Sunday, 30 May 2010 10:15 AM Article Font Size White House energy czar Carol Browner says oil might keep leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for months until relief wells are completed.
Browner tells NBC's "Meet The Press" that the administration is "prepared for the worst." That's a scenario none of the measures under way will work, and oil leaks until relief wells are finished in August.
She says the government has ordered BP to drill two relief wells in case the first well doesn't work.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Would You Wash Your Face With Gasoline?
Did you know that baby oil has a “by-product in the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline”?
Johnson’s Baby Shampoo “No More Tears” formula contains cocamidopropyl betaine, PEG-80 sorbitan laurate, sodium trideceth sulfate, PEG-150 distearate, polyquaternium-10, polyquaternium-10, tTetrasodikum EDTA, quaternium-15, and others.
Does that sound like something you want to use on your baby?
In fact, if you take a look at the ingredients in most soaps, lotions, and hair products on the market today, you’ll find they’re loaded with unhealthy chemicals.
Parabens… PABA… PEG… propylene glycol… mineral oils…
These chemicals pose real dangers to your health, including cancer. And, sadly they are FDA-approved and labeled as healthy.
In “The Skin Care Industry’s Billion-Dollar Lie,” you’ll discover what the multi-billion dollar skin care industry, with the help of the mainstream medical establishment and the media, doesn’t want you to know…
There are safe, effective, and completely natural alternatives to the products being marketed to you. There are ways to protect and nourish your skin, stay youthful and radiant, and maintain your overall health.
Johnson’s Baby Shampoo “No More Tears” formula contains cocamidopropyl betaine, PEG-80 sorbitan laurate, sodium trideceth sulfate, PEG-150 distearate, polyquaternium-10, polyquaternium-10, tTetrasodikum EDTA, quaternium-15, and others.
Does that sound like something you want to use on your baby?
In fact, if you take a look at the ingredients in most soaps, lotions, and hair products on the market today, you’ll find they’re loaded with unhealthy chemicals.
Parabens… PABA… PEG… propylene glycol… mineral oils…
These chemicals pose real dangers to your health, including cancer. And, sadly they are FDA-approved and labeled as healthy.
In “The Skin Care Industry’s Billion-Dollar Lie,” you’ll discover what the multi-billion dollar skin care industry, with the help of the mainstream medical establishment and the media, doesn’t want you to know…
There are safe, effective, and completely natural alternatives to the products being marketed to you. There are ways to protect and nourish your skin, stay youthful and radiant, and maintain your overall health.
Sidestep This Invisible Menace That’s Making Us Fat
Conventional “diet wisdom” has been bad enough. But now there’s a new category of chemicals that’s building even fatter thighs, butts, and bellies.
I call them “obesogens.”
These invisible toxins are getting into your food and making you fat. And unless you take action, it won’t just tip the scales. You could wind up sick and diseased, too.
I’m talking about endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in your food and water.
These chemicals, which have a structure that closely resembles the hormone estrogen, go from your food into your bloodstream, where they send out the “fat command” to the cells in your body.
The bad news is that your body can’t tell the difference between these estrogen mimics and the real thing. As far as your body is concerned, these chemicals that look like estrogen are estrogen.
And whether you’re a man or a woman, too much estrogen makes you fat, slow, tired, and diseased.
Obesogens Hijack Your Body’s “Fat Signals”
Researchers are starting to speak out. In an article that just hit my desk, a professor from the University of Missouri hit the nail on the head:
“Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight... and any chemical that interferes with body weight is an endocrine disruptor.”1
What we’re seeing is an actual takeover. Your body gets commands from an external source telling it to pack on more fat.
The Endocrine Society, the largest research organization on hormones, said in a recent report:
“The rise in the incidence in obesity matches the rise in the use and distribution of industrial chemicals that may be playing a role in the generation of obesity, suggesting that EDCs may be linked to this epidemic.”2
I see this everywhere. It’s a problem for my patients, even for my son. We all need to act now.
Estrogen Hits Our Kids the Hardest
My son Dylan is 12 years old. I’ve measured his body composition regularly since he was in preschool. He used to be so lean; he was “below the scale” at less than 3% body fat. Today, his body fat is 17%. That would be fine for a grown man, but not someone his age.
Dylan went from being skinny to the point where he actually needs to drop a few pounds. And he’s not the sort of kid who sits around playing video games. He plays tennis almost every day and is always outside. And of course, I pay very close attention to his diet.
For girls, this extra estrogen causes early, or “precocious,” puberty. Their young bodies interpret the extra estrogen as the call to develop breasts and sexual traits, yet they’re as young as 7 and 8 years old.
The next time you’re walking through your local mall, take a look around. Kids have changed. They’re not just heavier and more out-of-shape; they’re turning into “adults” before their time.
Men and women are changing, too, but experience extra estrogen in different ways. Both will get the excess weight, but there are specific differences.
Men: Rising Estrogen Can Drop Your Sperm Count
and Boost Your Risk of Prostate Cancer
More than 15% of couples in the U.S. are unable to have a child.3 And in 30% to 40% of these cases, male infertility is the problem. But not just in America. British sperm counts and sperm density have dropped dramatically beginning way back before World War II.4
There’s Nowhere to Run to... Nowhere to Hide
Since you can’t see, smell, or taste them, you can’t tell which products contain estrogen look-a-likes.
But they’re very common. Here’s a short list of some of the products containing EDCs:
• Vinyl flooring
• Detergents
• Shampoo
• Deodorants
• Perfumes
• Hair spray
• Moisturizers
• Garden hoses
• Inflatable toys
• Pesticides
• Fertilizers
• Plastics
And the list goes on… But of all the synthetics that have estrogens, plastics are the worst. They’re everywhere. From plastic bags and water bottles to the packaging your food comes in, plastic is almost impossible to escape.
The drastic decline in fertility has now been directly linked to HPTE’s interference with testosterone production in the testes.5
Tufts University research shows that crop dusters who handled estrogen-impersonating pesticides lost their sexual desire and developed very low sperm counts.6 It’s no small wonder that male breast cancer has increased 26% over the past two decades.7
I am even more concerned about these rogue chemicals’ effect on prostate disease. German research shows that estrogen levels in prostatic tissue increase as men get older.8 And the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that estrogen may increase your risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) – or swollen prostate.9
Even more incriminating, I found Japanese evidence that prostate size directly correlates with the ratio of estradiol (a form of estrogen) to free testosterone. In fact, “…patients with large prostates have more estrogen dominate environments” and “…estrogens are the key hormones for the induction and development of BPH.”10
Women: Too Much Estrogen Makes Menopause Miserable
Until recently, the change of life rarely caused dramatic or disabling symptoms. And get this: Now in the U.S., 9 out of 10 women have serious symptoms.11
With all this extra estrogen from your environment, your blood estrogen level becomes elevated. Then, when you enter menopause, your estrogen has further to fall.
Menopause becomes a nightmare instead of a gentle passage into a new stage of life. During menopause, your estrogen may drop by 40%, but your progesterone (your feel-good hormone) falls to almost zero. This new gap between the two worsens your symptoms.
While overall cancer rates are falling, reproductive cancers like breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer continue to rise. Too much estrogen in our environment is a key factor in that rise.12
Drive Down Estrogen and Get Back to the Foods You Really Love
There’s no way you can completely avoid chemicals in your environment. They’re here to stay. But you can reduce your exposure to chemicals and pesticides and lower your blood level of estrogen.
First, a few tips on buying produce. Fruits and vegetables are one of your biggest exposure risks to chemicals and pesticides.
Eating organic helps, but you don’t have to buy organic produce exclusively, just the ones that have the worst record. I’ve written to you before about the Environmental Working Group. They’re a non-profit dedicated to uncovering the biggest environmental threats to your health.
They put together a “dirty dozen” list of foods with the highest levels of pesticides and other obesogens.
These you should buy organic:
1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Bell peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Kale
9. Lettuce
10. Imported grapes
11. Carrots
12. Pears
Meat and poultry is another big source of EDCs. But that doesn’t mean you have to start eating bird food or tofu burgers. I encourage you to eat meat. It’s what our ancestors thrived on. But you should know where it comes from.
Your best bet is grass-fed beef, although depending on where you live, it may not be readily available. You can buy grass-fed beef online if you like. A good resource is U.S. Wellness Meats.
Your other option is looking for meat that’s been raised without drugs. It won’t necessarily be grass-fed, but it will be free of estrogen and antibiotics. There are usually brands at your local grocery store. If they’re not labeled, just ask someone behind the counter to help you.
Here are 10 tips for lowering your exposure to these chemicals:
1. Avoid canned foods as much as possible. Food cans often have high levels of EDCs that leech into the food.
2. Reduce your use of plastic products like bags, bottles, and plastic wraps.
3. Eliminate pesticides from water with a water purifier.
4. Wash your vegetables and fruits before eating.
5. You can buy special products at organic food stores made for washing vegetables and fruits.
6. Buy grass-fed or hormone-free meats. If you get meat from other sources, trim off the fat. EDCs collect in the fat.
7. Avoid processed meats; they have fat ground in.
8. Avoid processed carbohydrates like bread, cereals, and pasta. They cause excess insulin, which builds fat and stimulates feminizing estrogen.
9. Eat vegetables high in fiber to absorb excess estrogen.
10. Work with your doctor to reduce or eliminate medications. These interfere with your liver’s capacity to remove excess estrogens.
You can also lower the amount of estrogen in your blood. Eating more of the cruciferous veggies helps: cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. I also use supplements that improve estrogen elimination.
DIM: DIM (diindolylmethane) lowers estrogen naturally. It’s found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. It works to break down estrogen into safer compounds, which you pass in the urine.
One study at UC Berkeley found that estrogen passed in the urine of those taking DIM was much higher than the control group.13
I3C: Short for indole-3-carbinol, it protects cells from cancer and mutations. It also “tones down” your estrogen receptors.
Both of these natural supplements are effective for both men and women. You can find them at your local health-food store or vitamin store.
I call them “obesogens.”
These invisible toxins are getting into your food and making you fat. And unless you take action, it won’t just tip the scales. You could wind up sick and diseased, too.
I’m talking about endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in your food and water.
These chemicals, which have a structure that closely resembles the hormone estrogen, go from your food into your bloodstream, where they send out the “fat command” to the cells in your body.
The bad news is that your body can’t tell the difference between these estrogen mimics and the real thing. As far as your body is concerned, these chemicals that look like estrogen are estrogen.
And whether you’re a man or a woman, too much estrogen makes you fat, slow, tired, and diseased.
Obesogens Hijack Your Body’s “Fat Signals”
Researchers are starting to speak out. In an article that just hit my desk, a professor from the University of Missouri hit the nail on the head:
“Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight... and any chemical that interferes with body weight is an endocrine disruptor.”1
What we’re seeing is an actual takeover. Your body gets commands from an external source telling it to pack on more fat.
The Endocrine Society, the largest research organization on hormones, said in a recent report:
“The rise in the incidence in obesity matches the rise in the use and distribution of industrial chemicals that may be playing a role in the generation of obesity, suggesting that EDCs may be linked to this epidemic.”2
I see this everywhere. It’s a problem for my patients, even for my son. We all need to act now.
Estrogen Hits Our Kids the Hardest
My son Dylan is 12 years old. I’ve measured his body composition regularly since he was in preschool. He used to be so lean; he was “below the scale” at less than 3% body fat. Today, his body fat is 17%. That would be fine for a grown man, but not someone his age.
Dylan went from being skinny to the point where he actually needs to drop a few pounds. And he’s not the sort of kid who sits around playing video games. He plays tennis almost every day and is always outside. And of course, I pay very close attention to his diet.
For girls, this extra estrogen causes early, or “precocious,” puberty. Their young bodies interpret the extra estrogen as the call to develop breasts and sexual traits, yet they’re as young as 7 and 8 years old.
The next time you’re walking through your local mall, take a look around. Kids have changed. They’re not just heavier and more out-of-shape; they’re turning into “adults” before their time.
Men and women are changing, too, but experience extra estrogen in different ways. Both will get the excess weight, but there are specific differences.
Men: Rising Estrogen Can Drop Your Sperm Count
and Boost Your Risk of Prostate Cancer
More than 15% of couples in the U.S. are unable to have a child.3 And in 30% to 40% of these cases, male infertility is the problem. But not just in America. British sperm counts and sperm density have dropped dramatically beginning way back before World War II.4
There’s Nowhere to Run to... Nowhere to Hide
Since you can’t see, smell, or taste them, you can’t tell which products contain estrogen look-a-likes.
But they’re very common. Here’s a short list of some of the products containing EDCs:
• Vinyl flooring
• Detergents
• Shampoo
• Deodorants
• Perfumes
• Hair spray
• Moisturizers
• Garden hoses
• Inflatable toys
• Pesticides
• Fertilizers
• Plastics
And the list goes on… But of all the synthetics that have estrogens, plastics are the worst. They’re everywhere. From plastic bags and water bottles to the packaging your food comes in, plastic is almost impossible to escape.
The drastic decline in fertility has now been directly linked to HPTE’s interference with testosterone production in the testes.5
Tufts University research shows that crop dusters who handled estrogen-impersonating pesticides lost their sexual desire and developed very low sperm counts.6 It’s no small wonder that male breast cancer has increased 26% over the past two decades.7
I am even more concerned about these rogue chemicals’ effect on prostate disease. German research shows that estrogen levels in prostatic tissue increase as men get older.8 And the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that estrogen may increase your risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) – or swollen prostate.9
Even more incriminating, I found Japanese evidence that prostate size directly correlates with the ratio of estradiol (a form of estrogen) to free testosterone. In fact, “…patients with large prostates have more estrogen dominate environments” and “…estrogens are the key hormones for the induction and development of BPH.”10
Women: Too Much Estrogen Makes Menopause Miserable
Until recently, the change of life rarely caused dramatic or disabling symptoms. And get this: Now in the U.S., 9 out of 10 women have serious symptoms.11
With all this extra estrogen from your environment, your blood estrogen level becomes elevated. Then, when you enter menopause, your estrogen has further to fall.
Menopause becomes a nightmare instead of a gentle passage into a new stage of life. During menopause, your estrogen may drop by 40%, but your progesterone (your feel-good hormone) falls to almost zero. This new gap between the two worsens your symptoms.
While overall cancer rates are falling, reproductive cancers like breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer continue to rise. Too much estrogen in our environment is a key factor in that rise.12
Drive Down Estrogen and Get Back to the Foods You Really Love
There’s no way you can completely avoid chemicals in your environment. They’re here to stay. But you can reduce your exposure to chemicals and pesticides and lower your blood level of estrogen.
First, a few tips on buying produce. Fruits and vegetables are one of your biggest exposure risks to chemicals and pesticides.
Eating organic helps, but you don’t have to buy organic produce exclusively, just the ones that have the worst record. I’ve written to you before about the Environmental Working Group. They’re a non-profit dedicated to uncovering the biggest environmental threats to your health.
They put together a “dirty dozen” list of foods with the highest levels of pesticides and other obesogens.
These you should buy organic:
1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Bell peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Kale
9. Lettuce
10. Imported grapes
11. Carrots
12. Pears
Meat and poultry is another big source of EDCs. But that doesn’t mean you have to start eating bird food or tofu burgers. I encourage you to eat meat. It’s what our ancestors thrived on. But you should know where it comes from.
Your best bet is grass-fed beef, although depending on where you live, it may not be readily available. You can buy grass-fed beef online if you like. A good resource is U.S. Wellness Meats.
Your other option is looking for meat that’s been raised without drugs. It won’t necessarily be grass-fed, but it will be free of estrogen and antibiotics. There are usually brands at your local grocery store. If they’re not labeled, just ask someone behind the counter to help you.
Here are 10 tips for lowering your exposure to these chemicals:
1. Avoid canned foods as much as possible. Food cans often have high levels of EDCs that leech into the food.
2. Reduce your use of plastic products like bags, bottles, and plastic wraps.
3. Eliminate pesticides from water with a water purifier.
4. Wash your vegetables and fruits before eating.
5. You can buy special products at organic food stores made for washing vegetables and fruits.
6. Buy grass-fed or hormone-free meats. If you get meat from other sources, trim off the fat. EDCs collect in the fat.
7. Avoid processed meats; they have fat ground in.
8. Avoid processed carbohydrates like bread, cereals, and pasta. They cause excess insulin, which builds fat and stimulates feminizing estrogen.
9. Eat vegetables high in fiber to absorb excess estrogen.
10. Work with your doctor to reduce or eliminate medications. These interfere with your liver’s capacity to remove excess estrogens.
You can also lower the amount of estrogen in your blood. Eating more of the cruciferous veggies helps: cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. I also use supplements that improve estrogen elimination.
DIM: DIM (diindolylmethane) lowers estrogen naturally. It’s found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. It works to break down estrogen into safer compounds, which you pass in the urine.
One study at UC Berkeley found that estrogen passed in the urine of those taking DIM was much higher than the control group.13
I3C: Short for indole-3-carbinol, it protects cells from cancer and mutations. It also “tones down” your estrogen receptors.
Both of these natural supplements are effective for both men and women. You can find them at your local health-food store or vitamin store.
How to Get Enough Vitamin D in Northern Climates
Vitamin D is vital to your health. Be sure and get enough of this valuable nutrient every day. It could save your life. Here are three ways I recommend you get your full share of Vitamin D:
1. Get some sun. The easiest, most reliable way to get it is simply by getting out in the sun for 10 to 15 minutes a couple days a week. It’s free, and will make you feel great. Depending upon where you live, this might not be possible. And simply taking a multivitamin won’t give you enough Vitamin D, either. So I recommend taking a Vitamin D supplement every day.
2. Eat foods with high Vitamin D. Best sources are small fish like herring, sardines, and anchovies. Stay away from the larger fish that are higher up on the food chain, as the mercury content may be too high to safely eat.
3. Take some cod liver oil. Besides sunlight, the best natural source of Vitamin D is cod liver oil. Just a single teaspoon contains 1,360 IU of Vitamin D. Check out just how powerful cod liver oil is compared to some other pretty good sources of Vitamin D:
Food Sources of Vitamin D
Food
Serving
Vitamin D IU’s
Cod Liver Oil
1 Tablespoon
1,360
Salmon, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
360
Mackerel, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
345
Tuna fish, canned in oil
3 ounces
200
Sardines, canned in oil
1-3/4 ounces
250
Orange juice, fortified
8 ounces
100
Milk, organic, from grass-fed cows and fortified
1 cup
98
Cereal, fortified
¾ to 1 cup
40
Egg (vitamin D is found in egg yolks)
1 egg
20
Liver, beef, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
15
Cheese, Swiss
1 ounce
12
4. Take 5,000 IU of a good form of Vitamin D. What makes a good form of Vitamin D? Vitamin D3. Our bodies may be conditioned to produce less Vitamin D during the winter months, when sunlight is less readily available for many. However, that’s when other seasonal stresses come into play.
Don’t rely on your multivitamin to give you enough Vitamin D3. It only has 200 to 400 IU. There is a movement to increase the RDA, but it hasn’t been approved yet. A Vitamin D3 supplement will help keep your body strong all year long.
1. Get some sun. The easiest, most reliable way to get it is simply by getting out in the sun for 10 to 15 minutes a couple days a week. It’s free, and will make you feel great. Depending upon where you live, this might not be possible. And simply taking a multivitamin won’t give you enough Vitamin D, either. So I recommend taking a Vitamin D supplement every day.
2. Eat foods with high Vitamin D. Best sources are small fish like herring, sardines, and anchovies. Stay away from the larger fish that are higher up on the food chain, as the mercury content may be too high to safely eat.
3. Take some cod liver oil. Besides sunlight, the best natural source of Vitamin D is cod liver oil. Just a single teaspoon contains 1,360 IU of Vitamin D. Check out just how powerful cod liver oil is compared to some other pretty good sources of Vitamin D:
Food Sources of Vitamin D
Food
Serving
Vitamin D IU’s
Cod Liver Oil
1 Tablespoon
1,360
Salmon, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
360
Mackerel, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
345
Tuna fish, canned in oil
3 ounces
200
Sardines, canned in oil
1-3/4 ounces
250
Orange juice, fortified
8 ounces
100
Milk, organic, from grass-fed cows and fortified
1 cup
98
Cereal, fortified
¾ to 1 cup
40
Egg (vitamin D is found in egg yolks)
1 egg
20
Liver, beef, cooked
3-1/2 ounces
15
Cheese, Swiss
1 ounce
12
4. Take 5,000 IU of a good form of Vitamin D. What makes a good form of Vitamin D? Vitamin D3. Our bodies may be conditioned to produce less Vitamin D during the winter months, when sunlight is less readily available for many. However, that’s when other seasonal stresses come into play.
Don’t rely on your multivitamin to give you enough Vitamin D3. It only has 200 to 400 IU. There is a movement to increase the RDA, but it hasn’t been approved yet. A Vitamin D3 supplement will help keep your body strong all year long.
5 Ways Vitamin D Helps Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer
The sun triggers your body’s ability to make Vitamin D. Here are five ways it helps your body reduce the risk of getting cancer.
1. Converts tumor cells into normal cells. Cancer cells divide rapidly in your body but don’t differentiate themselves into specific cells. Vitamin D helps this process, restoring the cancer cells to productive cells and inhibiting cancer growth.
2. Prevents cancer cells from multiplying. Cancer cells can’t reproduce and spread to new tissue when introduced to Vitamin D.7 Laboratory and animal studies show that Vitamin D prevents cancer cells from multiplying and also tells them when to die.
3. Keeps cancer from spreading. Vitamin D promotes normal cell growth. As a result, it helps prevent cancer cells from spreading.
4. Suppresses genes responsible for cell proliferation. Research shows that Vitamin D can suppress genes prone to mutation and likely to form cancerous growths.8
5. Inhibits formation of new blood vessels that feed tumors. During the creation of new blood vessels, new vessels begin to branch off existing vessels. This is bad news if they’re cancerous. For any tumor to have a chance to grow, there must be formation of new blood vessels to feed it. Vitamin D inhibits formation of these vessels naturally, starving the tumor of the nutrients it needs to grow.
1. Converts tumor cells into normal cells. Cancer cells divide rapidly in your body but don’t differentiate themselves into specific cells. Vitamin D helps this process, restoring the cancer cells to productive cells and inhibiting cancer growth.
2. Prevents cancer cells from multiplying. Cancer cells can’t reproduce and spread to new tissue when introduced to Vitamin D.7 Laboratory and animal studies show that Vitamin D prevents cancer cells from multiplying and also tells them when to die.
3. Keeps cancer from spreading. Vitamin D promotes normal cell growth. As a result, it helps prevent cancer cells from spreading.
4. Suppresses genes responsible for cell proliferation. Research shows that Vitamin D can suppress genes prone to mutation and likely to form cancerous growths.8
5. Inhibits formation of new blood vessels that feed tumors. During the creation of new blood vessels, new vessels begin to branch off existing vessels. This is bad news if they’re cancerous. For any tumor to have a chance to grow, there must be formation of new blood vessels to feed it. Vitamin D inhibits formation of these vessels naturally, starving the tumor of the nutrients it needs to grow.
Sunlight Reduces Cancer Risk. More Sun Equals Less Disease
Equals Less Disease A study in the Journal of Cancer Research showed for the first time that Vitamin D can stop human cancer cells from growing. Researchers then used Vitamin D to block malignant melanoma tumors from taking up shop in human cells.
Their experiment worked. And, since then, scores of clinical studies have confirmed the same thing. That Vitamin D can inhibit skin, colon, breast, and other cancers.6
Despite today’s “avoid-the-sun” mentality, we now face a growing epidemic of cancers. Today, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes are common, while they were very rare just a century ago.
Unfortunately, a powerful minority has a financial stake in having you fear the sun. For them, a return to common sense leaves them unemployed. Anyone who opposes this “fear-the-sun” view is viewed as a dangerous radical.
If you don’t advocate wearing sunscreen, well, you’re a danger to not only yourself but your children, too.
The real truth is the “sun police” actually put your health at risk, while acting under the guise of safety.
Sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D available. But because of the fear we all have today of the sun, there is an epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency.
There’s a link between less exposure to the sun and Vitamin D deficiency. Low levels of Vitamin D are also associated with other diseases like fibromyalgia and auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
Research also shows that Vitamin D lowers the risk of the deadliest trio of killers – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
By altering many of the natural ways we lived our lives over hundreds of years, we’ve created new diseases. Prostate cancer is now becoming ubiquitous in all cultures.
Their experiment worked. And, since then, scores of clinical studies have confirmed the same thing. That Vitamin D can inhibit skin, colon, breast, and other cancers.6
Despite today’s “avoid-the-sun” mentality, we now face a growing epidemic of cancers. Today, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes are common, while they were very rare just a century ago.
Unfortunately, a powerful minority has a financial stake in having you fear the sun. For them, a return to common sense leaves them unemployed. Anyone who opposes this “fear-the-sun” view is viewed as a dangerous radical.
If you don’t advocate wearing sunscreen, well, you’re a danger to not only yourself but your children, too.
The real truth is the “sun police” actually put your health at risk, while acting under the guise of safety.
Sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D available. But because of the fear we all have today of the sun, there is an epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency.
There’s a link between less exposure to the sun and Vitamin D deficiency. Low levels of Vitamin D are also associated with other diseases like fibromyalgia and auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
Research also shows that Vitamin D lowers the risk of the deadliest trio of killers – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
By altering many of the natural ways we lived our lives over hundreds of years, we’ve created new diseases. Prostate cancer is now becoming ubiquitous in all cultures.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Vitamin D delivers for seniors
If you find you have a harder time getting around as you get older, you're not alone.
Luckily, there's one simple thing you can do right now to lower your risk for mobility problems--and the best part of all, it's something you can enjoy.
Just get outside a little more.
A new study finds that seniors with high levels of vitamin D are more likely to be more mobile and steadier on their feet. And when you consider how quickly mobility problems can ruin the lives and threaten the independence of seniors, this is something worth paying close attention to.
Researchers gathered 2,641 men and women with an average age of 75 and divided them into three groups based on their vitamin D levels.
All of the seniors in the study were given some basic mobility tests: walking a quarter of a mile as quickly as possible, rising from a chair without using their arms and other tests to assess balance and strength.
These tests were repeated two years and four years later.
During those four years, everyone showed some decline. Hey, it happens to the best of us. But the seniors who had the highest D levels at the start of the study did better than those who had the lowest, according to the research presented at a recent Experimental Biology meeting.
The differences weren't always dramatic--an average of 5 percent--but that's over four years. If you plan to stick around longer than that, odds are that gap will grow even more.
Next up: The researchers plan to study whether vitamin D supplements can decrease the risk of mobility problems and other disabilities in seniors.
Hint: Don't wait for that one. Get your D today, because there are plenty of other ways this incredible and completely natural hormone can help you beat Father Time, or at least slow him down a bit.
The best way to get your share is by spending a little time outside. But since so many people can't, don't or won't, you have some other options. You can get vitamin D from fatty fish--if you like those fish enough to eat them nearly every day.
For most people, the best option is a vitamin D supplement. Just be sure to choose natural (and inexpensive) D3 over synthetic D2.
Then, no matter how old you are, start making long-term plans. Odds are, you'll be around for a while.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
Luckily, there's one simple thing you can do right now to lower your risk for mobility problems--and the best part of all, it's something you can enjoy.
Just get outside a little more.
A new study finds that seniors with high levels of vitamin D are more likely to be more mobile and steadier on their feet. And when you consider how quickly mobility problems can ruin the lives and threaten the independence of seniors, this is something worth paying close attention to.
Researchers gathered 2,641 men and women with an average age of 75 and divided them into three groups based on their vitamin D levels.
All of the seniors in the study were given some basic mobility tests: walking a quarter of a mile as quickly as possible, rising from a chair without using their arms and other tests to assess balance and strength.
These tests were repeated two years and four years later.
During those four years, everyone showed some decline. Hey, it happens to the best of us. But the seniors who had the highest D levels at the start of the study did better than those who had the lowest, according to the research presented at a recent Experimental Biology meeting.
The differences weren't always dramatic--an average of 5 percent--but that's over four years. If you plan to stick around longer than that, odds are that gap will grow even more.
Next up: The researchers plan to study whether vitamin D supplements can decrease the risk of mobility problems and other disabilities in seniors.
Hint: Don't wait for that one. Get your D today, because there are plenty of other ways this incredible and completely natural hormone can help you beat Father Time, or at least slow him down a bit.
The best way to get your share is by spending a little time outside. But since so many people can't, don't or won't, you have some other options. You can get vitamin D from fatty fish--if you like those fish enough to eat them nearly every day.
For most people, the best option is a vitamin D supplement. Just be sure to choose natural (and inexpensive) D3 over synthetic D2.
Then, no matter how old you are, start making long-term plans. Odds are, you'll be around for a while.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
FDA says acid reflux drugs carry fracture risk
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators have cautioned doctors and patients of an increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine from high doses or long-term use of a widely used class of drugs to control the amount of acid in the stomach.
The class of heartburn drugs, called proton pump inhibitors, include prescription brands such as AstraZeneca Plc's top-selling Nexium and the company's Prilosec, an older generic treatment that is also available over the counter at a lower dosage strength.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that studies suggest a possible increased risk of bone fractures with the use of proton pump inhibitors for one year or longer, or at high doses.
Package insert labels for the drugs will be changed to describe the possible increased fracture risks, the FDA said.
"Because these products are used by a great number of people, it's important for the public to be aware of this possible increased risk," Joyce Korvick, deputy director for safety in the FDA's Division of Gastroenterology Products, said in an agency statement.
"When prescribing proton pump inhibitors, health care professionals should consider whether a lower dose or shorter duration of therapy would adequately treat the patient's condition," Korvick said.
Moreover, the FDA said doctors and patients should weigh whether known benefits of the drugs outweigh potential risks.
Other proton pump inhibitors used to treat heartburn, known formally as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), include generically available Protonix, Johnson & Johnson's prescription Aciphex brand and Novartis AG's over-the-counter Prevacid.
The FDA recommended that consumers report any side effects or other product problems to its MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program at www.fda.gov/MedWatch or by calling 800-332-1088.
The class of heartburn drugs, called proton pump inhibitors, include prescription brands such as AstraZeneca Plc's top-selling Nexium and the company's Prilosec, an older generic treatment that is also available over the counter at a lower dosage strength.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that studies suggest a possible increased risk of bone fractures with the use of proton pump inhibitors for one year or longer, or at high doses.
Package insert labels for the drugs will be changed to describe the possible increased fracture risks, the FDA said.
"Because these products are used by a great number of people, it's important for the public to be aware of this possible increased risk," Joyce Korvick, deputy director for safety in the FDA's Division of Gastroenterology Products, said in an agency statement.
"When prescribing proton pump inhibitors, health care professionals should consider whether a lower dose or shorter duration of therapy would adequately treat the patient's condition," Korvick said.
Moreover, the FDA said doctors and patients should weigh whether known benefits of the drugs outweigh potential risks.
Other proton pump inhibitors used to treat heartburn, known formally as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), include generically available Protonix, Johnson & Johnson's prescription Aciphex brand and Novartis AG's over-the-counter Prevacid.
The FDA recommended that consumers report any side effects or other product problems to its MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program at www.fda.gov/MedWatch or by calling 800-332-1088.
Early treatment doesn't improve autism symptoms
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Helping kids with autism learn how to communicate doesn't improve their symptoms, British researchers reported at an international meeting on the developmental disorder.
But it does benefit parent-child interaction, the study, which was also published in the journal The Lancet, shows.
"The story is kind of mixed -- positive and disappointing," said Dr. Jonathan Green, of the University of Manchester, who worked on the study.
Autism spectrum disorders affect about 1 in 100 children and cost healthcare systems billions of dollars each year. Green said neither behavioral nor drug treatment had been very successful at improving autistic symptoms, such as poor social skills, slow language development and repetitive behaviors.
But a few smaller studies had suggested that communication-focused treatment -- based on recent insights into autism development -- might be effective.
So Green and colleagues assigned 152 autistic preschoolers randomly to receive either this treatment or standard care. Throughout a year, they held language-therapy sessions for the treatment group, in which parents learned to adapt their communication to their kids' impairment.
After one year, they compared the two groups of kids, measuring their symptoms with a widely used test. The treatment turned out not to be effective when accounting for group differences such as age and treatment center.
"The way we designed the trial was to give the treatment a stiff test," Green told Reuters Health. "We didn't find what we hoped for."
Yet children communicated more with their parents after the treatment, said Green, adding that "parents reckoned that the treatment had done a very good job of shifting their children's symptoms."
Audrey Thurm, a child psychologist at the US National Institutes of Health, said the new research was more trustworthy than earlier studies.
"We have very few studies that are as rigorous as the study that just came out," she told Reuters Health.
She added that most US children with autism get treatment similar to the one tested by the British researchers, and that the results should not deter such efforts.
For one, she said, "in child-parent interactions, they did find meaningful changes." And for another, some children may respond well whereas others might not, canceling out a potential effect.
"Autism is a hard nut to crack," said Green. "We've got ways to go yet."
SOURCE: International Meeting For Autism Research, 9th Annual Meeting, May 20-22; and the Lancet, online May 21, 2010. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2960587-9/abstract
But it does benefit parent-child interaction, the study, which was also published in the journal The Lancet, shows.
"The story is kind of mixed -- positive and disappointing," said Dr. Jonathan Green, of the University of Manchester, who worked on the study.
Autism spectrum disorders affect about 1 in 100 children and cost healthcare systems billions of dollars each year. Green said neither behavioral nor drug treatment had been very successful at improving autistic symptoms, such as poor social skills, slow language development and repetitive behaviors.
But a few smaller studies had suggested that communication-focused treatment -- based on recent insights into autism development -- might be effective.
So Green and colleagues assigned 152 autistic preschoolers randomly to receive either this treatment or standard care. Throughout a year, they held language-therapy sessions for the treatment group, in which parents learned to adapt their communication to their kids' impairment.
After one year, they compared the two groups of kids, measuring their symptoms with a widely used test. The treatment turned out not to be effective when accounting for group differences such as age and treatment center.
"The way we designed the trial was to give the treatment a stiff test," Green told Reuters Health. "We didn't find what we hoped for."
Yet children communicated more with their parents after the treatment, said Green, adding that "parents reckoned that the treatment had done a very good job of shifting their children's symptoms."
Audrey Thurm, a child psychologist at the US National Institutes of Health, said the new research was more trustworthy than earlier studies.
"We have very few studies that are as rigorous as the study that just came out," she told Reuters Health.
She added that most US children with autism get treatment similar to the one tested by the British researchers, and that the results should not deter such efforts.
For one, she said, "in child-parent interactions, they did find meaningful changes." And for another, some children may respond well whereas others might not, canceling out a potential effect.
"Autism is a hard nut to crack," said Green. "We've got ways to go yet."
SOURCE: International Meeting For Autism Research, 9th Annual Meeting, May 20-22; and the Lancet, online May 21, 2010. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2960587-9/abstract
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Mothers have the ability to liberate by love or, by neglect, to imprison. They're our first teachers; they are our first loves.
Wolf pups in the northern Rockies face a daunting future
Wolf pups in the northern Rockies face a daunting future. With new threats like trapping, baiting and possibly even illegal poisonings, the region is becoming a more dangerous and hostile place for these wolves.
But wolves are an important part of Greater Yellowstone and the northern Rockies -- and we’re dedicated to ensuring that this year’s pups have a fighting chance at survival.
Please donate now to support Defenders’ efforts in the courts and on the ground to save wolves in the northern Rockies and other wildlife.
As Defenders works on the ground and in the courts, anti-wolf extremists may be taking matters into their own hands.
A rash of dog poisonings in Idaho have pointed to the possibility that anti-wolf vigilantes are targeting wolves with toxic strychnine-laced sausages left along forest trails1 -- a terrible poison that causes painful and traumatic deaths.
And that’s not the end of it. Idaho officials are planning to allow traps and baiting for this fall’s wolf hunts as they target even greater numbers than last year’s hunt.2
In Montana, state officials could target up to 216 wolves3 -- nearly triple the amount targeted last year -- with the goal of lowering the number of wolves in the state for the first time in decades.
Despite the end of this year’s wolf hunt, Idaho officials have given the green light to backcountry outfitters to target up to 20 more wolves in the northern part of the state through June4 -- just as wolf pups in the region, born just weeks ago, are leaving their dens.
With your compassionate support, we can stop these deadly hunts and save these wolves.
On June 15th, Defenders’ legal team will be in court, fighting for vital federal protections for wolves in the northern Rockies. It will be a difficult battle against powerful groups like Safari Club International and the misleadingly named Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, and we have a real chance to stop the deadly wolf hunts -- but we need your help to win!
Please donate now to help us save the lives of hundreds of wolves.
Our court battle is just one part of our comprehensive five-point plan to ensure a lasting future for wolves in the northern Rockies. Right now, Defenders is…
Fighting in court to restore protections for wolves.
Countering anti-wolf lies in the media.
Working on the ground to reduce conflicts between wolves and livestock producers.
Mobilizing wildlife activists to save wolves.
Working to bring lawless wolf poachers to justice.
Help support our important wolf-saving work. Please donate today.
Wolves in the northern Rockies are facing growing hostility, making our work in the region ever more critical.
With your help, I know we can save the lives of these magnificent animals and protect their vital role in the northern Rockies.
For the Wild Ones,
Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife
But wolves are an important part of Greater Yellowstone and the northern Rockies -- and we’re dedicated to ensuring that this year’s pups have a fighting chance at survival.
Please donate now to support Defenders’ efforts in the courts and on the ground to save wolves in the northern Rockies and other wildlife.
As Defenders works on the ground and in the courts, anti-wolf extremists may be taking matters into their own hands.
A rash of dog poisonings in Idaho have pointed to the possibility that anti-wolf vigilantes are targeting wolves with toxic strychnine-laced sausages left along forest trails1 -- a terrible poison that causes painful and traumatic deaths.
And that’s not the end of it. Idaho officials are planning to allow traps and baiting for this fall’s wolf hunts as they target even greater numbers than last year’s hunt.2
In Montana, state officials could target up to 216 wolves3 -- nearly triple the amount targeted last year -- with the goal of lowering the number of wolves in the state for the first time in decades.
Despite the end of this year’s wolf hunt, Idaho officials have given the green light to backcountry outfitters to target up to 20 more wolves in the northern part of the state through June4 -- just as wolf pups in the region, born just weeks ago, are leaving their dens.
With your compassionate support, we can stop these deadly hunts and save these wolves.
On June 15th, Defenders’ legal team will be in court, fighting for vital federal protections for wolves in the northern Rockies. It will be a difficult battle against powerful groups like Safari Club International and the misleadingly named Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, and we have a real chance to stop the deadly wolf hunts -- but we need your help to win!
Please donate now to help us save the lives of hundreds of wolves.
Our court battle is just one part of our comprehensive five-point plan to ensure a lasting future for wolves in the northern Rockies. Right now, Defenders is…
Fighting in court to restore protections for wolves.
Countering anti-wolf lies in the media.
Working on the ground to reduce conflicts between wolves and livestock producers.
Mobilizing wildlife activists to save wolves.
Working to bring lawless wolf poachers to justice.
Help support our important wolf-saving work. Please donate today.
Wolves in the northern Rockies are facing growing hostility, making our work in the region ever more critical.
With your help, I know we can save the lives of these magnificent animals and protect their vital role in the northern Rockies.
For the Wild Ones,
Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
There is a voice we should more often listen to—a voice we know in our hearts offers sage advice that can help us through dark times. It is the voice of experience.
4 Reasons to Go Bananas
When you need a healthy snack that satisfies, consider the banana! Not only are bananas portable and easy to eat, but they also provide all sorts of health benefits along the way. Here are four great reasons to appreciate the banana:
1. Bananas contain all eight amino acids that humans' bodies can't make themselves.
2. They're very high in potassium, which can help prevent high blood pressure.
3. Bananas can help keep you regular since they contain pectin, a soluble fiber.
4. Besides eating them on their own, bananas are very versatile—they can be sliced on top of hot or cold cereals, or dipped in dark chocolate for a tasty and nutritious dessert.
1. Bananas contain all eight amino acids that humans' bodies can't make themselves.
2. They're very high in potassium, which can help prevent high blood pressure.
3. Bananas can help keep you regular since they contain pectin, a soluble fiber.
4. Besides eating them on their own, bananas are very versatile—they can be sliced on top of hot or cold cereals, or dipped in dark chocolate for a tasty and nutritious dessert.
Our voices have been heard!
As we watch the unfolding tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico, I am writing to share great news on a related front:
President Obama announced yesterday that he will NOT allow Shell to drill for oil off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- and elsewhere in the Arctic Ocean -- this summer.
Just this week, NRDC Trustee Robert Redford asked you to make your voice heard in opposition to Shell’s dangerous plans. Tens of thousands of you wrote President Obama, urging him to learn the lessons of the BP spill and to put Shell’s plans on hold.
Our voices have been heard! The President’s change of policy is an important acknowledgment that the oil industry cannot be trusted to drill in one of the world’s most sensitive ecosystems: the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas which are home to one-fifth of the world’s polar bears, as well as seals, endangered whales, walrus and other threatened marine life.
President Obama also canceled planned lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia, and he imposed new safeguards to protect our fragile coastal environments.
Over the past month, oil company claims about drilling being environmentally safe have been revealed for what they really are: corporate propaganda.
If the oil industry can’t clean up a spill in the temperate Gulf of Mexico -- the world’s most developed offshore drilling region -- how on earth will it clean up a spill in a remote corner of the Arctic Ocean in frigid waters and 20-foot seas?
Fortunately, the Obama Administration is no longer willing to risk the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and threatened polar bear populations on the say-so of Big Oil. You deserve credit for helping persuade the Administration to do the right thing.
But make no mistake: this is only a reprieve for Arctic wildlife, not the end of our fight.
The policy President Obama announced yesterday will only put the Arctic Ocean off-limits for six months before his Administration once again considers whether to allow drilling to proceed.
That six-month delay gets us past the all-important summer drilling season, but it’s hardly a long-term answer for protecting the Arctic Refuge and other natural treasures. As long as oil companies lack the know-how to drill safely in the daunting conditions of the Arctic, such drilling should be suspended indefinitely.
In the weeks ahead, NRDC will be ramping up the pressure for that kind of long-term moratorium on Arctic drilling. And I’ll be calling on you to make your voice heard again.
As we witness the mounting toll in the Gulf of Mexico, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that such a catastrophe never happens again -- not in the Gulf, not in the Arctic, not anywhere.
The President’s latest announcement is an important step forward toward meeting that goal. Thank you again for helping to change his policy on offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean!
Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council
President Obama announced yesterday that he will NOT allow Shell to drill for oil off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- and elsewhere in the Arctic Ocean -- this summer.
Just this week, NRDC Trustee Robert Redford asked you to make your voice heard in opposition to Shell’s dangerous plans. Tens of thousands of you wrote President Obama, urging him to learn the lessons of the BP spill and to put Shell’s plans on hold.
Our voices have been heard! The President’s change of policy is an important acknowledgment that the oil industry cannot be trusted to drill in one of the world’s most sensitive ecosystems: the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas which are home to one-fifth of the world’s polar bears, as well as seals, endangered whales, walrus and other threatened marine life.
President Obama also canceled planned lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia, and he imposed new safeguards to protect our fragile coastal environments.
Over the past month, oil company claims about drilling being environmentally safe have been revealed for what they really are: corporate propaganda.
If the oil industry can’t clean up a spill in the temperate Gulf of Mexico -- the world’s most developed offshore drilling region -- how on earth will it clean up a spill in a remote corner of the Arctic Ocean in frigid waters and 20-foot seas?
Fortunately, the Obama Administration is no longer willing to risk the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and threatened polar bear populations on the say-so of Big Oil. You deserve credit for helping persuade the Administration to do the right thing.
But make no mistake: this is only a reprieve for Arctic wildlife, not the end of our fight.
The policy President Obama announced yesterday will only put the Arctic Ocean off-limits for six months before his Administration once again considers whether to allow drilling to proceed.
That six-month delay gets us past the all-important summer drilling season, but it’s hardly a long-term answer for protecting the Arctic Refuge and other natural treasures. As long as oil companies lack the know-how to drill safely in the daunting conditions of the Arctic, such drilling should be suspended indefinitely.
In the weeks ahead, NRDC will be ramping up the pressure for that kind of long-term moratorium on Arctic drilling. And I’ll be calling on you to make your voice heard again.
As we witness the mounting toll in the Gulf of Mexico, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that such a catastrophe never happens again -- not in the Gulf, not in the Arctic, not anywhere.
The President’s latest announcement is an important step forward toward meeting that goal. Thank you again for helping to change his policy on offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean!
Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council
Noonan: Obama Incompetent
Peggy Noonan opines in the Wall Street Journal that President Barack Obama's final straw that breaks his presidential back is the Gulf oil spill.
"This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts," she writes.
She thinks the inventory of presidential gaffes is fatal:
• There was the unnecessary war over his healthcare proposal and its cost.
• There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration.
• And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.
"This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts," she writes.
She thinks the inventory of presidential gaffes is fatal:
• There was the unnecessary war over his healthcare proposal and its cost.
• There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration.
• And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.
Hugs, Hay and Better Health for 49 Rescued Horses
Posted: 28 May 2010 02:07 PM PDT The HSUS provides more direct care for animals than any group in the country—including an annual spend of $20 million or so on our owned and operated animal care centers, veterinary field programs, humane wildlife services operations, international dog and cat sterilization, support services for animal shelters, and a wide array of other programs. I have always been particularly proud of our emergency response efforts. Just yesterday, our traveling team of animal rescuers and handlers and veterinarians came to the rescue of 49 emaciated horses and other equines, not long after local authorities had pulled 50 or so dogs from the same landowner just weeks before.
When rescuers arrived on the property, they found many Tennessee Walking Horses and Saddle horse crosses, mules, and donkeys who were skin and bones. They had a variety of medical ailments including overgrown, infected hooves, parasite infestation, and untreated wounds. Concerned citizens complained to the Cabell-Wayne Animal Shelter and the Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and it was those agencies that appealed to The HSUS to come in and lead the rescue. The HSUS then called in United Animal Nations to assist in the operation.
Our rescue team is still in the process of removing the horses from the site and shuttling them to a temporary shelter. We’ll work with our partners to care for the horses until custody is settled.
Equine issues are important to us at The HSUS—not just the hands-on care, but also the public policy and public education. We are leading the fight to stop the export and slaughter of America’s horses, working to end government round-ups of healthy wild horses from public lands in the West, pushing for proper enforcement of the federal law to stop the abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses at horse shows, and educating citizens about caring for horses. As with all animal issues, we hit the subjects from many angles, and work to prevent cruelty before it occurs.
When rescuers arrived on the property, they found many Tennessee Walking Horses and Saddle horse crosses, mules, and donkeys who were skin and bones. They had a variety of medical ailments including overgrown, infected hooves, parasite infestation, and untreated wounds. Concerned citizens complained to the Cabell-Wayne Animal Shelter and the Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, and it was those agencies that appealed to The HSUS to come in and lead the rescue. The HSUS then called in United Animal Nations to assist in the operation.
Our rescue team is still in the process of removing the horses from the site and shuttling them to a temporary shelter. We’ll work with our partners to care for the horses until custody is settled.
Equine issues are important to us at The HSUS—not just the hands-on care, but also the public policy and public education. We are leading the fight to stop the export and slaughter of America’s horses, working to end government round-ups of healthy wild horses from public lands in the West, pushing for proper enforcement of the federal law to stop the abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses at horse shows, and educating citizens about caring for horses. As with all animal issues, we hit the subjects from many angles, and work to prevent cruelty before it occurs.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Oil companies need to pay the full costs that oil spills have on wildlife and their habitat.
Today, after tens of thousands of wildlife activists like you spoke out against Shell Oil's proposal to drill in critical polar bear habitat, President Obama announced a 6 month moratorium on drilling in the Arctic Sea.
While this is a temporary reprieve for polar bears, the fight to address the impacts that oil spills already have on wildlife continues.
The snowy plover -- a beach-dwelling bird weighing only two ounces -- is one of the most at-risk species from the BP oil spill. Already threatened by habitat loss, the plover is now at risk from a poisoned food supply and contamination of its nesting grounds.
Tell your members of Congress that oil companies need to pay the full costs that oil spills have on wildlife and their habitat.
Tell Congress to take action »
Support our efforts »
Alert your friends »
Due to an outdated law, an oil company like BP is only responsible for up to $75 million of the costs to clean up one of the worst environmental disasters in American history.
But right now there's a bill before Congress that could change this. By raising the cap on oil company liabilities, it would ensure that companies like BP are held accountable to paying for the total costs of clean up.
Tell your senators to raise the cap on oil company liabilities, so that companies like BP are held responsible for the full cost of their actions.
For a company like BP, the current $75 million cap is less than one day's profit. The balance is passed on to you, the American taxpayer.
We can't put a price on imperiled wildlife like the snowy plover. But we can make sure that oil companies are held accountable for such catastrophes.
Tell your members of Congress to pass legislation that ensures that companies who cause environmental disasters pay the full cost for clean up.
While this is a temporary reprieve for polar bears, the fight to address the impacts that oil spills already have on wildlife continues.
The snowy plover -- a beach-dwelling bird weighing only two ounces -- is one of the most at-risk species from the BP oil spill. Already threatened by habitat loss, the plover is now at risk from a poisoned food supply and contamination of its nesting grounds.
Tell your members of Congress that oil companies need to pay the full costs that oil spills have on wildlife and their habitat.
Tell Congress to take action »
Support our efforts »
Alert your friends »
Due to an outdated law, an oil company like BP is only responsible for up to $75 million of the costs to clean up one of the worst environmental disasters in American history.
But right now there's a bill before Congress that could change this. By raising the cap on oil company liabilities, it would ensure that companies like BP are held accountable to paying for the total costs of clean up.
Tell your senators to raise the cap on oil company liabilities, so that companies like BP are held responsible for the full cost of their actions.
For a company like BP, the current $75 million cap is less than one day's profit. The balance is passed on to you, the American taxpayer.
We can't put a price on imperiled wildlife like the snowy plover. But we can make sure that oil companies are held accountable for such catastrophes.
Tell your members of Congress to pass legislation that ensures that companies who cause environmental disasters pay the full cost for clean up.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Be guided to a new life by actions you can perform to restore your body to it's healthiest state.
A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Bring Mom breakfast in bed with her favorite food and drink. Place a flower in a small vase next to a little book of poetry and a note that reads, "I have a superhero in my life. I call her Mom.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Be guided to a new life by actions you can perform to restore your body to it's healthiest state.
3 Steps to Fight Food Addiction
Do you feel like chocolate or cookies are calling your name, and once you start eating them, you just can't stop? It may not be a matter of self-control—you really may be addicted to certain foods.
A new study by the Scripps Research Institute published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found that eating too many high-calorie foods triggered addiction-like responses and led to compulsive overeating—in rats, though theoretically this behavior could also be attributed to humans.
What can you do if you fear you're addicted to junk food? Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., CMS, suggests these steps to help manage your food cravings:
1. Identify the problem foods.
2. Determine whether portion control or substitution with another food will be enough to satisfy you without triggering overeating.
3. Eliminate specific foods that trigger rather than satisfy.
A new study by the Scripps Research Institute published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found that eating too many high-calorie foods triggered addiction-like responses and led to compulsive overeating—in rats, though theoretically this behavior could also be attributed to humans.
What can you do if you fear you're addicted to junk food? Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., CMS, suggests these steps to help manage your food cravings:
1. Identify the problem foods.
2. Determine whether portion control or substitution with another food will be enough to satisfy you without triggering overeating.
3. Eliminate specific foods that trigger rather than satisfy.
JURY Duty Scam
JURY Duty Scam
DO NOT DELETE WITHOUT READING!
Pass this on to your grown children. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury DUTY coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen.
The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.
The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites , warning consumers about the fraud.
Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
Yep! It's true
Please make sure and pass this on!
DO NOT DELETE WITHOUT READING!
Pass this on to your grown children. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury DUTY coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen.
The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.
The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites , warning consumers about the fraud.
Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
Yep! It's true
Please make sure and pass this on!
To Save Our Nation Congress Must Pass Glass-Steagall and Shut Down Derivatives Now!
May 24, 2010 (LPAC)--Draft LPAC Resolution. LPACTV Videos and print quality PDF are also available.:
To Save Our Nation Congress Must Pass Glass-Steagall and Shut Down Derivatives Now!
WHEREAS, the leadership of the U.S. Senate has sabotaged the inclusion of the Cantwell-McCain Glass-Steagall amendment into the so-called financial reform bill, thus leaving our banking system vulnerable to the ongoing blowout of the world financial system, as such is anticipated by the current freeze-up of bank lending, and the 1000 point "flash" drop in the U.S. stock market; and
WHEREAS, that same leadership, under pressure from the Obama Administration and Wall St., has similarly removed any significant enforcement mechanism from that "reform" bill in respect to the trading of derivatives, and has given every indication, as of May 24, that they intend to remove the Lincoln amendment which imposes restrictions on banks' trading in derivatives, from the bill entirely during Conference discussions with the House of Representatives; and
WHEREAS, the re-imposition of the Constitutional Glass-Steagall principle that separates commercial from speculative banking, and the shutdown of the hundreds of trillions dollar derivatives casino—both measures which have been strongly promoted and supported by leading economist Lyndon LaRouche—are the indispensable, and inseparable, first steps for saving the U.S. economy, and creating the basis for the launching of a real economic recovery program based on massive infrastructure projects;
THEREFORE, be it resolved that ____________________ demands that Congress immediately act to pass the Cantwell-McCain Glass-Steagall amendment (or law), and to adopt measures which will lead to the shutdown of the derivatives market, starting with the Cantwell-Lincoln amendment to the Dodd bill.
To Save Our Nation Congress Must Pass Glass-Steagall and Shut Down Derivatives Now!
WHEREAS, the leadership of the U.S. Senate has sabotaged the inclusion of the Cantwell-McCain Glass-Steagall amendment into the so-called financial reform bill, thus leaving our banking system vulnerable to the ongoing blowout of the world financial system, as such is anticipated by the current freeze-up of bank lending, and the 1000 point "flash" drop in the U.S. stock market; and
WHEREAS, that same leadership, under pressure from the Obama Administration and Wall St., has similarly removed any significant enforcement mechanism from that "reform" bill in respect to the trading of derivatives, and has given every indication, as of May 24, that they intend to remove the Lincoln amendment which imposes restrictions on banks' trading in derivatives, from the bill entirely during Conference discussions with the House of Representatives; and
WHEREAS, the re-imposition of the Constitutional Glass-Steagall principle that separates commercial from speculative banking, and the shutdown of the hundreds of trillions dollar derivatives casino—both measures which have been strongly promoted and supported by leading economist Lyndon LaRouche—are the indispensable, and inseparable, first steps for saving the U.S. economy, and creating the basis for the launching of a real economic recovery program based on massive infrastructure projects;
THEREFORE, be it resolved that ____________________ demands that Congress immediately act to pass the Cantwell-McCain Glass-Steagall amendment (or law), and to adopt measures which will lead to the shutdown of the derivatives market, starting with the Cantwell-Lincoln amendment to the Dodd bill.
Disturbing Abuse Uncovered At Ohio Dairy Farm
Posted: 27 May 2010 11:56 AM PDT I have been traveling around Ohio the past few days with a half-dozen livestock farmers, who had assembled to speak out in favor of the ballot measure to ban some of the most inhumane and reckless practices in industrialized agribusiness. But the big news on the farm animal front in Ohio during the last 24 hours was the release of graphic and sickening video of dairy cow abuse at Conklin Dairy in Plain City.
An investigator with Mercy For Animals was hired by Conklin Dairy and recorded hidden camera video during a four-week undercover operation. The video shows several employees, including farm owner Gary Conklin, abusing cows for no apparent reason. A well-known farmer in central Ohio, Conklin is seen on the video repeatedly kicking a downer cow in the face. The most malicious acts in the video were conducted by Conklin Dairy employee Billy Joe Gregg, 25. Gregg not only body slammed and repeatedly and forcefully punched cows, but stabbed confined animals with pitchforks and ruthlessly struck them in the face with a metal bar. Gregg was seen on the video telling the investigator how much he loved beating the animals.
Gregg was taken into custody yesterday and arraigned this morning, facing 12 counts of animal cruelty. No charges have been brought as yet against the farm owner or the other employees, and presumably the farm is still operating. Gary Conklin issued a statement yesterday after the video came to light. "Our family takes the care of our cows and calves very seriously," Conklin said. "The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable." Conklin did not address his own apparent misconduct in the video.
The Ohio Department of Agriculture inspected the facility three times within the last year, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Officials said they did not witness any abuse and approved it as a “Grade A” facility, meaning that the milk can be sold commercially for any purpose.
Union County Sheriff Rocky Nelson told the Dispatch that the behavior he saw on the videotape was "vile and disgusting." "If there was a way this could be a felony charge, I would push for that," Nelson said.
Unfortunately, Ohio’s anti-cruelty law does not allow for felony-level charges for farm animal abuse, no matter how malicious the act. This is due to the lobbying influence of Ohio agribusiness interests.
Those same interests are fighting the Ohio ballot initiative to halt the abuse of downer cows, the strangulation of animals on the farm, and life-long confinement of veal calves, breeding sows, and laying hens in cages and crates barely larger than the animals’ bodies. Volunteers are now circulating the petition and have until June 29 to gather 402,000 signatures of registered voters in Ohio.
The farmers on the tour with me expressed their disgust for the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy. But they also spoke out against other forms of more routine cruelty within agribusiness, and called on the good people of Ohio to support this reform and return some level of responsible care and husbandry to the practice of animal agriculture.
An investigator with Mercy For Animals was hired by Conklin Dairy and recorded hidden camera video during a four-week undercover operation. The video shows several employees, including farm owner Gary Conklin, abusing cows for no apparent reason. A well-known farmer in central Ohio, Conklin is seen on the video repeatedly kicking a downer cow in the face. The most malicious acts in the video were conducted by Conklin Dairy employee Billy Joe Gregg, 25. Gregg not only body slammed and repeatedly and forcefully punched cows, but stabbed confined animals with pitchforks and ruthlessly struck them in the face with a metal bar. Gregg was seen on the video telling the investigator how much he loved beating the animals.
Gregg was taken into custody yesterday and arraigned this morning, facing 12 counts of animal cruelty. No charges have been brought as yet against the farm owner or the other employees, and presumably the farm is still operating. Gary Conklin issued a statement yesterday after the video came to light. "Our family takes the care of our cows and calves very seriously," Conklin said. "The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable." Conklin did not address his own apparent misconduct in the video.
The Ohio Department of Agriculture inspected the facility three times within the last year, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Officials said they did not witness any abuse and approved it as a “Grade A” facility, meaning that the milk can be sold commercially for any purpose.
Union County Sheriff Rocky Nelson told the Dispatch that the behavior he saw on the videotape was "vile and disgusting." "If there was a way this could be a felony charge, I would push for that," Nelson said.
Unfortunately, Ohio’s anti-cruelty law does not allow for felony-level charges for farm animal abuse, no matter how malicious the act. This is due to the lobbying influence of Ohio agribusiness interests.
Those same interests are fighting the Ohio ballot initiative to halt the abuse of downer cows, the strangulation of animals on the farm, and life-long confinement of veal calves, breeding sows, and laying hens in cages and crates barely larger than the animals’ bodies. Volunteers are now circulating the petition and have until June 29 to gather 402,000 signatures of registered voters in Ohio.
The farmers on the tour with me expressed their disgust for the abuses documented at Conklin Dairy. But they also spoke out against other forms of more routine cruelty within agribusiness, and called on the good people of Ohio to support this reform and return some level of responsible care and husbandry to the practice of animal agriculture.
In the wake of the largest oil spill in U.S. history, President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today took an important step toward preventing the next offshore oil disaster – one that could jeapordize the survival of America's already fragile polar bear population.
Around noon Eastern Time, the president announced a moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea – offering these majestic Arctic hunters a much-needed reprieve from Shell Oil’s dangerous drilling scheme in key polar bear habitat.
Over the last few weeks, caring Defenders supporters like you sent more than 118,000 messages to President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (who oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service).
Today, your hard work paid off, as President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar acknowledged the very serious threat that drilling activities pose to the sensitive ecosystems that sustain the Chukchi’s polar bears, bowhead whales and other wildlife.
Defenders’ senior marine policy advisor Richard Charter put it best in a statement to the press earlier today:
“President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar should be commended for suspending Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean this summer. The Arctic environment absolutely could not stand an oil spill like the one we're now seeing in the Gulf of Mexico -- any spill, in fact, would have devastating effects on Arctic wildlife, and it’s clear that we couldn’t clean it up.
Please read our statement and learn more about this important victory for polar bears.
Today’s announcement by the Obama administration is a HUGE victory in our fight to prevent the next offshore oil disaster, but make no mistake: our fight is from over.
Defenders of Wildlife will continue to push for a broader, more permanent ban on dangerous offshore drilling activities that threaten our wildlife. We will continue our on-the-ground work to save the lives of sea turtles and other wildlife threatened by the Gulf offshore oil disaster.
And we will keep fighting to ensure accountability in government agencies charged with overseeing drilling permits and hold BP accountable for the catastrophic ecological damage that their negligence has caused in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.
There will be plenty of work to do to protect and restore our natural treasures in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. But, for the moment, please accept my sincere thanks for taking the time to make a difference for our polar bears.
For the Wild Ones,
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Executive Vice President
Defenders of Wildlife
Around noon Eastern Time, the president announced a moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea – offering these majestic Arctic hunters a much-needed reprieve from Shell Oil’s dangerous drilling scheme in key polar bear habitat.
Over the last few weeks, caring Defenders supporters like you sent more than 118,000 messages to President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke (who oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service).
Today, your hard work paid off, as President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar acknowledged the very serious threat that drilling activities pose to the sensitive ecosystems that sustain the Chukchi’s polar bears, bowhead whales and other wildlife.
Defenders’ senior marine policy advisor Richard Charter put it best in a statement to the press earlier today:
“President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar should be commended for suspending Shell's plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean this summer. The Arctic environment absolutely could not stand an oil spill like the one we're now seeing in the Gulf of Mexico -- any spill, in fact, would have devastating effects on Arctic wildlife, and it’s clear that we couldn’t clean it up.
Please read our statement and learn more about this important victory for polar bears.
Today’s announcement by the Obama administration is a HUGE victory in our fight to prevent the next offshore oil disaster, but make no mistake: our fight is from over.
Defenders of Wildlife will continue to push for a broader, more permanent ban on dangerous offshore drilling activities that threaten our wildlife. We will continue our on-the-ground work to save the lives of sea turtles and other wildlife threatened by the Gulf offshore oil disaster.
And we will keep fighting to ensure accountability in government agencies charged with overseeing drilling permits and hold BP accountable for the catastrophic ecological damage that their negligence has caused in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.
There will be plenty of work to do to protect and restore our natural treasures in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. But, for the moment, please accept my sincere thanks for taking the time to make a difference for our polar bears.
For the Wild Ones,
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Executive Vice President
Defenders of Wildlife
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
By loving and caring for yourself, you can care more for others. Silently repeat, 'May I be well, may I be peaceful, may I be happy,' until you are!"
What The Heck's A Vision Board—and How Can It Change Your Life?
Step One: Cut out pictures of things you love. Step Two: Paste them onto paper. Step Three: Realize your life's ambition? Well...sort of. Martha Beck on the right way to use a vision board.
Since childhood, I've had a vivid recurring dream in which I can move objects without touching them. When I awaken from the dream, I can't believe it isn't true. For hours I'll glare at objects—starting with cars or furniture, gradually lowering my sights to scraps of Kleenex—incredulous that I can't move stuff with my mind.
Except that now I can.
A friend just gave me a gizmo called Mindflex, a game that includes a magnificently dorky-looking headset, a console, and a little foam ball. The headset transmits your brain's electrical activity to a fan in the console that blows the ball into the air. By thinking different thoughts, you control the fan, and thus the altitude of the ball.
The fact that this works delights but doesn't surprise me. The discoveries of physicist Werner Heisenberg, not to mention my recurring dream, long ago convinced me that the mind influences physical matter. If Heisenberg's work is unfamiliar, let me translate the theory into Californian: "Consciousness can shape reality."
This oversimplification makes my brain wince...which moves the Mindflex ball, confirming for me that the New Age ideal of mental magic—the notion that thoughts can create reality—is kinda, sorta supported by evidence. My goal is to teach you how to use one aspect of that magic, something indubitably cheesy but surprisingly effective. I'm talking about a vision board.
All the Pretty Pictures
Next to the Mindflex on my desk is a photo box containing many images I've torn from magazines. I plan to glue them all to one large piece of butcher paper. The resulting collage will be a vision board; its purpose, to depict (and lead me to) my desired future. This whole process makes me roll my eyes—as I was trained to do over the course of my very rationalist education—but damn if it doesn't work.
Sometimes.
I've made several vision boards that bombed out, and some that were so successful that the hairs on the nape of my neck prickled for months. Years ago I glued up a headline that said MAKING AFRICA WELL. I thought it was a joke—oh, sure, like I could do that—never expecting that a few years later I'd be invited to speak in Africa and while there meet folks who are healing African ecosystems. Suddenly, I found myself volunteering to work with them.
The trick to making a vision board
I've discovered there's a trick to making a vision board that brings forth such improbable coincidences. It starts with avoiding common pitfalls that result in faulty, inoperative models. Many people hear the basic instructions—"Find pictures of things you want in your life and stick 'em where you can see 'em"—and create virtually identical collages: a wad of cash, a handsome husband, a gorgeous body, a luxury car, a tropical beach.
Snore. These images constitute our culture's idea of the good life. Even a rich, happily married beauty queen with a Porsche in the driveway and a house on the ocean will crank out this same damn vision board. This has no juice at all. To really work, a vision board has to come not from your culture but from your primordial, nonsocial self—the genetically unique animal/angel that contains your innate preferences.
When you start assembling pictures that appeal to this deep self, you unleash one of the most powerful forces on our planet: human imagination. Virtually everything humans use, do, or make exists because someone thought it up. Sparking your incredibly powerful creative faculty is the reason you make a vision board. The board itself doesn't impact reality; what changes your life is the process of creating the images—combinations of objects and events that will stick in your subconscious mind and steer your choices toward making the vision real.
Vision Board 101
I've known for some time that staring at objects while holding pictures in my head makes reality oddly responsive. I was persuaded of this by two events so striking and improbable that I'll describe them to you in some detail. Both occurred while I was illustrating a children's book, which was never published because: (1) My animal/angel didn't really want to create it; (2) I got tired after doing about 25 percent of the illustrations; and (3) the book basically sucked.
Anyway, one illustration I did finish depicted a startled elephant. I wanted to paint it from a child's perspective, with the pachyderm rearing back, lifting one front leg, raising its trunk, and opening its eyes and mouth in surprise. I had no photographs that showed this scenario, and it wasn't the easiest thing to imagine. So I went to a circus, found an elephant who seemed to be parked in neutral, crouched down in front of him, and squinted, imagining what he'd look like with his leg lifted and his trunk raised. The elephant looked back at me...and adopted precisely the pose I was picturing. He remained in this awkward position for several minutes as I scribbled a sketch.
Just days later, I was working on another illustration involving parrots (this children's book was set in post-genocide Cambodia—what fun for kids!). In the midst of my research, I learned to my surprise that there was a species of parrot indigenous to my own turf in Arizona. I stared at these parrots in my bird book, wishing that one day I could see a living specimen. At that moment, I swear to God, I heard a scratchy thump, and three rare parrots landed on the window screen less than a yard from my face.
That's when I began believing that animals respond to intense visual images held in the human imagination. So does my Mindflex, and perhaps even complex phenomena like one's love life or career. I also noticed that the mental state that produced the elephant and parrot miracles was very different from the hankering I directed at my usual goals. And I've come to realize that you need to get into that mind-space if you want your vision board to work for you like a short-order cook hopped up on Red Bull. Here's how to do it....
Step 1: Please Your Animal
Step 1: Please Your Animal.
There are two basic procedures involved in creating an effective vision board. First, instead of cogitating about familiar images, scout for the unfamiliar. Your mind can't do this. Your animal/angel self can. Just page through a magazine (and walk through the world) noticing things that trigger physical reactions: a heart thump, a double take, a gasp.
The only responses involved should resemble these:
"Ooooh!"
"Aaaahhhhh."
"Whoa!"
"!!!!"
"????"
These "thoughts" register in your stomach, your heart, your lungs—anywhere but your head. You can't produce them in response to cultural clichés or abstract ideas. Nor can you always know why your body reacts to an image. Wondering, then finding out, is one of the most delicious things about assembling a vision board.
For example, as I rummage through my current collection of images, my body is utterly unmoved by photos of mansions or designer clothing. What interests it are pictures of an abstract sculpture, a dried leaf, and (overwhelmingly) a map on which the migratory route of the springbok antelope is shown in red. !!!! Go figure.
Though it makes no logical sense, I know from experience that gluing these pictures on one big page will begin catalyzing something beyond my mind's capacity to calculate or conceptualize. If you're not already accumulating images that rock your socks, stay alert. Whenever you find them, filch them.
Step 2: Let Go Mentally and Emotionally.
Most folks master Step 1 easily, gathering new and interesting images by the bushel. It's like making the Mindflex ball go up: You stare at the ball and picture it rising. Powered by the output of electricity from your brain, the fan starts to blow, et voilà ! Up goes the ball. You do this with focused, intense thinking—something you're almost always engaged in.
Step 2 of making a vision board requires something trickier: not thinking. This is the counterintuitive process that makes the Mindflex ball descend. To do it you must relax completely and let your mind go blank. You don't concentrate on the result you want—i.e., the ball going down. In fact, you concentrate on not concentrating. Slowly the fan decreases speed and the ball begins to drop.
This is exactly what you should do once you've created a vision board. Stop thinking about it. Lose it. Recycle it. The biggest mistake aspiring reality creators make (aside from that predictable cash/tropical island collage) is continuing to push something they've already set in motion. You've felt the repellent energy of salespeople desperate to hook you—it makes you sprint away so fast, you cause sonic booms. Don't use that results-oriented energy.
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving
Anecdotes about vision board success always include statements like "Then I forgot all about it until the very moment, years later, when I found myself standing on the Champs-Elysées, holding that exact plaid umbrella!" The key phrase is "forgot all about it." The purpose of the vision board is to focus your attention—briefly. After that, the less mental strain you feel, the sooner good things will happen. That initial intense focus helps us create "search images," and by relaxing, we increase our chances of noticing the things we seek. Then it's time for the trickiest step of all....
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving.
Making a vision board is not a substitute for elbow grease. Magical cocreator or not, you still have to do stuff. For example, I want to be better at social media—you know, all that Faceplace Twootle Googler stuff. So I put a headline on my vision board: SOCIAL MEDIA GENIUS. I tried reading blog posts and signing up for all sorts of new online accounts, but I was making zero progress. Two weeks later, I was working on my laptop in a bookstore when a man with a kind face asked me if I liked my computer. He turned out to be a social media specialist and an extremely nice guy, and I hired him to be my social media genius. He's brilliant, he's motivating, and he's kicking my ass, teaching me how to accomplish my goals. I wanted the Force to give me fish; instead, it sent an expert fisherman to teach me.
This is the zone of reality creation: regularly picturing delights that don't yet exist, emotionally detaching from them, and jumping into action when it's time to help the miracles occur. I'm barely learning this, to be (in T.S. Eliot's words) "still and still moving." But in the moments I get it right, every step I take seems to be matched by a universal mystery, which obligingly, incredibly, creates what I can't.
So that's my 411 on vision boards, but please, don't believe me. Try it yourself. Do it as a lark, a hobby, a physics experiment (though calling it that may cause Werner Heisenberg to spin in his grave like an Olympic ice dancer). While you're oohing and aahing, cutting and gluing, I'll be wearing my fabulous headset, making the Mindflex ball follow my mental orders like my tiny foam bitch. If you happen to know I'm dreaming, please don't wake me.
See the vision board Martha Beck made here on Oprah.com—and get started on yours today
Martha Beck is the author of six books, including Expecting Adam (Berkley) and Steering by Starlight (Rodale).
More Martha: 10 life lessons you may need to un-learn
Step One: Cut out pictures of things you love. Step Two: Paste them onto paper. Step Three: Realize your life's ambition? Well...sort of. Martha Beck on the right way to use a vision board.
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Since childhood, I've had a vivid recurring dream in which I can move objects without touching them. When I awaken from the dream, I can't believe it isn't true. For hours I'll glare at objects—starting with cars or furniture, gradually lowering my sights to scraps of Kleenex—incredulous that I can't move stuff with my mind.
Except that now I can.
A friend just gave me a gizmo called Mindflex, a game that includes a magnificently dorky-looking headset, a console, and a little foam ball. The headset transmits your brain's electrical activity to a fan in the console that blows the ball into the air. By thinking different thoughts, you control the fan, and thus the altitude of the ball.
The fact that this works delights but doesn't surprise me. The discoveries of physicist Werner Heisenberg, not to mention my recurring dream, long ago convinced me that the mind influences physical matter. If Heisenberg's work is unfamiliar, let me translate the theory into Californian: "Consciousness can shape reality."
This oversimplification makes my brain wince...which moves the Mindflex ball, confirming for me that the New Age ideal of mental magic—the notion that thoughts can create reality—is kinda, sorta supported by evidence. My goal is to teach you how to use one aspect of that magic, something indubitably cheesy but surprisingly effective. I'm talking about a vision board.
All the Pretty Pictures
Next to the Mindflex on my desk is a photo box containing many images I've torn from magazines. I plan to glue them all to one large piece of butcher paper. The resulting collage will be a vision board; its purpose, to depict (and lead me to) my desired future. This whole process makes me roll my eyes—as I was trained to do over the course of my very rationalist education—but damn if it doesn't work.
Sometimes.
I've made several vision boards that bombed out, and some that were so successful that the hairs on the nape of my neck prickled for months. Years ago I glued up a headline that said MAKING AFRICA WELL. I thought it was a joke—oh, sure, like I could do that—never expecting that a few years later I'd be invited to speak in Africa and while there meet folks who are healing African ecosystems. Suddenly, I found myself volunteering to work with them.
The trick to making a vision board
I've discovered there's a trick to making a vision board that brings forth such improbable coincidences. It starts with avoiding common pitfalls that result in faulty, inoperative models. Many people hear the basic instructions—"Find pictures of things you want in your life and stick 'em where you can see 'em"—and create virtually identical collages: a wad of cash, a handsome husband, a gorgeous body, a luxury car, a tropical beach.
Snore. These images constitute our culture's idea of the good life. Even a rich, happily married beauty queen with a Porsche in the driveway and a house on the ocean will crank out this same damn vision board. This has no juice at all. To really work, a vision board has to come not from your culture but from your primordial, nonsocial self—the genetically unique animal/angel that contains your innate preferences.
When you start assembling pictures that appeal to this deep self, you unleash one of the most powerful forces on our planet: human imagination. Virtually everything humans use, do, or make exists because someone thought it up. Sparking your incredibly powerful creative faculty is the reason you make a vision board. The board itself doesn't impact reality; what changes your life is the process of creating the images—combinations of objects and events that will stick in your subconscious mind and steer your choices toward making the vision real.
Vision Board 101
I've known for some time that staring at objects while holding pictures in my head makes reality oddly responsive. I was persuaded of this by two events so striking and improbable that I'll describe them to you in some detail. Both occurred while I was illustrating a children's book, which was never published because: (1) My animal/angel didn't really want to create it; (2) I got tired after doing about 25 percent of the illustrations; and (3) the book basically sucked.
Anyway, one illustration I did finish depicted a startled elephant. I wanted to paint it from a child's perspective, with the pachyderm rearing back, lifting one front leg, raising its trunk, and opening its eyes and mouth in surprise. I had no photographs that showed this scenario, and it wasn't the easiest thing to imagine. So I went to a circus, found an elephant who seemed to be parked in neutral, crouched down in front of him, and squinted, imagining what he'd look like with his leg lifted and his trunk raised. The elephant looked back at me...and adopted precisely the pose I was picturing. He remained in this awkward position for several minutes as I scribbled a sketch.
Just days later, I was working on another illustration involving parrots (this children's book was set in post-genocide Cambodia—what fun for kids!). In the midst of my research, I learned to my surprise that there was a species of parrot indigenous to my own turf in Arizona. I stared at these parrots in my bird book, wishing that one day I could see a living specimen. At that moment, I swear to God, I heard a scratchy thump, and three rare parrots landed on the window screen less than a yard from my face.
That's when I began believing that animals respond to intense visual images held in the human imagination. So does my Mindflex, and perhaps even complex phenomena like one's love life or career. I also noticed that the mental state that produced the elephant and parrot miracles was very different from the hankering I directed at my usual goals. And I've come to realize that you need to get into that mind-space if you want your vision board to work for you like a short-order cook hopped up on Red Bull. Here's how to do it....
Step 1: Please Your Animal
Step 1: Please Your Animal.
There are two basic procedures involved in creating an effective vision board. First, instead of cogitating about familiar images, scout for the unfamiliar. Your mind can't do this. Your animal/angel self can. Just page through a magazine (and walk through the world) noticing things that trigger physical reactions: a heart thump, a double take, a gasp.
The only responses involved should resemble these:
"Ooooh!"
"Aaaahhhhh."
"Whoa!"
"!!!!"
"????"
These "thoughts" register in your stomach, your heart, your lungs—anywhere but your head. You can't produce them in response to cultural clichés or abstract ideas. Nor can you always know why your body reacts to an image. Wondering, then finding out, is one of the most delicious things about assembling a vision board.
For example, as I rummage through my current collection of images, my body is utterly unmoved by photos of mansions or designer clothing. What interests it are pictures of an abstract sculpture, a dried leaf, and (overwhelmingly) a map on which the migratory route of the springbok antelope is shown in red. !!!! Go figure.
Though it makes no logical sense, I know from experience that gluing these pictures on one big page will begin catalyzing something beyond my mind's capacity to calculate or conceptualize. If you're not already accumulating images that rock your socks, stay alert. Whenever you find them, filch them.
Step 2: Let Go Mentally and Emotionally.
Most folks master Step 1 easily, gathering new and interesting images by the bushel. It's like making the Mindflex ball go up: You stare at the ball and picture it rising. Powered by the output of electricity from your brain, the fan starts to blow, et voilà ! Up goes the ball. You do this with focused, intense thinking—something you're almost always engaged in.
Step 2 of making a vision board requires something trickier: not thinking. This is the counterintuitive process that makes the Mindflex ball descend. To do it you must relax completely and let your mind go blank. You don't concentrate on the result you want—i.e., the ball going down. In fact, you concentrate on not concentrating. Slowly the fan decreases speed and the ball begins to drop.
This is exactly what you should do once you've created a vision board. Stop thinking about it. Lose it. Recycle it. The biggest mistake aspiring reality creators make (aside from that predictable cash/tropical island collage) is continuing to push something they've already set in motion. You've felt the repellent energy of salespeople desperate to hook you—it makes you sprint away so fast, you cause sonic booms. Don't use that results-oriented energy.
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving
Anecdotes about vision board success always include statements like "Then I forgot all about it until the very moment, years later, when I found myself standing on the Champs-Elysées, holding that exact plaid umbrella!" The key phrase is "forgot all about it." The purpose of the vision board is to focus your attention—briefly. After that, the less mental strain you feel, the sooner good things will happen. That initial intense focus helps us create "search images," and by relaxing, we increase our chances of noticing the things we seek. Then it's time for the trickiest step of all....
Step 3: Be Still and Still Moving.
Making a vision board is not a substitute for elbow grease. Magical cocreator or not, you still have to do stuff. For example, I want to be better at social media—you know, all that Faceplace Twootle Googler stuff. So I put a headline on my vision board: SOCIAL MEDIA GENIUS. I tried reading blog posts and signing up for all sorts of new online accounts, but I was making zero progress. Two weeks later, I was working on my laptop in a bookstore when a man with a kind face asked me if I liked my computer. He turned out to be a social media specialist and an extremely nice guy, and I hired him to be my social media genius. He's brilliant, he's motivating, and he's kicking my ass, teaching me how to accomplish my goals. I wanted the Force to give me fish; instead, it sent an expert fisherman to teach me.
This is the zone of reality creation: regularly picturing delights that don't yet exist, emotionally detaching from them, and jumping into action when it's time to help the miracles occur. I'm barely learning this, to be (in T.S. Eliot's words) "still and still moving." But in the moments I get it right, every step I take seems to be matched by a universal mystery, which obligingly, incredibly, creates what I can't.
So that's my 411 on vision boards, but please, don't believe me. Try it yourself. Do it as a lark, a hobby, a physics experiment (though calling it that may cause Werner Heisenberg to spin in his grave like an Olympic ice dancer). While you're oohing and aahing, cutting and gluing, I'll be wearing my fabulous headset, making the Mindflex ball follow my mental orders like my tiny foam bitch. If you happen to know I'm dreaming, please don't wake me.
See the vision board Martha Beck made here on Oprah.com—and get started on yours today
Martha Beck is the author of six books, including Expecting Adam (Berkley) and Steering by Starlight (Rodale).
More Martha: 10 life lessons you may need to un-learn
Step One: Cut out pictures of things you love. Step Two: Paste them onto paper. Step Three: Realize your life's ambition? Well...sort of. Martha Beck on the right way to use a vision board.
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
We should no longer allow a mother to be defined as 'just a mom.' It is on her back that great nations are built. We should no longer allow any woman's voice to be drowned out or disregarded. As we affirm other women, and as we teach our sons, husbands and friends to hold them in the highest regard, we honor both the mothers whose shoulders we've stood on and the daughters who will one day stand tall on ours.
Federal Audit, Lawmakers Spotlight Puppy Mill Problems
Posted: 26 May 2010 01:32 PM PDT
There’s long overdue action on the issue of puppy mills, and the issue got some much-needed attention yesterday from the federal government. Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and David Vitter (R-La.) took a big step in their effort to crack down on these abusive mass-breeding facilities by introducing the PUPS Act (Puppy Uniform Protection Statute, S. 3424)—legislation that would close a massive loophole in the Animal Welfare Act that currently allows large, commercial breeders who sell puppies online and directly to the public to escape licensing, regulation, and inspection. A companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced by Reps. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Bill Young (R-Fla.) within the next day or two.
The legislation came right on the heels of the release of a damning report by the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the law enforcement arm of the agency, that criticized the USDA’s long history of lax oversight of commercial dog breeders (identified as dealers in the report) under the Animal Welfare Act. The report reviewed inspections and enforcement actions taken against dog dealers from 2006-2008 and found that USDA inspectors failed to cite or properly document inhumane treatment and brought little to no enforcement actions against violators. OIG observed horrible conditions at dog facilities inspected by the USDA, including dogs needing medical treatment, dogs covered in ticks, starving dogs who had resorted to eating dogs who had already died, and dogs who had swarms of cockroaches and insects crawling through their food bowls. The USDA responded to the violations by taking little or no enforcement action, according to the report, and even failed to confiscate suffering or dying animals.
The HSUS
Dogs at a Missouri puppy mill.
From the report: "At the re-inspection of 4,250 violators, inspectors found that 2,416 repeatedly violated AWA [the Animal Welfare Act], including some that ignored minimum care standards. Therefore, relying heavily on education for serious or repeat violators—without an appropriate level of enforcement—weakened the agency’s ability to protect the animals."
Of course, The HSUS has been saying for years that the USDA has historically allowed puppy mills to violate the law without fear of any kind of aggressive enforcement actions. Last week, I was pleased to hear the Obama administration publicly announce that the USDA would take a tougher stance on Animal Welfare Act enforcement, by conducting more inspections and imposing higher fines. We’re glad to hear it, and we're grateful to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for stepping up the enforcement actions.
The report also highlighted how some large dog dealers are escaping USDA oversight because they sell dogs over the Internet or directly to the public, and the OIG recommended legislative change to require that all applicable breeders selling through the Internet be regulated under the Animal Welfare Act. The USDA’s own interpretation of the term “retail pet store” provided these puppy millers an exemption—something battled out in court and ultimately left to the agency’s discretion. Many of the puppy mill raids The HSUS has assisted on over the last several years have been at such facilities, so we’ve seen firsthand how much this legislation is needed. The USDA has now agreed to this recommendation and we hope Congress will soon take action by passing the PUPS Act.
In response to pressure from their constituents and in the interest of addressing animal cruelty, legislators in many states have also stepped up to pass laws and regulations to protect dogs at these facilities. Just this year, Oklahoma and Iowa, the second- and third-largest puppy mill states, respectively, behind Missouri, passed legislation to crack down on puppy mills. And our efforts are moving forward in Missouri to put the issue on the ballot there this November. Not all states have laws regulating commercial dog breeders though, so it’s essential that the USDA aggressively enforce the law.
Of course, at the heart of the puppy mill issue is consumer education, something The HSUS has worked on for decades. “We only use USDA-licensed breeders” is one of the common but hollow assurances pet store staff give when pushing puppy mill puppies on the sales floor. What The HSUS has long noted is that a puppy mill inspected by the USDA is still a puppy mill. Dogs kept for breeding still suffer for years on end in tiny cages and have almost zero hope of having a loving home of their own. This point was underscored just last week on "Animal Planet Investigates: Petland," a one-hour special about The HSUS's investigation into the nation's largest retail supporter of puppy mills.
Yesterday’s report and legislative introduction should serve as a warning to all those who protect this dubious industry—from “kennel clubs” to pet stores to lobbying front groups who claim to care about purebred dog breeding, but in fact only care about how much money they can make peddling loads of puppies. Your days of abusing dogs for profit while snubbing the laws of this country and many states are coming to an end.
There’s long overdue action on the issue of puppy mills, and the issue got some much-needed attention yesterday from the federal government. Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and David Vitter (R-La.) took a big step in their effort to crack down on these abusive mass-breeding facilities by introducing the PUPS Act (Puppy Uniform Protection Statute, S. 3424)—legislation that would close a massive loophole in the Animal Welfare Act that currently allows large, commercial breeders who sell puppies online and directly to the public to escape licensing, regulation, and inspection. A companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced by Reps. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Bill Young (R-Fla.) within the next day or two.
The legislation came right on the heels of the release of a damning report by the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the law enforcement arm of the agency, that criticized the USDA’s long history of lax oversight of commercial dog breeders (identified as dealers in the report) under the Animal Welfare Act. The report reviewed inspections and enforcement actions taken against dog dealers from 2006-2008 and found that USDA inspectors failed to cite or properly document inhumane treatment and brought little to no enforcement actions against violators. OIG observed horrible conditions at dog facilities inspected by the USDA, including dogs needing medical treatment, dogs covered in ticks, starving dogs who had resorted to eating dogs who had already died, and dogs who had swarms of cockroaches and insects crawling through their food bowls. The USDA responded to the violations by taking little or no enforcement action, according to the report, and even failed to confiscate suffering or dying animals.
The HSUS
Dogs at a Missouri puppy mill.
From the report: "At the re-inspection of 4,250 violators, inspectors found that 2,416 repeatedly violated AWA [the Animal Welfare Act], including some that ignored minimum care standards. Therefore, relying heavily on education for serious or repeat violators—without an appropriate level of enforcement—weakened the agency’s ability to protect the animals."
Of course, The HSUS has been saying for years that the USDA has historically allowed puppy mills to violate the law without fear of any kind of aggressive enforcement actions. Last week, I was pleased to hear the Obama administration publicly announce that the USDA would take a tougher stance on Animal Welfare Act enforcement, by conducting more inspections and imposing higher fines. We’re glad to hear it, and we're grateful to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for stepping up the enforcement actions.
The report also highlighted how some large dog dealers are escaping USDA oversight because they sell dogs over the Internet or directly to the public, and the OIG recommended legislative change to require that all applicable breeders selling through the Internet be regulated under the Animal Welfare Act. The USDA’s own interpretation of the term “retail pet store” provided these puppy millers an exemption—something battled out in court and ultimately left to the agency’s discretion. Many of the puppy mill raids The HSUS has assisted on over the last several years have been at such facilities, so we’ve seen firsthand how much this legislation is needed. The USDA has now agreed to this recommendation and we hope Congress will soon take action by passing the PUPS Act.
In response to pressure from their constituents and in the interest of addressing animal cruelty, legislators in many states have also stepped up to pass laws and regulations to protect dogs at these facilities. Just this year, Oklahoma and Iowa, the second- and third-largest puppy mill states, respectively, behind Missouri, passed legislation to crack down on puppy mills. And our efforts are moving forward in Missouri to put the issue on the ballot there this November. Not all states have laws regulating commercial dog breeders though, so it’s essential that the USDA aggressively enforce the law.
Of course, at the heart of the puppy mill issue is consumer education, something The HSUS has worked on for decades. “We only use USDA-licensed breeders” is one of the common but hollow assurances pet store staff give when pushing puppy mill puppies on the sales floor. What The HSUS has long noted is that a puppy mill inspected by the USDA is still a puppy mill. Dogs kept for breeding still suffer for years on end in tiny cages and have almost zero hope of having a loving home of their own. This point was underscored just last week on "Animal Planet Investigates: Petland," a one-hour special about The HSUS's investigation into the nation's largest retail supporter of puppy mills.
Yesterday’s report and legislative introduction should serve as a warning to all those who protect this dubious industry—from “kennel clubs” to pet stores to lobbying front groups who claim to care about purebred dog breeding, but in fact only care about how much money they can make peddling loads of puppies. Your days of abusing dogs for profit while snubbing the laws of this country and many states are coming to an end.
A New Trick for Losing Weight
We all know that losing weight is a simple equation (at least on paper): Burn more calories than you take in. The problem is that we often don't know how many calories we're taking in. Counting them up and sticking to a strict limit can be a huge pain for many people who want to lose weight.
iVillage contributor Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., CNS, has a unique strategy for cutting down on the calories: reverse calorie counting. Here's how it works:
Keep a food log for a week, recording all of the foods and drinks you consume.
Subtract some calories every day depending on how much weight you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. For instance, if you subtract 500 calories a day, you'll lose a pound a week. If you subtract 250 calories a day, you'll lose about two pounds a month.
The idea is that instead of adding up the amount of calories you're eating, you're "trimming down" the number. Try it out and see how it works for you!
iVillage contributor Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., CNS, has a unique strategy for cutting down on the calories: reverse calorie counting. Here's how it works:
Keep a food log for a week, recording all of the foods and drinks you consume.
Subtract some calories every day depending on how much weight you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. For instance, if you subtract 500 calories a day, you'll lose a pound a week. If you subtract 250 calories a day, you'll lose about two pounds a month.
The idea is that instead of adding up the amount of calories you're eating, you're "trimming down" the number. Try it out and see how it works for you!
There’s a time bomb in the frigid waters of the Chukchi Sea off Alaska
There’s a time bomb in the frigid waters of the Chukchi Sea off Alaska. And, unless you and I can defuse it, America’s threatened polar bears could pay the ultimate price.
In less than one week, drill ships are expected to leave the Philippines on track to Alaska to start operations in the Chukchi. On July 1st, Shell Oil hopes to begin their dangerous exploratory drilling operations in the Chukchi, raising the specter of another offshore drilling disaster like the one now threatening wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.
Help us stop an Arctic offshore oil disaster and save polar bears, bowhead whales, walrus and other Arctic wildlife. Urge President Obama, Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to stop Shell’s dirty drilling plan now.
On Friday, President Obama’s 30-day moratorium on new offshore drilling activities will expire, opening the door to new exploratory drilling in the Chukchi. Even before BP stops the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration appears poised to let Shell begin their operations in the Chukchi.
It’s outrageous.
These Arctic waters are vital habitat for America’s vanishing polar bear populations and other Arctic wildlife, and an oil spill in the Chukchi could spell disaster for these beloved bears.
Speak out for polar bears. Send your message now.
For much of the year, the Chukchi Sea is a vast expanse of broken sea ice, sub-zero temperatures, extended storms and continuous darkness.No effective, proven technology exists to clean up oil spills in such conditions.
Coated in oil, a polar bear’s fur loses its ability to insulate, and these mighty Arctic hunters can actually freeze to death. Ingesting oil by trying to clean themselves can lead to kidney failure. And a significant oil spill in the Chukchi could decimate the ringed and bearded seals and other marine animals that polar bears survive on, causing bears to starve.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take a catastrophe the size of the Gulf oil disaster to devastate our polar bears.
Drilling operations break up the sea ice that polar bears need to hunt for food. Without it, they can drown or starve to death. And the noise and disruption from the operations can cause polar bear mothers to abandon their cubs. Without a mother, cubs have little chance of survival.
Take action now. Tell President Obama and Secretaries Salazar and Locke to stop Shell’s polar bear-threatening plans.
With as many as seventy thousand barrels of oil -- and perhaps even more -- are still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, [1] the dangers of this type of offshore drilling are clear. Incredibly, Shell Oil still plans to move forward with their dangerous drilling schemes, even in the face of this unprecedented environmental catastrophe.
In fact, the same federal Minerals Management Service that approved BP’s ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well, has also been criticized by the Government Accounting Office for its handling of the Shell permits.[2]
It’s up to us to stand up for polar bears and other wildlife by telling President Obama, and Secretaries Salazar and Locke to stop Shell’s dangerous drilling plans in the Chukchi. Please take action right now.
For the Wild Ones,
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Executive Vice President
Defenders of Wildlife
In less than one week, drill ships are expected to leave the Philippines on track to Alaska to start operations in the Chukchi. On July 1st, Shell Oil hopes to begin their dangerous exploratory drilling operations in the Chukchi, raising the specter of another offshore drilling disaster like the one now threatening wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.
Help us stop an Arctic offshore oil disaster and save polar bears, bowhead whales, walrus and other Arctic wildlife. Urge President Obama, Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to stop Shell’s dirty drilling plan now.
On Friday, President Obama’s 30-day moratorium on new offshore drilling activities will expire, opening the door to new exploratory drilling in the Chukchi. Even before BP stops the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration appears poised to let Shell begin their operations in the Chukchi.
It’s outrageous.
These Arctic waters are vital habitat for America’s vanishing polar bear populations and other Arctic wildlife, and an oil spill in the Chukchi could spell disaster for these beloved bears.
Speak out for polar bears. Send your message now.
For much of the year, the Chukchi Sea is a vast expanse of broken sea ice, sub-zero temperatures, extended storms and continuous darkness.No effective, proven technology exists to clean up oil spills in such conditions.
Coated in oil, a polar bear’s fur loses its ability to insulate, and these mighty Arctic hunters can actually freeze to death. Ingesting oil by trying to clean themselves can lead to kidney failure. And a significant oil spill in the Chukchi could decimate the ringed and bearded seals and other marine animals that polar bears survive on, causing bears to starve.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take a catastrophe the size of the Gulf oil disaster to devastate our polar bears.
Drilling operations break up the sea ice that polar bears need to hunt for food. Without it, they can drown or starve to death. And the noise and disruption from the operations can cause polar bear mothers to abandon their cubs. Without a mother, cubs have little chance of survival.
Take action now. Tell President Obama and Secretaries Salazar and Locke to stop Shell’s polar bear-threatening plans.
With as many as seventy thousand barrels of oil -- and perhaps even more -- are still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, [1] the dangers of this type of offshore drilling are clear. Incredibly, Shell Oil still plans to move forward with their dangerous drilling schemes, even in the face of this unprecedented environmental catastrophe.
In fact, the same federal Minerals Management Service that approved BP’s ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well, has also been criticized by the Government Accounting Office for its handling of the Shell permits.[2]
It’s up to us to stand up for polar bears and other wildlife by telling President Obama, and Secretaries Salazar and Locke to stop Shell’s dangerous drilling plans in the Chukchi. Please take action right now.
For the Wild Ones,
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Executive Vice President
Defenders of Wildlife
Some in Hunting Community Way Off Target
Posted: 24 May 2010 01:23 PM PDT The HSUS is a broad-minded animal protection organization, and it is our mission to protect all animals. That includes wildlife, whether the wild animals are victims of oil spills, climate change, automobiles, development, leghold trappers, or poachers.
One of our most important wildlife protection efforts is to combat poaching, which may claim more animals’ lives in the United States than lawful sport hunting.
Megan Sewell/The HSUS
Here’s an issue on which both animal advocates and hunters can agree. As Pennsylvania hunting writer Tom Venesky wrote in a recent column, “Poaching is the lowest of the low when it comes to crimes against wildlife. Considering that the Humane Society touts itself as an animal protection organization and hunting is a sport steeped in ethics, neither group wants to see a trophy bear or any other animal wasted by a poacher’s gun.”
“The Humane Society is doing its part,” Venesky added. “This year, the organization has posted rewards for 25 poaching cases across the country for a total of $62,500. Those cases include bears, eagles, deer, turtles, elk, javelina, porcupines, hawks and mountain lions. Five of those cases happened right here in Pennsylvania.
“Conversely, I have yet to see a statewide or national hunting organization put up a reward for a poaching case, something that’s quite puzzling.”
Indeed, we welcome the opportunity to work with hunters on this issue, especially those sincerely interested in cracking down on wildlife crimes.
But there is a small-mindedness among too many within the hunting fraternity, and there’s no better example than the controversy playing out right now in Wisconsin.
In that state, The HSUS and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are collaborating on a public awareness campaign urging citizens to leave juvenile wildlife in the wild, unless they are in obvious distress and would benefit from removal and treatment at a wildlife care center.
Hunting groups rarely if ever address this issue, and the Wisconsin DNR has been strapped for cash. So The HSUS stepped in to help, and the advertising campaign we’ve helped to fund doesn’t even invoke our good name.
In response, a few advocates of the hunting lobby and their allies in the state legislature and in the outdoor press have called, in the most knee-jerk way, for the DNR to terminate the joint awareness program, even though they claim to agree with the message of the campaign. “A partnership like this, even on a non-controversial issue, has the risk to be seen as an endorsement of the HSUS in general," said George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and former head of the DNR. The most absurd reaction to date came from Republican State Sen. Neal Kedzie who said that The HSUS had “penetrated” and “infiltrated” the DNR.
Mr. Meyer and Sen. Kedzie protest too much. The HSUS opposes cruel traps, and we work only to combat the most inhumane forms of hunting, such as bear baiting or canned hunts. But this measure has nothing to do with hunting—it is about leaving wildlife in the wild and not picking up baby animals during the birthing season just because you don’t see their mother around.
Most hunting groups do quite little to combat poaching, or protecting newborn wildlife. My advice is these outfits just stay out of the way when other groups, including The HSUS, choose to step in to address those issues and to protect wildlife.
The good people of Wisconsin, like the rest of us, remember only too well the era of McCarthyism and the red-baiting that occurred back then. Sen. Kedzie sounds like a chip off the old block. This is baiting of another sort, and it’s not becoming to any of the critics of an important and beneficial public awareness campaign.
One of our most important wildlife protection efforts is to combat poaching, which may claim more animals’ lives in the United States than lawful sport hunting.
Megan Sewell/The HSUS
Here’s an issue on which both animal advocates and hunters can agree. As Pennsylvania hunting writer Tom Venesky wrote in a recent column, “Poaching is the lowest of the low when it comes to crimes against wildlife. Considering that the Humane Society touts itself as an animal protection organization and hunting is a sport steeped in ethics, neither group wants to see a trophy bear or any other animal wasted by a poacher’s gun.”
“The Humane Society is doing its part,” Venesky added. “This year, the organization has posted rewards for 25 poaching cases across the country for a total of $62,500. Those cases include bears, eagles, deer, turtles, elk, javelina, porcupines, hawks and mountain lions. Five of those cases happened right here in Pennsylvania.
“Conversely, I have yet to see a statewide or national hunting organization put up a reward for a poaching case, something that’s quite puzzling.”
Indeed, we welcome the opportunity to work with hunters on this issue, especially those sincerely interested in cracking down on wildlife crimes.
But there is a small-mindedness among too many within the hunting fraternity, and there’s no better example than the controversy playing out right now in Wisconsin.
In that state, The HSUS and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are collaborating on a public awareness campaign urging citizens to leave juvenile wildlife in the wild, unless they are in obvious distress and would benefit from removal and treatment at a wildlife care center.
Hunting groups rarely if ever address this issue, and the Wisconsin DNR has been strapped for cash. So The HSUS stepped in to help, and the advertising campaign we’ve helped to fund doesn’t even invoke our good name.
In response, a few advocates of the hunting lobby and their allies in the state legislature and in the outdoor press have called, in the most knee-jerk way, for the DNR to terminate the joint awareness program, even though they claim to agree with the message of the campaign. “A partnership like this, even on a non-controversial issue, has the risk to be seen as an endorsement of the HSUS in general," said George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and former head of the DNR. The most absurd reaction to date came from Republican State Sen. Neal Kedzie who said that The HSUS had “penetrated” and “infiltrated” the DNR.
Mr. Meyer and Sen. Kedzie protest too much. The HSUS opposes cruel traps, and we work only to combat the most inhumane forms of hunting, such as bear baiting or canned hunts. But this measure has nothing to do with hunting—it is about leaving wildlife in the wild and not picking up baby animals during the birthing season just because you don’t see their mother around.
Most hunting groups do quite little to combat poaching, or protecting newborn wildlife. My advice is these outfits just stay out of the way when other groups, including The HSUS, choose to step in to address those issues and to protect wildlife.
The good people of Wisconsin, like the rest of us, remember only too well the era of McCarthyism and the red-baiting that occurred back then. Sen. Kedzie sounds like a chip off the old block. This is baiting of another sort, and it’s not becoming to any of the critics of an important and beneficial public awareness campaign.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
We should no longer allow a mother to be defined as 'just a mom.' It is on her back that great nations are built. We should no longer allow any woman's voice to be drowned out or disregarded. As we affirm other women, and as we teach our sons, husbands and friends to hold them in the highest regard, we honor both the mothers whose shoulders we've stood on and the daughters who will one day stand tall on ours.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Don't you dare miss out on all the fun because you don't
want to be seen in a swimsuit. Pull together a total look for
swim. Looking polished from your sun hat to your sandals boosts your confidence.
want to be seen in a swimsuit. Pull together a total look for
swim. Looking polished from your sun hat to your sandals boosts your confidence.
3 Ways to Lighten Up Summer Drinks
With summer around the corner, there's nothing better than a cold glass of lemonade or iced tea—until you read the nutrition label. Many bottled lemonades have about 100 calories per cup—and who can stop at just one cup on a hot day?
Even recipes for homemade lemonade often call for two cups of sugar for a two-quart pitcher, and iced teas are much the same. Luckily, there are a few easy ways to cool off without loading up on calories.
1. Reduce the sugar in your homemade drinks by adding only a teaspoon per eight-ounce glass.
2. Opt for a nonsugar, zero-calorie sweetener instead.
3. Try making your iced tea unsweetened, particularly if you use a flavored tea that gives some natural sweetness, like peach or mint. Experiment to see which flavors you like best—without adding sugar!
Even recipes for homemade lemonade often call for two cups of sugar for a two-quart pitcher, and iced teas are much the same. Luckily, there are a few easy ways to cool off without loading up on calories.
1. Reduce the sugar in your homemade drinks by adding only a teaspoon per eight-ounce glass.
2. Opt for a nonsugar, zero-calorie sweetener instead.
3. Try making your iced tea unsweetened, particularly if you use a flavored tea that gives some natural sweetness, like peach or mint. Experiment to see which flavors you like best—without adding sugar!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Hillary Heads to Seoul for Warship Support
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 5:53 PM SEOUL - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives Wednesday in South Korea in a show of support for the close US ally as it confronts North Korea over a torpedoed warship.
The United States has promised unequivocal backing for the South, which has vowed to make the North pay following the attack which split a South Korean corvette in two in March with the loss of 46 sailors.
Clinton has been pressing Seoul's case in Beijing during two days of high-level meetings.
A multinational investigation concluded last week that the North carried out the attack, despite its denials. But China, unlike numerous other nations, failed publicly to criticise its ally and has called only for restraint.
As a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, China's support is crucial if South Korea is to secure the international punitive action it seeks.
China and the United States said Tuesday they would work together to resolve the crisis brewing in the Korean peninsula, agreeing that ensuring regional stability was crucial.
"We are ready to work together with the US and other parties and continue to stay in close touch on the situation on the Korean peninsula," Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai told reporters.
Clinton said Washington and Beijing share the objective of peace and stability on the peninsula. "Now we must work together again to address the serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship."
In a sign of the problems ahead, North Korea said on Tuesday it was severing all ties with South Korea and cutting communications links in protest at being blamed for the sinking.
The North said it would expel all South Korean personnel from a jointly-run industrial estate at Kaesong north of the border, and ban South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.
Pyongyang accused South Korea's navy of trespassing in its waters and threatened military action.
South Korea has cut trade with its neighbour as part of a series of reprisals announced Monday, but is pinning hopes on a Security Council resolution and possible new sanctions to curb the North.
It pressed visiting senior Chinese official Wu Dawei on Tuesday to support international punitive efforts, apparently without result.
"The Chinese position still appears to be unclear," a foreign ministry official said.
President Lee Myung-Bak and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan will hope for a clearer readout of Beijing's intentions when they meet Clinton Wednesday.
The United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the South, has offered both military and diplomatic support in the standoff.
President Barack Obama Monday ordered his military chiefs to coordinate closely with Seoul "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression".
The United States has promised unequivocal backing for the South, which has vowed to make the North pay following the attack which split a South Korean corvette in two in March with the loss of 46 sailors.
Clinton has been pressing Seoul's case in Beijing during two days of high-level meetings.
A multinational investigation concluded last week that the North carried out the attack, despite its denials. But China, unlike numerous other nations, failed publicly to criticise its ally and has called only for restraint.
As a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, China's support is crucial if South Korea is to secure the international punitive action it seeks.
China and the United States said Tuesday they would work together to resolve the crisis brewing in the Korean peninsula, agreeing that ensuring regional stability was crucial.
"We are ready to work together with the US and other parties and continue to stay in close touch on the situation on the Korean peninsula," Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai told reporters.
Clinton said Washington and Beijing share the objective of peace and stability on the peninsula. "Now we must work together again to address the serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship."
In a sign of the problems ahead, North Korea said on Tuesday it was severing all ties with South Korea and cutting communications links in protest at being blamed for the sinking.
The North said it would expel all South Korean personnel from a jointly-run industrial estate at Kaesong north of the border, and ban South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.
Pyongyang accused South Korea's navy of trespassing in its waters and threatened military action.
South Korea has cut trade with its neighbour as part of a series of reprisals announced Monday, but is pinning hopes on a Security Council resolution and possible new sanctions to curb the North.
It pressed visiting senior Chinese official Wu Dawei on Tuesday to support international punitive efforts, apparently without result.
"The Chinese position still appears to be unclear," a foreign ministry official said.
President Lee Myung-Bak and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan will hope for a clearer readout of Beijing's intentions when they meet Clinton Wednesday.
The United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the South, has offered both military and diplomatic support in the standoff.
President Barack Obama Monday ordered his military chiefs to coordinate closely with Seoul "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression".
Little Orphan Animals
Posted: 25 May 2010 01:08 PM PDT Yesterday I mentioned our partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, collaborating on public service announcements to encourage people to keep baby animals in the wild whenever possible. We're now in the peak of the wildlife birthing season and, in addition to these PSAs, The HSUS and its affiliates are helping wildlife in many other ways.
Our Urban Wildlife staff shares tips with the public about what to do if you come across a baby animal and how to coexist with wild animal neighbors, and our Humane Wildlife Services program serves the D.C. metropolitan area to humanely resolve human-wildlife conflicts. Our Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust has helped to create more than 100 permanent wildlife sanctuaries in nearly 40 states and seven foreign countries. And three of our direct care centers are wildlife rehabilitation facilities, handling more than 15,000 animals a year. The remaining two facilities—reserved as sanctuaries for horses and other domestic and exotic animals—also have protected forest areas for native wildlife.
At this time of year, the wildlife care centers will receive an influx of newborns who've become sick or been orphaned or injured—every kind of creature from opossums, rabbits, squirrels, skunks and foxes to songbirds, raptors, shorebirds, turtles and other species. Our goal is to rehabilitate the animals in a way that avoids habituation, so their chances for survival remain high once released back into the wild.
Our Fund for Animals Wildlife Center in Ramona, Calif. recently posted some photos of babies they're now working to rehab, and I couldn't help but share a few of them with you, along with some photos taken last year at our SPCA Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
From the Fund for Animals Wildlife Center, credit Christine Jensen/The HSUS:
Our Urban Wildlife staff shares tips with the public about what to do if you come across a baby animal and how to coexist with wild animal neighbors, and our Humane Wildlife Services program serves the D.C. metropolitan area to humanely resolve human-wildlife conflicts. Our Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust has helped to create more than 100 permanent wildlife sanctuaries in nearly 40 states and seven foreign countries. And three of our direct care centers are wildlife rehabilitation facilities, handling more than 15,000 animals a year. The remaining two facilities—reserved as sanctuaries for horses and other domestic and exotic animals—also have protected forest areas for native wildlife.
At this time of year, the wildlife care centers will receive an influx of newborns who've become sick or been orphaned or injured—every kind of creature from opossums, rabbits, squirrels, skunks and foxes to songbirds, raptors, shorebirds, turtles and other species. Our goal is to rehabilitate the animals in a way that avoids habituation, so their chances for survival remain high once released back into the wild.
Our Fund for Animals Wildlife Center in Ramona, Calif. recently posted some photos of babies they're now working to rehab, and I couldn't help but share a few of them with you, along with some photos taken last year at our SPCA Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
From the Fund for Animals Wildlife Center, credit Christine Jensen/The HSUS:
Monday, May 24, 2010
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Embrace the beauty of 'you.' Once you've done that, you're ready to start playing with the power of makeup to transform yourself into anything you want to be.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Our self-image is influenced not only by our genetic connection to our mothers, but by our emotional relationship to her as well. Observational studies suggest that our first moments of self-awareness are experienced through seeing ourselves in the mirror of our mother's eyes.
More bran tied to longer life in diabetic women
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among women with diabetes, those who bulk up their diets with plenty of bran may live longer and be less likely to die of heart disease, a new study hints.
A number of studies have linked higher consumption of whole grains to lower risks of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The new study extends those findings by suggesting that even among people with type 2 diabetes -- which raises the risk of heart disease -- whole grains may help protect the heart.
They also suggest a particularly important role for the fiber-rich bran found in whole grains, Dr. Lu Qi, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health.
Grains consist of three layers: the fiber- and nutrient-containing bran and germ layers and the starchy kernel layer. Refined grains, like white flour, are largely stripped of the bran and germ; whole grains -- such as oatmeal, brown rice, barley and breads made from whole wheat -- retain more of those components.
Studies suggest that the fiber, antioxidants and other nutrients in whole grains may help lower cholesterol, blood sugar and insulin levels, as well as improve blood vessel functioning and reduce inflammation in the circulatory system.
In the new study, Qi and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston found that among 7,800 U.S. women followed for 26 years, those with the highest bran intake were 28 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who consumed the least bran.
Similarly, they were 35 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease (heart disease or stroke) specifically.
The findings, published in the journal Circulation, do not prove that bran-heavy diets were the reason for the lower risks.
However, the connection was not explained by generally healthier lifestyles among the bran lovers. When the researchers accounted for other diet habits -- like fat intake and total calories -- as well as the women's weight, exercise levels, smoking history and drinking habits, the link between higher bran intake and lower death rates remained.
This suggests that bran intake itself may help lower diabetics' risk of premature death, according to Qi.
He suggested that women and men with diabetes try to replace refined grains in their diets with bran-rich whole grains.
That said, the researcher pointed out that the risk reductions in this study were seen across a large population -- with bran lovers showing a relatively lower risk of death than those who ate little bran. That does not mean that for any one person with diabetes, boosting bran intake would have a substantial effect on longevity.
The findings are based on 7,822 women with type 2 diabetes who were part of the Nurses' Health Study, a long-term study of U.S. female nurses begun in 1976. Every two years, the women answered the questions about their lifestyle, medical history and any disease diagnoses.
Over 26 years of follow-up, 852 study participants died, including 295 women who died of heart disease or stroke.
Overall, Qi's team found, women in the top 20 percent for bran intake had a 28 percent lower risk of dying from any cause during the study period, compared with women in the lowest 20 percent. Their risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 35 percent lower.
The group with the highest bran intake typically consumed 9 grams of bran per day -- about 10 times more than the lowest-intake group. In general, experts recommend that adults get at least 3 to 4 "ounce equivalents" of whole grains each day; a slice of whole-grain bread or a cup of whole-grain cereal are examples of one ounce equivalent.
A number of studies have linked higher consumption of whole grains to lower risks of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The new study extends those findings by suggesting that even among people with type 2 diabetes -- which raises the risk of heart disease -- whole grains may help protect the heart.
They also suggest a particularly important role for the fiber-rich bran found in whole grains, Dr. Lu Qi, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health.
Grains consist of three layers: the fiber- and nutrient-containing bran and germ layers and the starchy kernel layer. Refined grains, like white flour, are largely stripped of the bran and germ; whole grains -- such as oatmeal, brown rice, barley and breads made from whole wheat -- retain more of those components.
Studies suggest that the fiber, antioxidants and other nutrients in whole grains may help lower cholesterol, blood sugar and insulin levels, as well as improve blood vessel functioning and reduce inflammation in the circulatory system.
In the new study, Qi and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston found that among 7,800 U.S. women followed for 26 years, those with the highest bran intake were 28 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who consumed the least bran.
Similarly, they were 35 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease (heart disease or stroke) specifically.
The findings, published in the journal Circulation, do not prove that bran-heavy diets were the reason for the lower risks.
However, the connection was not explained by generally healthier lifestyles among the bran lovers. When the researchers accounted for other diet habits -- like fat intake and total calories -- as well as the women's weight, exercise levels, smoking history and drinking habits, the link between higher bran intake and lower death rates remained.
This suggests that bran intake itself may help lower diabetics' risk of premature death, according to Qi.
He suggested that women and men with diabetes try to replace refined grains in their diets with bran-rich whole grains.
That said, the researcher pointed out that the risk reductions in this study were seen across a large population -- with bran lovers showing a relatively lower risk of death than those who ate little bran. That does not mean that for any one person with diabetes, boosting bran intake would have a substantial effect on longevity.
The findings are based on 7,822 women with type 2 diabetes who were part of the Nurses' Health Study, a long-term study of U.S. female nurses begun in 1976. Every two years, the women answered the questions about their lifestyle, medical history and any disease diagnoses.
Over 26 years of follow-up, 852 study participants died, including 295 women who died of heart disease or stroke.
Overall, Qi's team found, women in the top 20 percent for bran intake had a 28 percent lower risk of dying from any cause during the study period, compared with women in the lowest 20 percent. Their risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 35 percent lower.
The group with the highest bran intake typically consumed 9 grams of bran per day -- about 10 times more than the lowest-intake group. In general, experts recommend that adults get at least 3 to 4 "ounce equivalents" of whole grains each day; a slice of whole-grain bread or a cup of whole-grain cereal are examples of one ounce equivalent.
Al Gore Shocked by Global Cool-Down
We Heard . . . THAT Al Gore and his wife Tipper have bought an $8.87 million ocean-view home in ritzy Montecito, Calif.
The 6,500-square-foot home has five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a wine cellar, swimming pool, and six fireplaces, the Miami Herald reported.
Montecito, near Santa Barbara, has listed among its residents Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, and Steve Martin.
Three years ago, global warming crusader Gore added solar panels and other energy-saving features to his 10,000-square-foot mansion near Nashville, Tenn., after he was criticized for the home’s high energy use.
The Herald made no mention of solar panels at the Montecito home.
THAT former “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien headlined a fundraiser for an old “Saturday Night Live” pal, Sen. Al Franken.
The Monday reception and dinner at a private home in Minneapolis, which cost at least $500 to attend, raised money for Franken’s political action committee.
Franken was in Washington, D.C., and did not attend.
THAT The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has announced this year’s recipients of the Bradley Prizes for outstanding achievement, awarded annually to prominent scholars and engaged citizens.
The 2010 Bradley Prize recipients are: Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner; Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal; Bradley A. Smith, Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault designated professor of law at Capital University; and John B. Taylor, Mary and Robert Raymond professor of economics at Stanford University.
“These accomplished and respected individuals are being recognized for achievements that are consistent with the mission statement of the Foundation, including the promotion of liberal democracy, democratic capitalism, and a vigorous defense of American institutions,” Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation, said in a statement.
The recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 16. Each award carries a stipend of $250,000.
Founded in 1985, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation supports “limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutions.”
The 6,500-square-foot home has five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a wine cellar, swimming pool, and six fireplaces, the Miami Herald reported.
Montecito, near Santa Barbara, has listed among its residents Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, and Steve Martin.
Three years ago, global warming crusader Gore added solar panels and other energy-saving features to his 10,000-square-foot mansion near Nashville, Tenn., after he was criticized for the home’s high energy use.
The Herald made no mention of solar panels at the Montecito home.
THAT former “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien headlined a fundraiser for an old “Saturday Night Live” pal, Sen. Al Franken.
The Monday reception and dinner at a private home in Minneapolis, which cost at least $500 to attend, raised money for Franken’s political action committee.
Franken was in Washington, D.C., and did not attend.
THAT The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has announced this year’s recipients of the Bradley Prizes for outstanding achievement, awarded annually to prominent scholars and engaged citizens.
The 2010 Bradley Prize recipients are: Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner; Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal; Bradley A. Smith, Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault designated professor of law at Capital University; and John B. Taylor, Mary and Robert Raymond professor of economics at Stanford University.
“These accomplished and respected individuals are being recognized for achievements that are consistent with the mission statement of the Foundation, including the promotion of liberal democracy, democratic capitalism, and a vigorous defense of American institutions,” Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation, said in a statement.
The recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 16. Each award carries a stipend of $250,000.
Founded in 1985, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation supports “limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutions.”
Geologist: Global Cooling Has Begun
A prominent American geologist declares that global warming has ended and “even more harmful” global cooling has already begun.
Dr. Don Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, delivered that warning in a scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16.
Dr. Easterbrook said the earth has consistently shifted between periods of warming and cooling over the course of thousands of years.
There were cooling periods between 1880 and 1915, and between 1945 and 1977, and warming periods from 1915 to 1945 and from 1977 to 1998, according to Dr. Easterbrook, and temperatures have been cooling since 1998.
Easterbrook is the author of eight books and 150 journal publications. He serves as associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, and was U.S. representative to the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] International Geological Correlation Project.
He writes in his paper:
“That global warming is over, at least for a few decades, might seem to be a relief. However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming and a cause for even greater concern.”
According to Easterbrook, a recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.
Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons, he said.
“This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.”
Cooling will also lead to an increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.
“World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50 percent,” Easterbrook pointed out. “This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate.”
Among Dr. Easterbrook’s conclusions:
“Numerous, abrupt, short-lived warming and cooling episodes, much more intense than recent warming/cooling, occurred during the last Ice Age, none of which could have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2.
“Climate changes in the geologic record show a regular pattern of alternate warming and cooling with a 25-30-year period for the past 500 years . . .
“Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”
Dr. Don Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, delivered that warning in a scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16.
Dr. Easterbrook said the earth has consistently shifted between periods of warming and cooling over the course of thousands of years.
There were cooling periods between 1880 and 1915, and between 1945 and 1977, and warming periods from 1915 to 1945 and from 1977 to 1998, according to Dr. Easterbrook, and temperatures have been cooling since 1998.
Easterbrook is the author of eight books and 150 journal publications. He serves as associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, and was U.S. representative to the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] International Geological Correlation Project.
He writes in his paper:
“That global warming is over, at least for a few decades, might seem to be a relief. However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming and a cause for even greater concern.”
According to Easterbrook, a recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.
Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons, he said.
“This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.”
Cooling will also lead to an increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.
“World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50 percent,” Easterbrook pointed out. “This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate.”
Among Dr. Easterbrook’s conclusions:
“Numerous, abrupt, short-lived warming and cooling episodes, much more intense than recent warming/cooling, occurred during the last Ice Age, none of which could have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2.
“Climate changes in the geologic record show a regular pattern of alternate warming and cooling with a 25-30-year period for the past 500 years . . .
“Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”
Obama Gloats: GOP ‘Backed Down’ on Finance Bill
President Barack Obama was gloating Saturday when he sent out a personally signed e-mail to his campaign e-list with the subject line “They backed down.”
“They” are several members of Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate.
Obama’s regulatory finance bill passed the Senate Thursday with four Republican senators crossing the aisle to join with Democrats.
Obama told his online supporters, now organized under the Democratic Party’s “Organizing for America” project, “When opponents in Congress tried to block the legislation altogether, you stood up -- and they backed down.”
Despite the Senate win, Obama claimed that Wall Street and others are still fighting to stop the bill, which needs to be reconciled with the House version.
Obama also made the fantastic claim that opponents had spent “$1 million per member of Congress” to lobby against the bill. If true, opponents would have spent a staggering $535 million to stop his bill.
In the letter, Obama encourages supporters to “please donate $5 or more today” to help mobilize thousands to counter the “special interests’ attacks.”
“They” are several members of Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate.
Obama’s regulatory finance bill passed the Senate Thursday with four Republican senators crossing the aisle to join with Democrats.
Obama told his online supporters, now organized under the Democratic Party’s “Organizing for America” project, “When opponents in Congress tried to block the legislation altogether, you stood up -- and they backed down.”
Despite the Senate win, Obama claimed that Wall Street and others are still fighting to stop the bill, which needs to be reconciled with the House version.
Obama also made the fantastic claim that opponents had spent “$1 million per member of Congress” to lobby against the bill. If true, opponents would have spent a staggering $535 million to stop his bill.
In the letter, Obama encourages supporters to “please donate $5 or more today” to help mobilize thousands to counter the “special interests’ attacks.”
Palin: Obama in Bed with Big Oil
WASHINGTON – Sarah Palin accused US President Barack Obama on Sunday of leading a lax response to the Gulf of Mexico spill because he is too close to the big oil companies.
The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor, who champions off-shore drilling, criticized the media for not drawing the link between Obama and big oil and said if this spill had happened under former Republican president George W. Bush the scrutiny would have been far tougher.
"I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to president Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration," she told Fox News Sunday.
More than 3.5 million dollars has been given to candidates by BP over the last 20 years, with the largest single donation, 77,051 dollars, going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Palin suggested this close relationship explained why Obama was, "taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."
The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later. Ever since, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, perhaps millions, have been spewing each day into the sea.
The resulting slick, now the size of a small country, threatens to leave Louisiana's fishing and coastal tourism industries in tatters, ruin pristine nature reserves, and cause decades of harm to the ecology of fragile marshes that are a haven for rare wildlife and migratory birds.
The Obama administration has been forced to defend its response to the disaster as some Republicans have sought to portray it as their Katrina, an allusion to president Bush's mishandling of the response to the 2005 hurricane that devastated Louisiana.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs mocked Palin's suggestions that Obama was somehow in bed with big oil because of 2008 presidential campaign contributions.
"Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don't think, apparently, was paying a whole lot of attention," Gibbs said.
"I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge for gasoline.
"My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around oil drilling in this country."
However, Gibbs did make it clear that reforms must be carried out to make sure that the incestuous
relationship between oil firms and government regulators highlighted by the current disaster ended once and for all.
"BP will pay for every bit of this," he said. "We have to figure out and make sure that the relationship that is had with government and oil companies is not a cozy relationship as the president said.
Gibbs also said there was no comparison with Katrina.
"If you look back at what happened in Katrina, the government wasn't there to respond to what was happening. That quite frankly was the problem.
"I think the difference in this case is we were there immediately. We have been there ever since."
Palin, who quit the Alaska governorship after serving less than half of one term, famously promoted the slogan "Drill, baby, drill!" that rallied supporters while dismissing possible environmental impact of off-shore drilling.
Her detractors switched the line to "Spill, baby, spill!"
The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor, who champions off-shore drilling, criticized the media for not drawing the link between Obama and big oil and said if this spill had happened under former Republican president George W. Bush the scrutiny would have been far tougher.
"I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to president Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration," she told Fox News Sunday.
More than 3.5 million dollars has been given to candidates by BP over the last 20 years, with the largest single donation, 77,051 dollars, going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Palin suggested this close relationship explained why Obama was, "taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."
The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later. Ever since, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, perhaps millions, have been spewing each day into the sea.
The resulting slick, now the size of a small country, threatens to leave Louisiana's fishing and coastal tourism industries in tatters, ruin pristine nature reserves, and cause decades of harm to the ecology of fragile marshes that are a haven for rare wildlife and migratory birds.
The Obama administration has been forced to defend its response to the disaster as some Republicans have sought to portray it as their Katrina, an allusion to president Bush's mishandling of the response to the 2005 hurricane that devastated Louisiana.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs mocked Palin's suggestions that Obama was somehow in bed with big oil because of 2008 presidential campaign contributions.
"Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don't think, apparently, was paying a whole lot of attention," Gibbs said.
"I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge for gasoline.
"My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around oil drilling in this country."
However, Gibbs did make it clear that reforms must be carried out to make sure that the incestuous
relationship between oil firms and government regulators highlighted by the current disaster ended once and for all.
"BP will pay for every bit of this," he said. "We have to figure out and make sure that the relationship that is had with government and oil companies is not a cozy relationship as the president said.
Gibbs also said there was no comparison with Katrina.
"If you look back at what happened in Katrina, the government wasn't there to respond to what was happening. That quite frankly was the problem.
"I think the difference in this case is we were there immediately. We have been there ever since."
Palin, who quit the Alaska governorship after serving less than half of one term, famously promoted the slogan "Drill, baby, drill!" that rallied supporters while dismissing possible environmental impact of off-shore drilling.
Her detractors switched the line to "Spill, baby, spill!"
BP-Gate: 34 Days and Obama Still Lets Oil Giant Run Show
VENICE, La/HOUSTON – The U.S. government threatened to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the know-how to halt the deepwater spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday Washington is frustrated and angry that BP Plc missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal the well more than a month after an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster.
"I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston.
"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he told reporters as the administration maintained its hard line.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says the state is not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.
Jindal's defiant comments Sunday came as oil pushed at least 12 miles into the heart of Louisiana's marshes. Two major pelican rookeries are now awash in crude.
Jindal made his remarks on a boat at the edge of one of the pelican nesting grounds. He and officials from several coastal parishes say the berms would close the door on the oil still pouring from a deepwater gusher about 50 miles off the coast.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying the environmental impacts from the emergency barrier proposal. The Corps didn't immediately respond to e-mails and telephone messages.
Salazar's strongly worded comments followed President Barack Obama's on Saturday, when he blamed the spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at BP. The unfolding disaster has become a top priority on Obama's crowded domestic agenda.
The chief of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, acknowledged on Sunday that the government is forced to rely on BP and the private oil sector to try to plug the gusher. At the same time, BP said the containment method it was attempting on the ocean floor was capturing much less of the leaking oil than three days ago.
Company engineers were readying other short-term solutions, the next one expected to start late on Tuesday. But BP Managing Director Bob Dudley said there was "no certainty" of success at the unprecedented depths at which they were being tried -- one mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.
More than a month after a rig explosion triggered what Obama has described as an environmental disaster and "BP's mess," oil is still spewing virtually unchecked from BP's ruptured Macondo seabed well.
TRUST
At a time of mounting U.S. government and public criticism of the company and its executives over the catastrophic spill, Allen said he trusted BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who has made comments downplaying its size and environmental impact.
Sheets of heavy oil have washed ashore in Louisiana's fragile marshlands and lesser "oil debris" has also reached the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama in what is seen as an ecological and economic calamity for the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Given the lack of a solution so far and the doubts over BP, Allen was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" why the U.S. federal government did not completely take over the spill containment operation from the London-based firm.
"What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector," Allen said. "They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved," he added.
Asked too about the apparent growing U.S. lack of confidence in BP CEO Hayward, Allen said: "I trust Tony Hayward. When I talk to him, I get an answer".
BP has deployed a long suction tube down to the larger of two leaks from the well, but a BP spokesman said on Sunday this captured only 1,360 barrels per day of oil over the 24 hours to midnight Saturday. The flow has been declining from the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) per day the company had said the tube was siphoning off three days ago.
BP engineers are now preparing a "top kill," pumping heavy fluids into the well to try to shut it off, an operation to begin late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Dudley told CNN.
Many scientists believe the Gulf spill has already eclipsed the 11 million gallons (41 million liters) spilled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. They warn the spreading oil could increasingly be caught in a powerful ocean current that could take it to the Florida Keys, Cuba and the U.S. East Coast.
PRAYERS TO GOD
Churchgoers in Louisiana coastal parishes affected by the spill prayed for God's help. "You (God) can clear that oil up, because that oil was down there thousands of years before it came up in the Gulf. So you know what to do with it, dear God," retired oyster fisherman Herbert Guidry prayed in the New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Houma.
Analysts say growing ecological and economic damage from the spill could become a political liability for Obama before November congressional elections.
While also promising to hold Washington accountable for proper oversight of the industry, Obama ramped up pressure on companies linked to the spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd. He believed a "breakdown of responsibility" between them led to the disaster.
BP stocks have taken a beating in the markets in the month since the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the spill. Its share price shed another 4 percent on Friday in London, extending recent sharp losses.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday Washington is frustrated and angry that BP Plc missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal the well more than a month after an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster.
"I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston.
"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he told reporters as the administration maintained its hard line.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says the state is not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.
Jindal's defiant comments Sunday came as oil pushed at least 12 miles into the heart of Louisiana's marshes. Two major pelican rookeries are now awash in crude.
Jindal made his remarks on a boat at the edge of one of the pelican nesting grounds. He and officials from several coastal parishes say the berms would close the door on the oil still pouring from a deepwater gusher about 50 miles off the coast.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying the environmental impacts from the emergency barrier proposal. The Corps didn't immediately respond to e-mails and telephone messages.
Salazar's strongly worded comments followed President Barack Obama's on Saturday, when he blamed the spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at BP. The unfolding disaster has become a top priority on Obama's crowded domestic agenda.
The chief of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, acknowledged on Sunday that the government is forced to rely on BP and the private oil sector to try to plug the gusher. At the same time, BP said the containment method it was attempting on the ocean floor was capturing much less of the leaking oil than three days ago.
Company engineers were readying other short-term solutions, the next one expected to start late on Tuesday. But BP Managing Director Bob Dudley said there was "no certainty" of success at the unprecedented depths at which they were being tried -- one mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.
More than a month after a rig explosion triggered what Obama has described as an environmental disaster and "BP's mess," oil is still spewing virtually unchecked from BP's ruptured Macondo seabed well.
TRUST
At a time of mounting U.S. government and public criticism of the company and its executives over the catastrophic spill, Allen said he trusted BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who has made comments downplaying its size and environmental impact.
Sheets of heavy oil have washed ashore in Louisiana's fragile marshlands and lesser "oil debris" has also reached the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama in what is seen as an ecological and economic calamity for the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Given the lack of a solution so far and the doubts over BP, Allen was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" why the U.S. federal government did not completely take over the spill containment operation from the London-based firm.
"What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector," Allen said. "They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved," he added.
Asked too about the apparent growing U.S. lack of confidence in BP CEO Hayward, Allen said: "I trust Tony Hayward. When I talk to him, I get an answer".
BP has deployed a long suction tube down to the larger of two leaks from the well, but a BP spokesman said on Sunday this captured only 1,360 barrels per day of oil over the 24 hours to midnight Saturday. The flow has been declining from the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) per day the company had said the tube was siphoning off three days ago.
BP engineers are now preparing a "top kill," pumping heavy fluids into the well to try to shut it off, an operation to begin late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Dudley told CNN.
Many scientists believe the Gulf spill has already eclipsed the 11 million gallons (41 million liters) spilled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. They warn the spreading oil could increasingly be caught in a powerful ocean current that could take it to the Florida Keys, Cuba and the U.S. East Coast.
PRAYERS TO GOD
Churchgoers in Louisiana coastal parishes affected by the spill prayed for God's help. "You (God) can clear that oil up, because that oil was down there thousands of years before it came up in the Gulf. So you know what to do with it, dear God," retired oyster fisherman Herbert Guidry prayed in the New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Houma.
Analysts say growing ecological and economic damage from the spill could become a political liability for Obama before November congressional elections.
While also promising to hold Washington accountable for proper oversight of the industry, Obama ramped up pressure on companies linked to the spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd. He believed a "breakdown of responsibility" between them led to the disaster.
BP stocks have taken a beating in the markets in the month since the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the spill. Its share price shed another 4 percent on Friday in London, extending recent sharp losses.
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