Margin Call Trailer. "You're selling something that you know has no value!" -
XIAM007 - Generation X I am
Thursday, 28 July 2011
President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) targets chronic malnutrition in Guatemala -
President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) targets chronic malnutrition in Guatemala -
High in the mountains, a narrow and practically impassable mud trail leads to the dirt-floor shack where Isabella Hernandez is rhythmically patting tortillas, the main source of sustenance for her nine children.
A wisp of a woman, clothed in her community’s signature colorful dress, Hernandez is illiterate and a single mother who ekes out her family’s existence on less than $1 a day. Nearly 60 percent of this mostly indigenous Mayan town lives in such extreme poverty.
On this day a health worker had come to weigh and measure the children while delivering a nutritional supplement for the poor. A veteran in the hunger wars, Julissa Garcia knew what she would find. Sure enough, they were not only underweight but about half a foot shorter than the minimum recommended height for their age. Known as stunting, such a height deficit is a key indicator of chronic malnutrition.
“Almost all the kids here are malnourished,” said Garcia, who has pioneered a support group for Cajola mothers with stunted children.
It is communities like these that President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) is focusing on in Guatemala. Slow in its implementation and hampered by little new money, GHI is targeting Mayan women and children in the mostly indigenous Western Highlands, a mountainous area with a single maize harvest per year. The strategy’s cornerstone is reducing one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, only Afghanistan and Yemen fare worse. Half of all Guatemalan children under five are stunted and in the Western Highlands, it's seven out of 10.
Called the “invisible killer,” chronic malnutrition isn’t necessarily a lack of food but a shortage of the right kind. Faced with insufficient nutrients, especially protein, the body compensates by simply stopping to grow. More importantly, brain capacity and productivity is reduced by as much as 40 percent. That can’t be recouped.
Such a lack of nutrients is obvious in Hernandez’s small shack. Lunch is their highlight, when the children fall silent as they shovel down tortillas flavored by salt, potatoes, and plants their mother picked in the fields. They eat while they can. Their bellies will predominantly rely on hot maize drinks for the rest of the day.
There are no beans or eggs. Meat is a rare luxury.
Garcia gasped when she saw how the three middle boys, each more than a year apart, essentially weigh and measure the same — at or below the minimum recommended amount for the youngest. It’s difficult, however, to gauge the effects of stunting on their cognitive development. None of the Hernandez children have ever attended school and all are illiterate, most speaking mainly their indigenous language of Mam.
Read more -
Huge Arctic fire hints at new climate cue -
Huge Arctic fire hints at new climate cue -
An exceptional wildfire in northern Alaska in 2007 put as much carbon into the air as the entire Arctic tundra absorbs in a year, scientists say.
The Anaktuvuk River fire burned across more than 1,000 sq km (400 sq miles), doubling the extent of Alaskan tundra visited by fire since 1950.
With the Arctic warming fast, the team suggests in the journal Naturethat fires could become more common.
If that happens, it could create a new climate feedback, they say.
Fires in the tundra are uncommon because the ground is covered in snow and ice for large periods of the year.
Temperatures are low even in summer, and the ground can also remain wet after the ice has melted.
But 2007 saw unusually warm and dry conditions across much of the Arctic - resulting, among other things, in spectacularly fast melting of Arctic sea ice.
This created conditions more conducive to fire, and when lightning struck the tundra in July, the Anaktuvuk River fire ignited.
"Most tundra fires have been very small - this was an order of magnitude larger than the historical size," said Michelle Mack from the University of Florida in Gainesville, who led the research team on the Nature paper and is currently conducting further field studies in Alaska.
"In 2007, we had a hot, dry summer, there was no rain for a long period of time.
"So the tundra must have been highly flammable, with just the right conditions for fire to spread until the snow in October finally stopped it."
Read more -
Swingers Club Posing as Church? - called The Playground a club to engage in random consensual sexual activities -
Swingers Club Posing as Church? - called The Playground a club to engage in random consensual sexual activities -
Glenn Hudson is in some trouble with the City of Dallas after the city claims he was caught operating a sex club in a building that is licensed as a church.
A lawsuit filed against Hudson says that his Harry Hines Boulevard building has a certificate of occupancy that applies only to churches, mosques or synagogues, but that he's really operating a business out of it called The Playground, “a swingers club that ... caters to adults, often couples, who wish to engage in random consensual sexual activities with other adults other than their spouses.”
The club is located in an industrial complex and the building has no religious markings on it.
WFAA-TV in Dallas obtained the lawsuit, which says undercover Dallas police officers went into the club and found televisions with pornography playing on them, topless female dancers, and a room where visitors had access to beds and condoms.
The station reports that Hudson claims to be an ordained minister, though the city says his license was obtained through a website. He was previously arrested twice for the possession of marijuana and once for carrying a weapon illegally. He is currently serving probation after having pleaded no contest to all three charges.
The Playground case is the second lawsuit of its kind against Hudson. Last week, the City of Dallas filed a suit against him for running The DarkSide, which he claims is also a church. But in a request for a temporary restraining order against the establishment the city says it “is actually an after-hours dance club – often referred to as a 'rave' club – that offers young patrons a place to drink, dance, have sex, and buy, sell, and use illegal drugs.”
Read more -
Woman gets jury trial for displaying plastic testicles on truck -
Woman gets jury trial for displaying plastic testicles on truck -
A Bonneau woman wanted to make a statement, so she decorated her truck with a set of red plastic testicles. And now a jury gets to decide if she was exercising free speech or being just obscene.
Virginia Tice was given a $445 ticket July 5 that accuses her of violating the state's obscene bumper sticker law.
And other than a hefty fine, the ticket is causing a huge controversy that extends far past the Bonneau city limits.
"To me it's just a personal expression," says John Caddell. "My truck's got power."
Caddell is another proud owner of the conversation starters. He says whether it's good or bad, his pair of chrome truck ornaments is driving a heated debate.
It's a bigger issue now because of Bonneau Chief of Police Franco Fuda ticketing Tice for what he says the law defines as obscene.
"Genitalia is offensive," says Chief Fuda. "As a law enforcement officer, I'll advise that person if it warrants a citation I'll issue a citation. As a father, I wouldn't want my daughter looking at it."
The South Carolina code of laws says "a sticker, decal or emblem is indecent when it describes, in a patently offensive way... sexual acts, excretory functions or parts of the human body."
Caddell says he must interpret the law differently than Police Chief Fuda.
"My interpretation is they're talking about human body parts," says Caddell. "I don't think these are human body parts... it looks like a chrome plated door knocker."
Tice's attorney, Scott Bischoff, expects a trial next month and says his client is still angry with the incident.
"My clients conduct was not illegal," says Bischoff. "We believe it was blown way out of proportion. She is still upset about the situation because she believes she's been treated unfairly."
Bischoff says there's no date set for Tice's jury trial, the attorney filed for a continuance they are confident will be accepted to bypass the original trial date of August 3.
Read more -
Trojan asteroid tags along on Earth's orbit - has been hiding from view, mostly overhead during daylight -
Trojan asteroid tags along on Earth's orbit - has been hiding from view, mostly overhead during daylight -
Turns out the moon's not the Earth's only traveling companion. Space scientists have discovered an asteroid that's been following our fair planet for thousands of years, at least — and there may be many more where it came from, according to a recent study.
If other so-called Trojan asteroids are found, they could turn out to be ideal candidates for a visit from astronauts, something NASA hopes will be possible within the next 15 years.
Most of the asteroids in the solar system populate the belt of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. But planets can pull asteroids into their orbits, too. More than 4,000 Trojan asteroids have been discovered around the gas giant Jupiter, along with a few around Neptune and Mars.
But no such asteroid had ever been found near Earth. That led some scientists to believe that our planet lacked an entourage.
But others proposed a different explanation: Perhaps there were Trojan asteroids in Earth's orbit around the sun, but they were simply hidden from view.
The problem was this: In order for an asteroid to attain a stable position in a planet's orbit, it must find the spot where the gravitational pull of the planet and that of the sun cancel each other out. Two of these spots, called Lagrangian points, lie along a planet's orbit — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Drawing straight lines between the Earth, the sun and a Lagrangian point produces a triangle whose sides are equal in length. An asteroid there would hover in the sky at a 60-degree angle from the sun.
Any object that close to the sun would be difficult to see from Earth because it would be overhead mostly during broad daylight, as invisible as the stars.
But Martin Connors, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, had an idea. Maybe NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which aims its lens 90 degrees away from the sun, would be able to pick up an oddball Trojan with an eccentric orbit.
Indeed it did. Connors found one candidate whose strange path over six days in late 2010 seemed to match the unevenly elongated orbit typical of Trojans. His team confirmed the Trojan's identity by spotting it a few months later with another telescope in Hawaii.
Read more -
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-trojan-asteroid-20110728,0,284121.story
Turns out the moon's not the Earth's only traveling companion. Space scientists have discovered an asteroid that's been following our fair planet for thousands of years, at least — and there may be many more where it came from, according to a recent study.
If other so-called Trojan asteroids are found, they could turn out to be ideal candidates for a visit from astronauts, something NASA hopes will be possible within the next 15 years.
Most of the asteroids in the solar system populate the belt of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. But planets can pull asteroids into their orbits, too. More than 4,000 Trojan asteroids have been discovered around the gas giant Jupiter, along with a few around Neptune and Mars.
But no such asteroid had ever been found near Earth. That led some scientists to believe that our planet lacked an entourage.
But others proposed a different explanation: Perhaps there were Trojan asteroids in Earth's orbit around the sun, but they were simply hidden from view.
The problem was this: In order for an asteroid to attain a stable position in a planet's orbit, it must find the spot where the gravitational pull of the planet and that of the sun cancel each other out. Two of these spots, called Lagrangian points, lie along a planet's orbit — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Drawing straight lines between the Earth, the sun and a Lagrangian point produces a triangle whose sides are equal in length. An asteroid there would hover in the sky at a 60-degree angle from the sun.
Any object that close to the sun would be difficult to see from Earth because it would be overhead mostly during broad daylight, as invisible as the stars.
But Martin Connors, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, had an idea. Maybe NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which aims its lens 90 degrees away from the sun, would be able to pick up an oddball Trojan with an eccentric orbit.
Indeed it did. Connors found one candidate whose strange path over six days in late 2010 seemed to match the unevenly elongated orbit typical of Trojans. His team confirmed the Trojan's identity by spotting it a few months later with another telescope in Hawaii.
Read more -
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-trojan-asteroid-20110728,0,284121.story
Up, up and away! The spectacular photos of world record-breaking balloonists taking to the sky -
Up, up and away! The spectacular photos of world record-breaking balloonists taking to the sky -
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019389/Up-away-The-spectacular-photos-taken-world-record-breaking-balloonists-took-skies.html#ixzz1TP5LSaZz
It took a lot of hot air - and a little bit of patience - but 343 hot air balloonists have finally broken the world record for taking off at the same time.
The high-flyers' mass ascent at the 12th Lorraine World Air Balloon Festival, in Chambley-Bussieres, France, should have taken place on Monday.
But bad weather put paid to their plans, meaning they had to postpone their lift-off until today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019389/Up-away-The-spectacular-photos-taken-world-record-breaking-balloonists-took-skies.html#ixzz1TP5LSaZz
46% of Voters Think Most in Congress Are Corrupt - up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded -
46% of Voters Think Most in Congress Are Corrupt - up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded -
Voters are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters now view most members of Congress as corrupt. That’s up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded. Just 29% think most members are not corrupt, and another 25% are not sure…
Similarly, a whopping 85% of voters think most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people. That’s a record high for surveys stretching back to early November 2006. Only seven percent (7%) believe most of the legislators are more interested in helping others.
Read more -
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/new_high_46_think_most_in_congress_are_corrupt
Voters are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters now view most members of Congress as corrupt. That’s up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded. Just 29% think most members are not corrupt, and another 25% are not sure…
Similarly, a whopping 85% of voters think most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people. That’s a record high for surveys stretching back to early November 2006. Only seven percent (7%) believe most of the legislators are more interested in helping others.
Read more -
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/new_high_46_think_most_in_congress_are_corrupt
This Is Your Brain on Summer - Decades of research confirm that summer learning loss is real -
This Is Your Brain on Summer - Decades of research confirm that summer learning loss is real -
THE American ideal of lazy summers filled with fun has an unintended consequence: If students are not engaged in learning over the summer, they lose skills in math and reading. Summers off are one of the most important, yet least acknowledged, causes of underachievement in our schools.
Decades of research confirm that summer learning loss is real. According to a report released last month by the RAND Corporation, the average summer learning loss in math and reading for American students amounts to one month per year. More troubling is that it disproportionately affects low-income students: they lose two months of reading skills, while their higher-income peers — whose parents can send them to enriching camps, take them on educational vacations and surround them with books during the summer — make slight gains. A study from Johns Hopkins University of students in Baltimore found that about two-thirds of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income ninth graders could be explained by summer learning loss during the elementary school years.
This learning loss is cumulative, summer after summer. It has a tremendous impact on students’ success, including high school completion, post-secondary education and work force preparedness.
As a result, no matter how effective other school reforms are, our traditional 180-day school calendar creates an incredibly inefficient system of learning. We cannot afford to spend nearly 10 months of every year devoting enormous amounts of intellect, energy and money to promoting student learning and achievement, and then walk away from that investment every summer.
This waste is preventable. According to the RAND report, good summer programs with individualized instruction, parental involvement and small classes can keep children from falling behind and reduce the achievement gap.
Read more -
Mitt Romney says Obama’s policies are bad for business -
Mitt Romney says Obama’s policies are bad for business -
Mitt Romney donned safety glasses and toured a rock-crushing-equipment factory here on Wednesday, saying President Obama’s economic policies have choked the manufacturer and thousands of other businesses across America.
Companies like Screen Machine Industries are at the center of the political fight over the government’s role in the private sector, an issue that is a key part of the debt-ceiling stalemate in Washington and that could define the 2012 presidential campaign.
Romney, the early front-runner for the Republican nomination, and the factory’s owner see government as the problem — stunting growth at every turn with stringent environmental and labor regulations, a new health-care law, and trade policies that they say disadvantage U.S. companies.
Yet it’s been the government — and Obama’s policies in particular — that has helped propel Screen Machine’s growth at its sprawling new headquarters here, even during the recession. The company, which builds heavy-duty crushing and screening machines used in construction, mining and recycling, received four stimulus awards totaling $218,607. It is also benefiting from a 10-year deal with local and state governments to not pay taxes on its property, equipment or inventory, according to public records.
And Screen Machine, which is expanding its global sales, recently won a federal contract to deliver its machines to Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. That base doubled in size to accommodate Obama’s troop surge.
This family-owned factory, which employs between 50 and 100 nonunion workers in the Columbus suburbs, and others like it are at the heart of a tug of war between the two political parties as each tries to show that its policies would help American manufacturers and small businesses. But the stories of factories like Screen Machine’s are not black and white, making their use as campaign backdrops fraught with peril.
In the debt debate, when Republicans talk about protecting small-business job creators, they’re talking about people like Steve Cohen. His family founded Screen Machine in 1966 and has expanded the company overseas to Russia, China, the Middle East and Africa. This week, Cohen said, the company received its first orders from Australia.
Read more -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)