Browsed by
Tag: america

Excellent Essay On Gun Control

Excellent Essay On Gun Control

Comments 2 comments

This guy nailed it, worth a few minutes to read.

Here is his lead into the essay:

Every time a gun issue comes up in conversation around Daily people or during a Daily editorial board meeting, opinion editor Michael Belding almost always tells me, “you should write a column about that!” I hesitate in doing so and have so far resisted the urge mostly; I wrote three gun-related columns back in 2011 and early 2012, and that was enough to brand me the “gun guy” by some folks who use such terms as epithets.

The desire of others for me to write gun columns is reasonable, though, and I understand it. I’m as much of a “gun expert” as you’re likely to find around here, so having me write about guns in the paper is perfectly rational. I won’t bore you with my “gun resume,” but suffice it to say that prior to coming to Iowa State in 2011, I made a living with firearms in one way or another for several years of my life, and have a few pieces of paper laying around that say I know a bit about them, too.

Today, however, I’m going to break my silence on the gun issue and speak out once more — and for the last time. This is my final column for the Iowa State Daily.

Read it all here, you won’t be dissapointed.

 

Shocking Findings From New Study

Shocking Findings From New Study

Comments 0 Comment

Um…not so much, we all knew it, just some don’t or won’t recognize.

New brain research shows two parents may be better than one. Adult human brain cell production may be triggered in childhood

May 1, 2013

A team of researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) have discovered that adult brain cell production might be determined, in part, by the early parental environment. The study suggests that dual parenting may be more beneficial than single parenting.

Scientists studied mouse pups that were raised by either dual or single parents and found that adult cell production in the brain might be triggered by early life experiences. The scientists also found that the increased adult brain cell production varied based on gender. Specifically, female pups raised by two parents had enhanced white matter production as adults, increasing motor coordination and sociability. Male pups raised by dual parents displayed more grey matter production as an adult, which improves learning and memory.

“Our new work adds to a growing body of knowledge, which indicates that early, supportive experiences have long lasting, positive impact on adult brain function,” says Samuel Weiss, PhD, senior author of the study and director of the HBI.

Surprisingly, the advantages of dual parenting were also passed along when these two groups reproduced, even if their offspring were raised by one female. The advantages of dual parenting were thus passed along to the next generation.

To conduct the study, scientists divided mice into three groups i) pups raised to adulthood by one female ii) pups raised to adulthood by one female and one male and iii) pups raised to adulthood by two females. Researchers then waited for the offspring to reach adulthood to find out if there was any impact on brain cell production.

Scientists say that this research provides evidence that, in the mouse model, parenting and the environment directly impact adult brain cell production. While it’s not known at this point, it is possible that similar effects could be seen in other mammals, such as humans. The study is published in the May 1 edition of PLOS ONE. It was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Common Sense And Medicine Collide

Common Sense And Medicine Collide

Comments 0 Comment

Seems so easy and simple to me, why wouldn’t this be a standard test for everyone over 30? Could save so many lives.
Medical Test Uses Fingers To Predict Heart Disease – Blood flow in fingers shows years ahead

There’s now a new test that can predict a heart attack years — as many as seven years — before the patient has one.

Doctors don’t even look at your heart to conduct this test. They look at your fingers.

KCAL9′s Juan Fernandez spoke to Dr. Chris Renna of LifeSpan Medicine in Santa Monica to find out how the test works. “Endothelial function is the bomb. That’s the money,” he says. Dr. Renna says blood vessel health can be easily checked with the EndoPat test.

He showed Fernandez various charts showing patients with varying results. “You can see endothelial dysfunction in 30 year olds, you can prevent a potential lifetime of distress and misery by correcting that.”

Ed Murphy is being treated by another doctor. While he doesn’t have any heart disease symptoms, he did want to know if he was headed down the wrong path. “I think it’s time to keep an eye on things because after 50 everything goes down hill,” says Murphy.

During Murphy’s EndoPat test, doctors place blood flow sensors on one finger on each hand. Then a blood pressure cuff was inflated to stop blood flow to one hand. After five minutes, the cuff is deflated and the sensors then measure recovering blood flow.

In a normal patient, you see blood flow stop with the inflated cuff and then a rebound surge in blood flow. In an abnormal test, blood flow only recovers to what it was before the stoppage. This signals potential trouble in the heart.

“If the results are not normal you have to do lifestyle modifications lifestyle changes are in orders, to make them normal,” says Dr. Renna.

Simple changes in weight, diet, exercise and perhaps medication can hopefully restore normal blood vessel function and prevent possible heart attacks or strokes.

 

Well Said

Well Said

Comments 0 Comment

“Democrats on health care: 15-year-olds who want birth control are adults. 26-year-olds who want health insurance are children.”

$3.73 Per Gallon Or Green at $59.00

$3.73 Per Gallon Or Green at $59.00

Comments 1 comment

This is fucking insane. The government is out of control, I did not pay my taxes for stupidity, yet that’s all these idiots know. Revolution soon me thinks.

Despite sequester, DOD signs contract for $59/gallon green jet fuel

Photo - A picture taken on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012 shows, plane captains pass by F-18 fighter jets on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in the Strait of Hurmuz. The USS Abraham Lincoln sailed from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently warned that sequestration would cause “suspension of important activities, curtailed training, and could result in furloughs of civilian personnel” but the spending cuts haven’t killed the green fuels program, as the Pentagon has continued purchasing renewable fuel at $59 per gallon.

“In March, Gevo entered into a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply the U.S. Army with 3,650 gallons of renewable jet fuel to be delivered by the second quarter of 2013,” Gevo announced this week in its first quarter financial report. “This initial order may be increased by 12,500 gallons. All shipments will be at a fixed price of $59 per gallon during the initial testing phase. These shipments are in addition to the renewable jet fuel supplied to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the U.S. Navy (USN).”

Conventional JP-8 jet fuel costs $3.73 a gallon, according to the Defense Logistics Agency.

To Big For Its Own Good

To Big For Its Own Good

Comments 0 Comment

Following my last post about Holders letter to Kansas, I was thinking about all the snide remarks I made, and if maybe I should tone it down a bit. I know that my site is frequented by the same department whose leader I just called a poodle.

Um, no, I won’t stop.

It’s not that I hate government, it is the fact that the government in its current form is to big and out of control. To make an analogy look to the education districts of our public schools, since 1979 the administrative branch is 700 times bigger than it was, while the teacher and pupil growth rate stands at 200 percent in that same period. So what to glean from that, the same thing we glean from the federal government. To many bureaucrats and not enough teaching. To big for its own good or ours.

I understand that since our government began, people chasing power wanted to get involved in or in bed with the politicians. A natural occurrence of an aggressive Type A personality like most business owners or politicians, (back in the day), had in common. Powerful friends could guarantee contracts and favors much the same as we have now. The problem is, back then becoming a public servant was considered a privilege and a national duty.
Now it’s like winning the lottery, because in a lot of ways, it is. If you make it to a position of power such as a Mayor or Governor you are going to be paid well, if you make it to Congress you have set yourself up for life, and the longer you stay, the wealthier you will become, make to the White House, even better. And that, has created the monster we have now.

The United States is a huge complex country, with a multitude of problems to be dealt with, but as with the education bureaucrats in cities all over the country, you have X amount of politicians calling the shots, they have thousands of appointees helping them legislate/dictate the laws of the land, then you have millions bureaucrats wielding the sword of the aforementioned group. And all of these people get pad better than the private sector with pensions and benefits unimaginable to Joe Public.

Now add progressive liberals to the mix and disaster is just around the corner. They would tax their own mother into the poor house if they hadn’t already given her a six figure salary and appointed her to Czar of Poor Houses.

So yes, we need government, it just needs to be downsized about 40% and until something positive happens along those lines I’m gonna keep bitchin’ to whoever will listen.

Eric Holder Tries To Spank Kansas

Eric Holder Tries To Spank Kansas

Comments 1 comment

I love it when Bambam’s pit bull poodle get’s off his leash. He sent a snotty letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback claiming the law they just passed to bar feds from enforcing gun laws is unconstitutional and they would sue to prove it. But like many of Obama’s hench men, he forgets that the federal law itself is unconstitutional thus making any action by Federal Agents quite lame and a crime. After Fast & Furious, what makes him think he deserves any respect.

A new law in Kansas that criminalizes the enforcement of federal gun controls in the state is unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric H. Holder said.

“In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, [the law] directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Mr. Holder wrote to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter dated April 26. “Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of a criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of their federal duties.”

Mr. Holder cites the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps conflicting state authority or exercise of power. Kansas’s law became effective April 25.

Mr. Holder wrote that federal authorities “will continue to execute their duties to enforce all federal firearms laws and regulations. Moreover, the United States will take all appropriate action, including litigation if necessary, to prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law.” Read more here at The Gateway Pundit

Does Holder have a leg to stand on? Not according to The Tenth Amendment Center.

1. Kansas is NOT purporting to criminalize the exercise of constitutional federal responsibilities.  On the contrary, the bill criminalizes what the state has determined is unconstitutional.   It is the position that such federal acts are indeed a violation of the Constitution.  No matter how much Eric might believe it to be otherwise, his view is obviously not universal – especially in Kansas.

2. The Supremacy Clause.  Holder takes the position that all tyrants do – that everything they do is authorized, anything to the contrary – worthless.  But Holder is wrong.  The Supremacy Clause doesn’t say that “any law in conflict with federal law” is void.  It says that only those laws “in pursuance” of the constitution are supreme.  The new Kansas legislation, again, takes the position that such federal acts are not constitutional, and therefore not supreme. Read the rest here

Copy of Holders letter.

Click to biggie size.