April 2013 archive

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News 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.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

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I routinely throw them into salads of all kinds, and finely chopped walnuts can go into everything from omelets to pungent Mediterranean nut-based sauces to soups, pasta dishes and of course desserts. I consider them a pantry staple and keep a bag of shelled walnuts in the freezer at all times. When unshelled walnuts are available at my farmers’ market I keep them on hand as well. I use them up so quickly that I probably don’t need to keep the shelled walnuts in the freezer, but that’s where I always keep my nuts, because the oils in nuts are volatile and they can become rancid if they are not kept in a cool environment. I toast walnuts occasionally, but most often I prefer the sweeter flavor of fresh untoasted walnuts.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

“Punting the Pundits” is 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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: ‘There Are Now States Where It’s Not Safe to Be a Woman’

Chalk another one up for the extremists. Three weeks after Arkansas’ legislature overrode a veto and prohibited most second trimester abortions, North Dakota’s Governor signed into law a ban that kicks in just six weeks after conception. As the Associated Press noted, both sides recognize the laws for what they are: “an unprecedented frontal assault” on the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade.

“The thing that’s incredible to me – North Dakota being case in point – is the thought that women’s rights in this country depend on their ZIP code,” the inimitable Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told the Huffington Post late last month. “There are now states where it’s not safe to be a woman.”

Cecile Richards: States Should Not Curb Health Care for Women

Every woman, no matter what her zip code is, should have access to affordable, quality health care. It seems like a simple enough proposition, but for far too many women, it is far from true – and for some, it is becoming less so every day.

Across the country, bills are moving through state legislatures that limit women’s access to health care. Legislation has been introduced in 42 states that would ban or severely restrict access to abortion, make it harder for women to get birth control, cut women off from cancer screenings, or prohibit sex education programs that help prevent teen pregnancy.

What is most concerning for Planned Parenthood as a health care provider is that these bills are passing in states where there already is very little access to health care for women.

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

April 13 is the 103rd day of the year (104th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 262 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1742, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah premieres in Dublin, Ireland.

Nowadays, the performance of George Friedrich Handel’s Messiah oratorio at Christmas time is a tradition almost as deeply entrenched as decorating trees and hanging stockings. In churches and concert halls around the world, the most famous piece of sacred music in the English language is performed both full and abridged, both with and without audience participation, but almost always and exclusively during the weeks leading up to the celebration of Christmas. It would surprise many, then, to learn that Messiah was not originally intended as a piece of Christmas music. Messiah received its world premiere on this day in 1742, during the Christian season of Lent, and in the decidedly secular context of a concert hall in Dublin, Ireland.

Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel, and is one of the most popular works in the Western choral literature. The libretto by Charles Jennens is drawn entirely from the King James and Great Bibles, and interprets the Christian doctrine of the Messiah. Messiah (often but incorrectly called The Messiah) is one of Handel’s most famous works. The Messiah sing-alongs now common at the Christmas season usually consist of only the first of the oratorio’s three parts, with “Hallelujah” (originally concluding the second part) replacing His Yoke is Easy in the first part.

Composed in London during the summer of 1741 and premiered in Dublin, Ireland on 13 April 1742, it was repeatedly revised by Handel, reaching its most familiar version in the performance to benefit the Foundling Hospital in 1754. In 1789 Mozart orchestrated a German version of the work; his added woodwind parts, and the edition by Ebenezer Prout, were commonly heard until the mid-20th century and the rise of historically informed performance.

Frances Perkins was Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, the first woman to hold a cabinet position and she got there on her own merits. She served from 1933 to 1945 and was instrumental in getting many of the New Deal laws and programs off the ground and working. Her two biggest achievements were the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Social Security Act.

With cuts to Social Security being threatened by a Democratic president, Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSNBC’s “Last Word,” paid tribute to Sec. Perkins, the architect of Social Security, on her 133rd birthday, the same day that Pres. Barack Obama proposed cuts and changes in these benefits.

“The man gets all the credit in popular history, but the woman did all the work,” O’Donnell said. “Social Security was her idea. It would never have become law without her.” As the U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Perkins had immense influence on his policy decisions.

A chance meeting at a tea party with then-Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone provided Perkins with the legal framework for her initiative, setting into place certain present day laws of the same nature.

“The Constitutionality of Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act are all based on Frances Perkins’ novel use of the power to tax 78 years ago,” O’Donnell explained.

“Frances Perkins was a self-made woman,” O’Donnell said. “She did not advance her career by marriage. She didn’t flinch at challenges that everyone else considered impossible. Frances Perkins changed the world the old fashioned way-with hard work, persistence and passion. Tonight, this country owes a happy birthday nod to a uniquely American hero.”

In the second segment, Mr. O’Donnell imagines what Sec. Perkins would think about the current Social Security debate:

When the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, the highest concentration of poverty in America was among the elderly. At its signing, President Franklin Roosevelt said, “We can never insure 100% of the population against 100% of the hazards and vicissitudes of life but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen, and to his family, against the loss of a job and against poverty-stricken old-age.”[..]

In a speech in 1962, Perkins said of the Act, “Thousands and thousands of new problems arose in the administration which had not been foreseen by those who did the planning and the legal drafting. Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended.”

It would not come as a shock to Perkins or Roosevelt that the benefits calculation formula would change as the years went on, but there were some principles that both Perkins and Roosevelt considered imperative in the design of Social Security. [..]

But despite the changes that the Act would no doubt be subjected to, Perkins remained adamant that Social Security would be everlasting: “One thing I know: it is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

What would they think of the current debate on making cutbacks to the program now?

Well if a Lotus win was surprising, a Red Bull 1 – 2 is exactly what we’ve come to expect.  The only thing remotely interesting is that Vettel passed Webber against team orders and that’s all anyone can seem to talk about.

Wait- that’s boring too.

McLaren has decided to stick with their slow, new, and wastefully expensive chassis instead of unparking their 2012 car like every other team.  Money in the pot now I suppose, those development dollars are spent.  The major change seems to be they went with a push rod instead of a pull rod suspension and I guess they’ll spend the rest of the season proving to everyone that’s a really stupid idea.

Mercedes is running very low fuel loads to get their speed which is why they’ve been fading at the end.  The harder the compound the better for Red Bull and no one can figure out why.

Speaking of- Mediums and Softs.

The surface of all the tires has been scrubbing off more quickly this year which has been limiting the racing line.

Well, it’s been a busy, busy week for me, make that a month, and I’m just too tired and distracted to focus on Formula One so I’ll leave you with this for tonight-

The reason I cover sports is because it’s metaphor for politics, both a distraction and a way to make a point.  Sometimes, especially in the games of the super rich, they intersect.

Damon Hill challenges FIA president Jean Todt to clarify Bahrain stance

Paul Weaver, The Guardian

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Last year’s Bahrain race was a public relations disaster for both F1 and the country’s authorities. Almost everyone in the paddock did not want to be there, but the race still took place against a background of pro-democracy demonstrations, with stones and petrol bombs being thrown, while riot police fired teargas and birdshot and beat opposition activists. Hill, who now works as a Sky Sports F1 analyst, was one of the few people in the sport to question the wisdom of the race taking place a year ago.

And he voiced his concerns again when he said: “Jean Todt’s approach has been to say nothing, because otherwise you’re being critical, and I think that is a mistake. Because he’s being used, or the sport is being perceived as being used, by its engagement in the economy and the reputation of the country.”

…

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone said last week that he had no concerns about the race becoming a target for anti-government protesters.

MP Richard Burden, who chairs parliamentary groups on motorsport and who was outspoken against last year’s race taking place, says: “The messages I’m getting from various people in the opposition – and there have been pretty regular street protest over the past three weeks – is that the F1 race will be more of a focus than it was last year. That’s what they anticipate happening.

“The quotes [Ecclestone] came out with is that everything will be fine. I just do not buy that. It is not the same evidence that I am hearing. Opinion is not difficult to come by in Bahrain saying either that the race should not go ahead and, if it does, there will be trouble.

“If anything happens it will be a tragedy for all concerned. I hope in the next few days that people will understand that words do have an impact.”

But Formula One shows no signs of having learned anything from its painful lessons of last year. They will probably say something trite about keeping politics out of sport next week – even though, contrary to the FIA’s charter – the Bahrain government promoted last year’s race as a way of unifying its people.

• Chinese Grand Prix
• Shanghai
• Guardian Interactive Track
• Formula One Interactive Track

• Formula One Official Site
• NBC Sports Motor Sports

Fire Nation- Yay!

“Punting the Pundits” is 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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Joseph Brings Plenty: Save Wounded Knee

WOUNDED KNEE, S.D.  THE Lakota Sioux word “takini” means “to die and come back” but is usually translated more simply as “survivor.” It is a sacred word long associated with the killing of scores of unarmed Lakota men, women and children by soldiers of the United States Army’s Seventh Cavalry in the winter of 1890.

Wounded Knee was the so-called final battle of America’s war on its Native peoples. But what happened was hardly a battle. It was a massacre. [..]

Now, our heritage is in danger of becoming a real-estate transaction, another parcel of what once was our land auctioned off to the highest bidder. The cries of our murdered people still echo off the barren hills – the cries we remember in our hearts every day of our lives. But they may finally be drowned out by bulldozers and the ka-ching of commerce.

Paul Krugman: Lust for Gold

News flash: Recent declines in the price of gold, which is off about 17 percent from its peak, show that this price can go down as well as up. You may consider this an obvious point, but, as an article in The Times on Thursday reports, it has come as a rude shock to many small gold investors, who imagined that they were buying the safest of all assets.

And thereby hangs a tale. One of the central facts about modern America is that everything is political; on the right, in particular, people choose their views about everything, from environmental science to gun safety, to suit their political prejudices. And the remarkable recent rise of “goldbuggism,” in the teeth of all the evidence, shows that this politicization can influence investments as well as voting.

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

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

April 12 is the 102nd day of the year (103rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 263 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, “Flight is proceeding normally; I am well.”

After his historic feat was announced, the attractive and unassuming Gagarin became an instant worldwide celebrity. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments were raised to him across the Soviet Union and streets renamed in his honor.

The triumph of the Soviet space program in putting the first man into space was a great blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. Moreover, Gagarin had orbited Earth, a feat that eluded the U.S. space program until February 1962, when astronaut John Glenn made three orbits in Friendship 7. By that time, the Soviet Union had already made another leap ahead in the “space race” with the August 1961 flight of cosmonaut Gherman Titov in Vostok 2. Titov made 17 orbits and spent more than 25 hours in space.

Today is the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s Flight into space.

Fifty years later, relive the world’s first space odyssey

‘Moon Shot’ recounts cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s history-making orbital trip in 1961.

MSNBC Science Editor Alan Boyle recaps Yuri Gagarin’s historic space mission, as shown in a Soviet documentary video.

When we started 2012 there were 3 Oil Companies with licenses to drill in the Alaskan Arctic- Statoil (Norwegian), Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips.

Last fall Statoil announced it was not going to start Arctic activity before 2015, well before the scope and depth of the Shell failure became apparent.  Woefully ill-prepared Shell was forced to withdraw after they wrecked all their equipment (to the tune of $4.5 Billion and counting) and send it to South Korea for repair.

This week ConocoPhillips announced that it will not start operations until 2014 at the earliest either.

All these companies cite ‘regulatory uncertainty’ as the reason.  This means they are uncertain whether they will be regulated at all or be able to create Deepwater blowout whenever they want.

ConocoPhillips Suspends Its Arctic Drilling Plans

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, The New York Times

Published: April 10, 2013

The decision had been expected after last month’s announcement by the Interior Department that Shell Oil Company would have to provide a detailed plan addressing numerous safety issues before it could resume its drilling operations in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Shell was forced to remove its two drilling rigs from the area and send them to Asia for repairs after a series of ship groundings, weather delays and environmental and safety violations during the 2012 drilling season. Shell, which has spent more than $4.5 billion on its exploration program, also called off its drilling program for this year.

…

“Companies can’t be expected to invest billions of dollars without some assurance that federal regulators are not going to change the rules on them almost continuously,” she (Senator Lisa Murkowski R Alaska) said. “The administration has created an unacceptable level of uncertainty when it comes to the rules of offshore exploration that must be fixed.”

…

The Interior Department’s review, completed in early March, concluded that Shell had failed in a broad range of operational and safety tasks, including the towing of one of the two drilling rigs, which ran aground on an Alaskan island on New Year’s Eve. David Lawrence, the executive vice president who was in charge of the Alaska drilling program, recently left the company. The company said that the departure was “by mutual consent.”

ConocoPhillips joins hiatus in offshore Arctic operations

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

April 10, 2013, 1:19 p.m.

Statoil announced last fall that it was postponing its Arctic debut until at least 2015, and company spokesman Ola Morten Aanestad said even that is not a firm commitment. “The earliest possibility would be 2015, but we have not decided that it will be drilled in 2015,” he told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

…

ConocoPhillips had planned to drill one well, and possibly two, in its Devil’s Paw prospect about 120 miles west of the village of Wainwright, significantly farther offshore than Shell’s operations in 2012.

…

One issue undoubtedly delaying federal approval of ConocoPhillips’ drilling plans was the company’s intention to use for the first time in the Arctic a jack-up drilling rig, which, unlike the floating rigs Shell employed, would attach to the ocean floor.

Questions have been raised about whether the company would be able to operate safely in the event of swiftly arriving ice packs, as happened during the opening days of Shell’s season in 2012, when its rig was forced to sail away from an advancing ice floe.

Sources familiar with talks between the federal government and  ConocoPhillips  said there were also questions about how the company would comply with requirements that it be able to drill a relief well in the event of a blowout that couldn’t otherwise be contained.

…

“There’s no reason the government should be operating with these clearly failed standards and oversight, and Conoco’s decision really provides more room to move forward and make operations safe. We really need to make sure that accidents, mishaps and disasters stop,” Christopher Krenz, Arctic program manager for Oceana, said in an interview.

In a big blow to Arctic exploration, Conoco’s offshore-drilling program on hold

Alex DeMarban, Alaska Dispatch

April 10, 2013

The announcement means there may be little oil activity on Alaska’s outer-continental shelf this summer, in part because other companies, including Norwegian oil giant Statoil, have followed the lead of Shell and Conoco.

…

The report followed Shell’s blunder-filled inaugural season of Arctic exploration, capped by the grounding of the Kulluk drill rig near Kodiak during a powerful winter storm.

…

The Alaska Wilderness League said industry and the government need time to figure out the next steps, because the risks of drilling in the undeveloped Arctic are extreme.  

“This pause is a real opportunity for President Obama to revisit his position on Arctic Ocean drilling,” said executive director Cindy Shogan. “With no infrastructure or ability to clean up an oil spill in ice, and Shell’s extensive laundry lists of mishaps and failures, it is a no brainer to suspend drilling in the Arctic. If President Obama truly wants to address his climate change legacy, saying no to Arctic Ocean drilling would be a huge first step.”

She added: “Today’s announcement from ConocoPhillips is further proof that no oil company is ready to drill in the harsh and unpredictable environment of the Arctic Ocean.”