10/09/2010 archive

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

For Desserts Without Gluten, Crumbles Take the Cake

Photobucket

Quinoa-Oat Crumble Topping

Berry-Rose Crumble

Plum and Fig Crumble With Quinoa-Oat Topping

Peach or Nectarine and Blueberry Crumble With Quinoa-Oat Topping

Pear Ginger Crumble

Apple Crumble

Punting the Pundits

Punting the Punditsis an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Eugene Robinson: Needed: Competition for Black Votes

This has been such an unpredictable political year that it’s hard to have confidence in any of the forecasts for November. How unpredictable? Well, I’d like to meet the pundit or prognosticator who imagined that a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate would begin a campaign ad by declaring, “I’m not a witch.”

Christine O’Donnell’s sorcery problem aside, there’s one thing I can say with confidence about next month’s midterm election: African-Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates at every level. This is perfectly rational political behavior-but in many ways it’s a shame.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m firmly convinced that the progressive agenda championed by the Democrats is much better for African-Americans, and for the nation as a whole, than the conservative agenda favored by Republicans. But I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.

David Sirota: Follow Wyoming on Fracking Regs

To review: Wyoming is as politically red and pro-fossil-fuel a place as exists in America. Nicknamed the “Cowboy State” for its hostility to authority, the square swath of rangeland most recently made headlines when its tax department temporarily suspended levies at gun shows for fear of inciting an armed insurrection. The derrick-scarred home of oilman Dick Cheney, the state emits more carbon emissions per capita than any other, and is as close as our country gets to an industry-owned energy colony.

So, to put it mildly, Wyoming is not known for its activist government or its embrace of green policies.

But that changed last month when Wyoming officials enacted first-in-the-nation regulations forcing energy companies to disclose the compounds they use in a drilling technique called “fracking.”

From an ecological standpoint, fracking is inherently risky. Looking to pulverize gas-trapping subterranean rock, drillers inject poisonous solvents into the ground-and often right near groundwater supplies. That raises the prospect of toxins leaking into drinking water-a frightening possibility that prompted Wyoming’s regulatory move. Indeed, state officials acted after learning that various local water sources were contaminated by carcinogens linked to fracking.

On This Day in History: October 9

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 83 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1997, Guevara’s remains were found and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. Since his death, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global insignia within popular culture.

As a medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was transformed by the endemic poverty he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region’s ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara’s radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raul and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and travelled to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included instituting agrarian reform as minister of industries, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled “Guerrillero Heroico”, was declared “the most famous photograph in the world.”

Morning Shinbun Saturday October 9




Saturday’s Headlines:

South Africa Iron Age site ‘threatened’

USA

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

Buyers anxiously await foreclosure deals to go through

Europe

Barcelona takes a stand against its ‘living statues’

India trade deal with EU will allow thousands of immigrants into Britain

Middle East

Arab League urges US to call halt on Israeli settlements

Egyptian fiction growing, challenging conservative norms

Asia

Julia Lovell: Beijing values the Nobels. That’s why this hurts

Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country

Africa

Zimbabwe in crisis after Mugabe defies deal with PM

Ugandan police unravel World Cup bomb plot

Latin America

Rescuers ‘hours away’ from reaching Chilean miners

Gunmen in Pakistan torch nearly 30 NATO fuel tankers

 Attacks continue as Khyber Pass border crossing remains closed

By Gul Yusufzai

msnbc.com news services


QUETTA, Pakistan – Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan set fire to nearly 30 tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said.

The attack came two days after the United States apologized to Pakistan for an air raid that killed two Pakistani soldiers and which led Pakistan to close the famous Khyber Pass border crossing.

Why have laws at all?

You know they’re guilty, your government said so

Why, then, does the Obama administration seek to prosecute him in federal court? One answer might be that trials permit punishment, including the death penalty. But the Justice Department is not seeking the death penalty against Mr. Ghailani. Another answer is that trials “give vent to the outrage” over attacks on civilians, as Judge Kaplan has put it. This justification for the trial is diminished, however, by the passage of 12 years since the crimes were committed.

The final answer, and the one that largely motivates the Obama administration, is that trials are perceived to be more legitimate than detention, especially among civil libertarians and foreign allies.



But Mr. Ghailani and his fellow detainees at Guantánamo Bay are a different matter. The Ghailani case shows why the administration has been so hesitant to pursue criminal trials for them: the demanding standards of civilian justice make it very hard to convict when the defendant contests the charges and the government must rely on classified information and evidence produced by aggressive interrogations.

A further problem with high-stakes terrorism trials is that the government cannot afford to let the defendant go. Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 plotter, would be held indefinitely in military detention even if acquitted at trial. Judge Kaplan said more or less the same about Mr. Ghailani this week. A conviction in a trial publicly guaranteed not to result in the defendant’s release will not be seen as a beacon of legitimacy.

The government’s reliance on detention as a backstop to trials shows that it is the foundation for incapacitating high-level terrorists in this war. The administration would save money and time, avoid political headaches and better preserve intelligence sources and methods if it simply dropped its attempts to prosecute high-level terrorists and relied exclusively on military detention instead.

F1: Suzuka Qualifying

Well, it’s no secret I think Webber should have been black flagged at Singapore.  I haven’t seen a clearer violation since Piquet drove into the wall.  Even the talking heads are having a hard time excusing it.

McLaren has a bunch of fiddly new aero bits that kept Hamilton off the track during much of practice (well, and parking it so they all had to be replaced).  Even with only 3 races left (they’re highly uncertain about Korea) Lew has a chance to get back into it being a mere 20 points behind and all.  All you fucking Ferrari fanatics talking about Alonso’s 50 point surge should remember it only took 2 races to do. so shut your chain smoking Marlboro UPC yaps you losers.

Suzuka is considered a high downforce track so grip will be critical.  Qualifying will be replayed on Speed starting with Formula One Debrief (which I’m watching right now) at 11 pm and the race at 1 am, followed by the debrief again at 4 am and a race repeat at 2:30 pm Saturday.

If I seem a little crankier than usual it’s the lack of sleep.

The Little Noticed Crisis: Bank Failures

Usually on Fridays, Atrios at Eschaton posts the lists of banks that have been taken into receivership by the FDIC.

Now the FDIC is going to hold the bank executives of these failed entities to count to the tune of one billion dollars. According to Bloomberg

The potential lawsuits would help the FDIC recover more than $1 billion it lost during the credit crisis, which has forced the FDIC to take over 294 lenders since 2008. So far the FDIC, which, according to Bloomberg, doesn’t sue unless it believes the defendant is able to pay up, has only filed one lawsuit related to the credit crisis, against IndyMac executives in July.

FDIC May Seek More Than $1 Billion From Failed-Bank Executives

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has authorized lawsuits against more than 50 officers and directors of failed banks as the agency aims to recoup more than $1 billion in losses stemming from the credit crisis.

The lawsuits were authorized during closed sessions of the FDIC board and haven’t been made public. The agency, which has shuttered 294 lenders since the start of 2008, has held off court action while conducting settlement talks with executives whose actions may have led to bank collapses, Richard Osterman, the FDIC’s acting general counsel, said in an interview.

“We’re ready to go,” Osterman said. “We could walk into court tomorrow and file the lawsuits.”

The FDIC, which reviews losses for every bank failure, has brought only one case against officers or directors tied to recent collapses — a suit filed in July seeking $300 million in damages from four executives of IndyMac Bancorp Inc.

When a bank fails, the agency’s investigators take about 18 months to complete their autopsies, meaning most of the probes stemming from the financial crisis are ongoing, Osterman said.

If FDIC investigators determine litigation is possible early in their review process, they send letters to officers and directors alerting them that a suit may be coming to recoup a portion of the losses to the agency’s insurance fund.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has said 2010 will be the peak year for failures, and the agency’s list of so-called problem lenders suggests banks will keep collapsing at an accelerated rate in coming months. The confidential list had 829 banks with $403 billion in assets at the end of the second quarter.

Unbelievable that anyone thinks that TARP was a success. If the FDIC can recover that one billion it will be only .05% of what was actually given the the banks and the financial industry by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve which may have been upwards of 2 TRILLION DOLLARS.  

Popular Culture 20101008: Telephone Billing Scams (Updated)

This covers a topic about which I wrote earlier this week, but is expanded and completely revised, and includes actions that you can take if you find yourself in this situation.  I know that this will not be as well received as the installment last week, but this is an important topic, (although not a popular one), and is part of our culture at present.  I am talking about telephone billing scams, often called cramming, and they are common.

This incident is from personal experience, and recent at that.  Cramming is the addition of charges on one’s residential or wireless telephone bills that were not authorized by the owner of the account, or the addition of charges that were unwittingly authorized by the owner of the account.  In my case, it was the former, twice.

Prime Time

Yankees have taken a commanding lead, what did I tell you?  Reds @ Phillies, Braves @ Giants tonight on TBS.  A scattering of broadcast premiers.  Qualifying in Suzuka at 1 am.  More PrIson Porn (at least it knocks Larry O’Donnell off the air).

These people are here to protect you. They’re soldiers.

It won’t make any difference.

Later-

Maybe.

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Hungary plays down toxic spill threat, toll rises to seven

by Geza Molnar, AFP

2 hrs 5 mins ago

BUDAPEST (AFP) – Hungarian officials on Friday played down the threat of disastrous pollution to the Danube river from an industrial accident in Hungary, while its prime minister said the situation was under control.

The death toll from Monday’s disaster meanwhile rose to seven, officials said, and one person was still missing.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who declared a state of emergency in three counties earlier this week, insisted there remained little risk of the pollution running into the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river.