘real names’ policy is enforced, protecting that link becomes much, much harder.

This, of course, is Facebook, which is just one service, rather than the net as a whole – but it’s a crucial service, with close to a billion users around the world, pretty close to ubiquitous. And, just as importantly, where Facebook leads, other services can and do follow. If the ‘real names’ policy becomes accepted on Facebook, it may become the norm. For some people, that sounds like a good thing – catching paedophiles and terrorists, making sure children don’t get access to ‘inappropriate material’ and so forth – but the reality is very different. The real ‘bad guys’ will find a way around the system – as so often, it will almost certainly be the innocent that get caught up in the messes.

Snitching

What’s worse, the whole idea of snitching is highly dodgy. There’s a good reason that ‘telling tales’ is looked down on – and a good reason why it’s generally only been oppressive regimes (both real and fictional) that have encouraged people to report on their neighbours – from the worst of the Roman Emperors such as Tiberius and Caligula to the KGB, the Stasi and so forth. It’s creepy – and it helps build at atmosphere of distrust, breaking down the very things that make social networks good. The social relationships that are the heart of Facebook are meant to do ‘good’ things – not be a route by which bad things are spread.

Taking it a step further, look at the nature of the questionnaire. You’re being asked to report on a ‘friend’. If you say ‘I don’t want to answer’ that will be recorded – that’s the whole nature of Facebook – and it’s not hard to see that there could be a list of ‘people who don’t want to answer about their friends’. Indeed, under the terms of the Snoopers Charter, it wouldn’t just be Facebook who could access this kind of information: the authorities could potentially set up a filter to gather data on people who don’t confirm the names of their friends. It could be viewed as suspicious if you don’t answer – or even suspicious if you are friends with people who don’t answer. Again, this is the nature of Facebook’s social data – and how it could be misused.

And, as anyone who reads what I write about the Snoopers Charter etc will understand, though this may just be set up to catch paedophiles and terrorists, it can equally be used for all kinds of things. Potential employers who want to see whether their applicants are ‘open and honest’. Insurance companies for the same ‘reason’. Facebook is now in a situation where it needs to generate income – the failure of its IPO has made this even more crucial than before – and will be looking for ways to squeeze out as much revenue from their data as possible.

That, ultimately, is what lies behind this kind of thing: Facebook wants to make money. If it knows exactly who you are, it thinks it can make more money from you – by selling things to you, or by selling your details to others, or by targeting you more accurately in some other way. That’s perfectly understandable – indeed, from a business sense pretty much inevitable – but it does have consequences, particularly when the other uses that their data can be put are understood.

Oppressive regimes understand some of those uses – which is one of the reasons that the erstwhile Tunisian government, prior to the revolution, hacked into the Facebook login page in order to be able to access possible revolutionaries’ accounts. They knew how that information could be used…

What should be done?

Well, the first thing to do is make it clear that you don’t like this kind of a system. The whole idea of snitching should not be something that’s encouraged – indeed, the whole ‘real names’ system should be discouraged, but it seems hard to put that genie back into Facebook’s bottle. Ultimately, I suspect there’s only one answer: many people should simply leave Facebook. Find other ways to do the things you want to do, other ways that don’t require ‘real names’ and don’t use such sneaky and creepy tactics as snitching. Communicate by email, by twitter. Share your photos on other photo sites. Play games directly, not over Facebook. There’s always another way.

Read more -
http://paulbernal.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/facebook-snitchgate/

Potty Mouth TV chef Paula Deen Lets Loose In Secret Blooper Reel - “You ever smelled a stinky coochie?” -

Potty Mouth TV chef Paula Deen Lets Loose In Secret Blooper Reel - “You ever smelled a stinky coochie?” - 



That’s the question TV chef Paula Deen asked on the set of her show Paula Deen’s Home Cooking in a secret blooper reel that has surfaced.

In the tape obtained by The New York Post, the Southern cook turns her nose up at a dish she’s cooking, proclaiming it smells like “stinky coochie.”

Deen’s naughty quote is just one in a series of X-rated comments she makes on the tape.

And while she can be heard screeching the words “sh**” and “motherf***er,” she is also seen simulating oral sex with a chocolate éclair!

The two-minute tape was all too much for one man – Gary Ravet, the president of Celebrity Chefs Tour, which puts on a series of live events featuring TV cooks.

Potty-mouthed Deen had contracted to go out on the tour and put together the blooper reel to be played for the live audiences as an introduction before each of her appearances.

But Ravet rejected it saying: “We found it to be unacceptable because it’s certainly not family content.”

Deen ultimately backed out of the 10-city tour and then sued the company for $1.25 million claiming a check they gave her bounced.

Ravet countersued for $40 million citing breach of contract. He argued the chef was required to provide a “blooper reel” but they were disappointed her film was “laced with expletives.”

The lawsuit was settled last week and a judge ordered the cheeky tape be returned to Deen. The terms are confidential but Ravet tells The Post the TV chef “paid a lot of money.”



Read more -
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/09/paula-deen-swears-uses-obscene-gestures-camera-video

Is Alzheimers Just Another Form of Diabetes? How Our Diet May Be Destroying Our Brains -

Is Alzheimers Just Another Form of Diabetes? How Our Diet May Be Destroying Our Brains - 



There is a strong and growing body of evidence showing a link between the dreaded disease and our high sugar consumption.

When you raise the subject of over-eating and obesity, you often see people at their worst. The comment threads discussing these issues reveal a legion of bullies, who appear to delight in other people’s problems.

When alcoholism and drug addiction are discussed, the tone tends to be sympathetic. When obesity is discussed, the conversation is dominated by mockery and blame, though the evidence suggests that it can be driven by similar forms of addiction (citations 1,2,3,4). I suspect that much of this mockery is a coded form of snobbery: the strong association between poor diets and poverty allows people to use this issue as a cipher for something else they want to say, which is less socially acceptable.

But this problem belongs to all of us. Even if you can detach yourself from the suffering caused by diseases arising from bad diets, you will carry the cost, as a growing proportion of the health budget will be used to address them. The cost – measured in both human suffering and money – could be far greater than we imagined. A large body of evidence now suggests that Alzheimer’s is primarily a metabolic disease. Some scientists have gone so far as to rename it. They call it diabetes type 3.

New Scientist carried this story on its cover this September(5): since then I’ve been sitting in the library trying to discover whether it stands up. I’ve now read dozens of papers on the subject, testing my cognitive powers to the limit as I’ve tried to get to grips with brain chemistry. While the story is by no means complete, the evidence so far is compelling.

Around 35 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease worldwide(6); current projections, based on the rate at which the population ages, suggest that this will rise to 100 million by 2050(7). But if, as many scientists now believe, it is caused largely by the brain’s impaired response to insulin, the numbers could rise much further. In the US, the percentage of the population with diabetes type 2, which is strongly linked to obesity, has almost trebled in 30 years(8). If Alzheimer’s, or “diabetes type 3”, goes the same way, the potential for human suffering is incalculable.

Insulin is the hormone which prompts the liver, muscles and fat to absorb sugar from the blood. Diabetes 2 is caused by excessive blood glucose, resulting either from a deficiency of insulin produced by the pancreas, or resistance to its signals by the organs which would usually take up the glucose.

The association between Alzheimer’s and diabetes 2 is long-established: type 2 sufferers are two to three times more likely to be struck by this dementia than the general population(9). There are also associations between Alzheimer’s and obesity(10) and Alzheimer’s and metabolic syndrome (a complex of diet-related pathologies)(11).

Researchers first proposed that Alzheimer’s was another form of diabetes in 2005. The authors of the original paper investigated the brains of 54 corpses, 28 of which belonged to people who had died of the disease(12). They found that the levels of both insulin and insulin-like growth factors in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients were sharply reduced by comparison to those in the brains of people who had died of other causes. Levels were lowest in the parts of the brain most affected by the disease.

Their work led them to conclude that insulin and insulin-like growth factor are produced not only in the pancreas but also in the brain. Insulin in the brain has a host of functions: as well as glucose metabolism, it helps to regulate the transmission of signals from one nerve cell to another, and affects their growth, plasticity and survival(13,14).

Experiments conducted since then appear to support the link between diet and dementia(15,16,17,18), and researchers have begun to propose potential mechanisms. In common with all brain chemistry, these tend to be fantastically complex, involving, among other impacts, inflammation, stress caused by oxidation, the accumulation of one kind of brain protein and the transformation of another(19,20,21,22). I would need the next six pages of this paper even to begin to explain them, and would doubtless get it wrong (if you’re interested, please follow the links on my website).

Plenty of research still needs to be done. But if the current indications are correct, Alzheimer’s disease could be another catastrophic impact of the junk food industry, and the worst discovered so far. Our governments, as they are in the face of all our major crises, appear to be incapable of responding.

Read more -
http://www.alternet.org/alzheimers-just-another-form-diabetes-how-our-diet-may-be-destroying-our-brains?paging=off

84 Statistics That Prove That The Decline Of The Middle Class Is Real And That It Is Getting Worse -

84 Statistics That Prove That The Decline Of The Middle Class Is Real And That It Is Getting Worse - 



The middle class in America is being systematically destroyed.  Once upon a time the United States had the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the world.  The rest of the globe looked at us in envy and wondered what we were doing right.  But now everything seems to be going wrong for the middle class.  Millions of our jobs have been shipped out of the country and competition for the remaining jobs is keeping wages at depressed levels.  Meanwhile, the cost of living just keeps going up and up and middle class budgets are being stretched and strained like never before.  Millions more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty every single year, and government dependence is at an all-time high.  Finding a solution to the decline of the middle class is absolutely central to fixing the economic problems in this country.  Without a large, thriving middle class this would not be America.  The truth is that people from all over the world want to come here because they want to work hard, buy a house, raise a family and provide a better future for their children.  This has traditionally been "the land of opportunity", but now the middle class is rapidly declining and none of our politicians seem to have any solutions.  With each passing day, the American Dream is slipping through the fingers of millions of hard working American families.  We owe it to them to get this thing fixed.

The following are 84 statistics that prove that the decline of the middle class is real and that it is getting worse....

1. According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were "middle income" back in 1971.  Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

2. The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today compared with 10 years ago.

3. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

4. The average net worth of a middle class family in America was $129,582 in 2001.  By 2010 that figure had dropped to $93,150.

5. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of all families in the United States declined "from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010".

6. Back in 1970, middle income Americans brought home 62 percent of all income in the United States.  In 2010, middle income Americans only brought home 45 percent of all income.

7. After you adjust for inflation, median family income in the United States has fallen by about 6 percent since the year 2000.

8. Real median household income has decreased by more than 4000 dollars since Barack Obama entered the White House.

9. Amazingly, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

10. In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".  By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".

11. If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

12. The United States was once ranked #1 in the world in GDP per capita.  Today we have slipped to #12.

13. The total value of household real estate in the U.S. has declined from $22.7 trillion in 2006 to $16.2 trillion today.  Most of that wealth has been lost by the middle class.

14. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less.  By 2010, that figure had risen to 32.5 percent.

15. Since the year 2000, incomes for U.S. households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12 percent after you adjust for inflation.

16. In 1984, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older was 10 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger.  Today, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older is 47 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger.

17. Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high.  Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

18. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

19. The average American household spent approximately $4,155 on gasoline during 2011, and electricity bills in the U.S. have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

20. Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States.

21. Health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama became president. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned.  By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.

25. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

26. One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

27. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States.  Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.

28. According to a report released in 2010, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries do on health care.

29. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.

30. According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.

31. The wealthiest 20 percent of all Americans now control 84 percent of all the wealth in America.

32. Right now, over 50 percent of all stocks and bonds are owned by just 1 percent of the U.S. population.

33. Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners brought in about 8 percent of all income.  Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.

34. 40 years ago, the top 1/10,000th of all U.S. households brought in about 1 percent of all income.  Today, they bring in about 5 percent of all income.

35. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

36. The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans do combined.

37. The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

38. At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

39. The following is how income gains in the United States were distributed during 2010....

-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners

-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent

-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent

40. The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.

41. The percentage of Americans that are self-employed fell by more than 20 percent between 1991 and 2010.

42. Overall, the number of "new entrepreneurs and business owners" dropped by a staggering 53 percent between 1977 and 2010.

43. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.

44. The average pay for self-employed Americans fell by $3,721 between 2006 and 2010.

45. In the United States today, there are 240 million working age people.  Only about 140 million of them are working.

46. Since the year 2000, the United States has lost 10% of its middle class jobs.  In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.

47. Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

48. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

49. According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.

50. According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, America has lost an average of 15 manufacturing facilities a day over the last 10 years.  During 2010 it got even worse.  That year, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day shut down in the United States.

51. At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.

52. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.

53. If you can believe it, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

54. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

55. At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are considered to be good jobs.

56. Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

57. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

58. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either "poor" or "near poor".

59. In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty.  That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

60. It is being projected that when the final numbers come out later this year that the U.S. poverty rate will be the highest that it has been in almost 50 years.

61. It is also being projected that about half of all American adults will spend at least some time living below the poverty line before they turn 65.

62. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

63. It was recently reported that 1.5 million American families live on less than two dollars a day (before counting government benefits).

64. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of "very poor" rose in 300 out of the 360 largest metropolitan areas during 2010.

65. According to one recent poll, 18.2 percent of all Americans have not been able to buy enough food to eat at some point during this past year.

66. Households that are led by a single mother have a 31.6% poverty rate.

67. In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.

68. At this point, approximately 22 percent of all American children are living in poverty.

69. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4 percent of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1 percent of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6 percent of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

70. Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

71. Child homelessness in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 2007.

72. There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.

73. Approximately one-fourth of all American children are enrolled in the food stamp program.

74. It is projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

75. Since Barack Obama became president, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 6 million and the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by 14 million.

76. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives benefits from the federal government.  Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

77. Federal housing assistance outlays increased by a whopping 42 percent between 2006 and 2010.

78. Approximately 50 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now.

79. Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

80. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

81. Overall, the amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has risen by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

82. According to a recent report produced by Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately one out of every three Americans that grew up in a middle class household has slipped down the income ladder.

83. If you can believe it, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government at this point.

84. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.

Read more -
http://www.blacklistednews.com/84_Statistics_That_Prove_That_The_Decline_Of_The_Middle_Class_Is_Real_And_That_It_Is_Getting_Worse/21622/0/38/38/Y/M.html

US Secret Service now Investigates EMPTY CHAIR 'LYNCHINGS'... - Just 'Eastwooding'...

US Secret Service now Investigates EMPTY CHAIR 'LYNCHINGS'... - Just 'Eastwooding'...



At least two recent incidents in which empty chairs were hung from trees by rope have critics decrying what they say are racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the “lynching” of President Barack Obama.

In Austin, Texas, a homeowner hung an empty folding chair from a tree branch in front of his house and later attached an American flag to it. He reportedly told a Democratic political blogger who said she had concerns, “You can take it and go straight to hell and take Obama with you.”
In Centreville, Va., an empty chair with a sign reading “Nobama” was strung from a tree in or near a park. “In short, this appears to be a crude metaphor for the lynching of President Obama,” wrote the blogger who posted the photo.



The image of an empty chair has been associated with Obama ever since Clint Eastwood’s headline-grabbing, non-conformist speech at the Republican National Convention three weeks ago in Tampa, Fla. The 82-year-old actor-director talked to an empty chair as if the Democratic president were sitting in it, criticizing and mocking the “invisible Obama” for 12 minutes.
“When somebody doesn't do the job, you've got to let them go," Eastwood said before making a throat-slashing gesture.



Read more - 
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/20/13989510-empty-chair-lynchings-anti-obama-protests-gone-too-far?lite

21 Facts About America's Decaying Infrastructure That Will Blow Your Mind -

21 Facts About America's Decaying Infrastructure That Will Blow Your Mind - 



You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure.  So what does our infrastructure say about us?  It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay.  At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers.  Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment.  Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year.  Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry.  Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade.  Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke.  Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated.  Sadly, at a time when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our spending on infrastructure is actually way down.  Back during the 50s and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on infrastructure.  Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent.  But of course we don't have any extra money to spend on infrastructure because of our reckless spending and because of the massive amount of debt that we have accumulated.  While the Obama administration is spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop, our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us.  Once upon a time nobody else on the planet could match our infrastructure, and now we are in the process of becoming a joke to the rest of the world.

The following are 21 facts about America's failing infrastructure that will blow your mind....

#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America's crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.

#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today.  Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.

#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.

#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due "to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards."

#6 One out of every four bridges in America either carries more traffic than originally intended or is in need of repair.

#7 Repairing all of the bridges in the United States that need repair would take approximately 140 billion dollars.

#8 According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our decaying transportation system costs the U.S. economy about 78 billion dollars annually in lost time and fuel.

#9 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain.  The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt roads into gravel roads, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#10 There are 4,095 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure.  That number has risen by more than 100 percent since 1999.

#11 Of all the dam failures that have happened in the United States since 1874, a third of them have happened during the past decade.

#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

#13 Our aging sewer systems spill more than a trillion gallons of untreated sewage every single year.  The cost of cleaning up that sewage each year is estimated to be greater than 50 billion dollars.

#14 It is estimated that rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost the U.S. economy approximately 80 billion dollars a year.

#15 It is being projected that by the year 2020 every single major container port in the United States will be handling at least double the volume that it was originally designed to handle.

#16 All across the United States, conditions at many of our state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best.  Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long....

More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.

#17 Today, the U.S. spends about 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure.  Meanwhile, China spends about 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 16 percent of our construction workers are unemployed.

#19 China has plans to build 55,000 miles of highways by the year 2020.  If all of those roads were put end to end, it would be longer than the total length of the entire U.S. interstate system.

#20 The World Economic Forum ranks U.S. infrastructure 23rd in the world, and we fall a little bit farther behind the rest of the developed world every single day.

#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure.  That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

So where did we go wrong?

Well, one of the big problems is that we have become a very materialistic society that is obsessed with short-term thinking.  Investing in infrastructure is something that has long-term benefits, but these days Americans tend to only be focused on what is happening right now and most politicians are only focused on the next election cycle.

Another major problem is that there is so much corruption and waste in our system these days.  The government certainly spends more than enough money, but very little of that money is spent wisely.  A lot of the money that could be going toward rebuilding our infrastructure is being poured down the toilet instead.  For much more on this, please read my previous article entitled "16 Sickening Facts That Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Workers Are Living The High Life At Your Expense".

Unfortunately, it is probably appropriate that our infrastructure is decaying because we are decaying in just about every other way that it is possible for a society to decay.

We are decaying economically, politically, mentally, emotionally, physically, morally and spiritually.

We are a complete and total mess.  So why shouldn't what is happening to our infrastructure on the outside match what is happening to us as a nation on the inside?

And sadly, we simply do not have the money that we need for infrastructure because of all the debt that we have piled up.  The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are all struggling to stay afloat in an ocean of red ink, and unfortunately that means that spending on infrastructure is likely to be cut even more in the years ahead.

So get used to rotting, crumbling, decaying infrastructure.  What you see out there right now is only just the beginning.

Read more - 
http://www.blacklistednews.com/21_Facts_About_America%27s_Decaying_Infrastructure_That_Will_Blow_Your_Mind/21611/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Italian Study Shows Male Genitalia Is Shrinking - 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago -

Italian Study Shows Male Genitalia Is Shrinking - 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago - 



If size matters, male private parts are shrinking, according to a new Italian study on sexuality.

The study’s leaders claim to have bona fide research that says the average size of a penis is roughly 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago.

The study doesn’t say how the research was conducted or give numbers. But it does provide several reasons for the shrinkage, including: weight gain, stress, smoking and alcohol.

Researchers also say air pollution has also been shown to “negatively impact penis size.”

Read more - 
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/09/19/italian-study-shows-male-genitalia-is-shrinking/

Snake venom could be used to treat cancer, diabetes -

Snake venom could be used to treat cancer, diabetes - 


Snakes are able to convert their venom back into harmless molecules that scientists say could help find a cancer cure.
A joint British-Australian study of venom and tissue gene sequences in snakes showed that venom not only evolved from regular cells but could be turned back into harmless proteins.
Gavin Huttley, from the Australian team, said it was the first time snakes' venom had been shown to evolve back into regular tissues and was a significant finding for the development of drugs for conditions like cancer or diabetes.
Snake venom typically targets the same physiological pathways as many human diseases and Huttley said understanding how the venom molecule changed form could help scientists develop new drug cures.
Some snake venoms, for example, cause the cells that line blood vessels to separate and die, including the kinds that feed cancerous tumors, and Huttley said mapping how that worked could lead to more effective cancer treatments.
"It highlights that venom molecules, these things that actually kill us, in fact are just derivatives of normal proteins," said Huttley, from the Australian National University.
"By studying the molecular events you get an idea about what it takes to make a protein to target those specific physiological functions," he said.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/20/snake-venom-could-be-used-to-develop-drugs-for-cancer-diabetes/?test=latestnews

Yogurt eaters less likely to have high blood pressure -

Yogurt eaters less likely to have high blood pressure - 



A new study has revealed that people who eat low-fat yogurt over a long period of time are less likely to develop high blood pressure, UPI.com reported.
Researchers tracked more than 2,000 people over 15 years, measuring their yogurt consumption with questionnaires given at three different intervals during the study.  None of the participants had high blood pressure at the start of the research.
Those who consumed at least one 6-ounce cup of low fat yogurt every three days – or 2 percent of their daily calories came from yogurt – were 31 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health and by a grant from Dannon Co. Inc., the findings were presented at the American Heart Association’s High Blood Pressure Research Scientific Sessions in Washington


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/20/yogurt-eaters-less-likely-to-have-high-blood-pressure-study-finds/?test=latestnews