Month: March 2013

Red Coats Are Coming!

Subject:  Women’s History

“Listen my children

And you shall hear

The midnight ride

Of Paul Revere……..”

We all know that poem from our youth and our studies of American history……

Paul Revere’s ride lasted about an hour and was captured by the British and held for questioning……the person that did a Hell of a lot more as a messenger was Sybil Ludington………I know……who?

Sybil Ludington was the eldest of twelve children. Her father, Col. Ludington, had served in the French and Indian war. As a mill owner in Patterson, New York, he was a community leader, and he volunteered to serve as the local militia commander as war with the British loomed.

When he received word late on April 26, 1777, that the British were attacking Danbury, Connecticut, Colonel Ludington knew that they would move from there into further attacks in New York. As head of the local militia, he needed to muster his troops from their farmhouses around the distict, and to warn the people of the countryside of possible British attack.

Sybil Ludington, 16 years old, volunteered to warn the countryside of the attack and to alert the militia troops to muster at Ludington’s. The glow of the flames would have been visible for miles.

She traveled some 40 miles through the towns of Carmel, Mahopac, and Stormville, in the middle of the night, in a rainstorm, on muddy roads, shouting that the British were burning Danbury and calling out the militia to assemble at Ludington’s. When Sybil Ludington returned home, most of the militia troops were ready to march to confront the British.

The 400-some troops were not able to save the supplies and the town at Danbury — the British seized or destroyed food and munitions and burned the town — but they were able to stop the British advance and push them back to their boats, in the Battle of Ridgefield.

Sybil Ludington’s contribution to the war was to help stop the advance of the British, and thus give the American militia more time to organize and resist. She was recognized for her midnight ride by those in the neighborhood, and was also recognized by General George Washington.

Sybil Ludington continued to help as she could with the Revolutionary War effort, in one of the typical roles that women were able to play in that war: as a messenger.

Women played a pivotal part in the War for independence and they are only now getting the credit they truly deserve……I hope I have help in some small way…….

Are We Ever Safe?

Once again it is the weekend and a breath of fresh air from politics and the insects that report on it……

We all want to feel safe, right?  Safe at home……safe at work……safe on line……just always prefer that feeling of safety…..then there is a place that is sanitized and we should feel a lot of emotions when there, but a feeling of being unsafe is just not acceptable……so just how sterile is a hospital?

A family of deadly germs that can withstand even the strongest antibiotics is a growing threat in American hospitals, federal officials warn. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae—CRE—have been detected in 4% of short-stay hospitals and nearly a fifth of long-term ones and authorities warn there is only a “limited window of opportunity” to prevent their spread, the New York Times reports. Cases have been reported in 42 states. “What’s called CRE are nightmare bacteria,” CDC director Thomas Frieden tells NPR. He describes them as a “triple threat” because they are resistant to even last-ditch antibiotics, can cause fatality rates of nearly 50%, and can pass on drug resistance to other bacteria. “The mechanism of resistance to antibiotics not only works for one bacteria, but can be spread to others,” Frieden warns. The CDC is urging hospitals to do all they can to contain CRE before it spreads to the community at large.

Nothing like going to a place of wellness and finding that it is a den of bacteria……..have any horror stories you would like to share?

Spring Forward

It is the weekend and NOT just any weekend……..it is the weekend where we Americans participate in a damn silly ritual…..Daylight Savings…..personally I think it is a waste of time that does nothing that it is portrayed to do…….

(Newser) – Daylight Saving Time starts Sunday, but no one benefits from it, writes Bora Zivkovic in Scientific American. It will take days for our bodies to adjust to the lost hour—we’re essentially “jet-lagged for a few days”—and even cows will suffer when they’re milked an hour earlier than they’re used to. And for what purpose? DST was established back when lighting was the biggest energy need, so changing the clocks to maximize daylight hours saved electricity. Nowadays, that’s no longer true.

With factories, nuclear plants, airports, computers, and other “time-independent” things using up the bulk of our energy, energy companies have actually done studies concluding DST no longer saves energy. Other studies have shown that in the days following DST, traffic accidents, workplace injuries, heart attacks, and depression increase. Common sense seems to dictate we stop the practice—but since “it’s a bit unclear who exactly” is in charge of the whole idea (Congress? Individual states? Counties?), it will probably never be abolished. Click for Zivkovic’s full column.

Is there anyone else that thinks this is a complete waste of time ( pun intended)?

Make The Bastards Pay!

In 2008 we had a horrible crash….an economic tsunami……and we good guy taxpayers bailed out the culprits that screwed everything up……these corporations are doing fin e now….the economy still sucks, unless you have lots of cash, and no had to pay the price for shady economic practices……the government (insert raucous laughter here) put together a bill that woiuld help to control this sort of thing from happening again….the problem is they let the companies that caused the problem write the law….in other words….IT SUCKS…IT IS IMPOTENT!

Personally, I think someone should have to pay the price for their deception and theft……

At least someone is doing something about these tools that game the economy to their benefit and never are held accountable for their crimes….yes, I said crimes!

Switzerland has gone about making the bastards pay….one way or the other……

Swiss citizens voted to impose some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation, initial result projections showed.

Claude Longchamp, of pollsters Gfs Bern, told Swiss state television on Sunday early returns in a referendum showed 68 percent backed plans for shareholders to veto executive pay and for a ban on big rewards for new and departing managers.

The clear majority was unusual given fierce opposition and intense campaigning by a business lobby group, which warned the proposals will damage the country’s competitiveness and scare away international talent.

Support for the move was fired by anger over the big bonuses blamed for fuelling risky investments that nearly felled Swiss bank UBS, as well as outrage over a proposed $78m payment to outgoing Novartis chairman Daniel Vasella.

Longchamp said the public outcry last month that forced Novartis to cancel Vasella’s “golden goodbye” helped drive the campaign.

“It emotionalised and it mobilised,” he said.

Short-termism’ culture

Thomas Minder, the businessman-turned-politician behind the campaign, says his proposals are aimed at ending a culture of short-termism and rewards for managers of badly-run companies rather than just capping salaries.

Despite threats from some executives, Switzerland is unlikely to see an exodus of big companies, drawn to the country by low taxes, stable politics and business-friendly laws.

And companies will seek ways around the new rules to reward executives, just as banks in Europe are looking to soften the impact of a cap on bonuses for top staff agreed by European politicians on Thursday.

“If a company wants to pay a top executive 25 million, then they will find a way to do so regardless of the initiative,” Rolf Soiron, chairman of cement maker Holcim and drugs industry supplier Lonza, told the Reuters news agency before the vote.

Experts also question whether shareholders in Swiss companies will make full use of their new rights.

Of the top 100 Swiss companies, 49 already give shareholders a non-binding vote on the pay of executives. But while opposition to pay deals is on the rise, a majority of investors have never voted them down.

Possible jail

Swiss companies accounted for five of the top 10 best-paid chairmen in Europe in 2011, but only the heads of Novartis and Roche made it into the continent’s top 10 for chief executives.

While anger at multi-million dollar payouts for executives has spread around the globe since the financial crisis, the Swiss system of direct democracy means populist proposals have a greater chance of implementation.

Minder’s initiative forces binding votes on compensation every year as well as on board composition and would also ban bonus payments to managers if their companies are taken over.

The plan also includes possible jail sentences and fines for breaching the new rules.

While Switzerland has fared relatively well through the financial crisis, the near collapse of flagship bank UBS in 2008 stoked anger among Swiss who blamed its heavy losses on rewarding bankers to make risky bets.

Last year, more than one-third of UBS shareholders rejected the bank’s plans for executive pay, including a $4.2m signing-on fee for new German chairman Axel Weber, after a sub-par 2011 profit and a $2bn rogue trading scandal.

Now there is an idea……an idea that should be made here………but it will not…..why?  Our government is owned lock, stock and barrel by these thieves…until we make them responsible for their actions we will always have these sorts of crises….since not much has changed since 2008, it is only a matter of time before we are hit again……..We must make the bastards pay!

WTF?

Horse meat found in meatballs sold by IKEA……thinking……IKEA?  Do you have to assemble them or what?

Anyway we have heard all about the horse meat scandal in Europe….all the outrage….all the yukky feelings…..all the news…..but wait!

If you don’t want to eat horse, you might want to drop the chalupa. The great European horse meat scandal has spread to Taco Bell, with British regulators revealing today that they found horse meat at the chain’s UK locations. That, it turns out, puts the Bell in pretty elite company; of the 1,797 meat samples regulators tested from across the country, only four came up positive, including Birds Eye ready meals and Brakes skewers, which had already been implicated, Reuters reports. Taco Bell has just three outlets in the UK. The company released a statement stressing that the contaminated meat came from a single supplier in Europe, and noting, “We immediately withdrew ground beef from sale in our restaurants, discontinued purchase of that meat, and contacted the Food Standards Agency.” But the news comes at an inconvenient time for parent company Yum Brands, which just this week announced it was tightening safety standards after its Chinese KFC restaurants had a contaminated chicken scare.

Consumers are appalled…..how could this happen?

With Nestle stung by the horse-meat scandal, you may wonder whether unwanted cheval has reached your dinner table. Federal US regulators say it’s unlikely, because domestic suppliers don’t slaughter horses and Washington doesn’t allow imported beef from European countries affected by the scandal, reports NBC News. That said, a Florida supplier of horse-meat tests has been swamped by nearly 1,000 orders—including some from big US meat producers. Behind this lies America’s little-known taste for horse meat. Nearly 20 slaughterhouses once produced it, and three were still operating when Congress, spurred by anti-slaughter activists, effectively outlawed it by nixing funds for USDA inspections. But the Obama administration quietly let it resume, in part due to poor treatment of horses. “There are plenty of people in America who have no problem with cheval and are anxiously awaiting our product,” says a Wyoming state rep. Another angle on the story: A German lawmaker says food tainted with horse meat should be given to the poor, and an evangelical priest is backing him up, reports the BBC.

This is all so amusing….humans have been eating horse meat for centuries…..but now we are too good…..too civilized…..too evolved for the consuming of horse flesh…….right?

Maybe not so evolved.

What timing: With Europe trying to rein in a horse meat scandal, the US may give the green light to a horse slaughtering plant in New Mexico. The facility, which would produce horse meat that’s safe to eat, could get Agriculture Department approval within the next two months, the New York Times reports. The production of US horse meat for humans requires USDA inspection—and the department hasn’t offered the service since 2007, after a move by Congress prohibited the USDA from funding such inspections. As such, the meat hasn’t been processed here since 2007—but the financing ban expired in 2011. A USDA rep says the White House wants Congress to renew it, and the Humane Society, citing issues with horse drug treatments, is calling on the USDA to hold off on approving such facilities. But Valley Meat, which owns the New Mexico plant, sued the USDA in 2012 over the lack of inspections; it’s one of “several” companies calling for the inspections to be relaunched. A lawyer for Valley Meat says he was told by the Justice Department that the USDA intends to issue a grant of inspection within 60 days. The Times notes that the company does not intend to sell its meat in the US.

It amuses me how the media just has to drive the cycle…..it is only news when they say it is news…..

Addendum:  Since I wrote this draft IKEA has been hit with food poisoning in the chocolate cake…..first, that has got to be sacrilegious….and second, when did IKEA begin selling food?