Posted on 07/24/2009 3:37:21 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15)
Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years.
To us, Suelo probably sounds a little extreme. Actually, he probably sounds very extreme. After all, I suspect most of you reading this are doing so under the protection of some sort of man-made shelter, and with some amount of money on your person, and probably a few needs for money, too. And who doesn’t need money unless they have completely unplugged from the grid? Still, it’s an amusing story about a guy who rejects all forms of consumerism as we know it.
The Frugal Roundup
How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Save Some Money. A fantastic introduction to home brewing, something I’ve never done myself, but always been interested in trying. (@Generation X Finance)
Contentment: A Great Financial Principle. If I had to name one required emotion for living a frugal lifestyle it would be contentment. Once you are content with your belongings and your lot in life you can ignore forces attempting to separate you from your money. (@Personal Finance by the Book)
Use Energy Star Appliances to Save On Utility Costs. I enjoyed this post because it included actual numbers, and actual total savings, from someone who upgraded to new, energy star appliances. (@The Digerati Life)
Over-Saving for Retirement? Is it possible to “over-save” for retirement? Yes, I think so. At some point I like the idea of putting some money aside in taxable investments outside of retirement funds, to be accessed prior to traditional retirement age. (@The Simple Dollar)
40 Things to Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home. A great list of both practical and philosophical lessons to teach your kids before they reach the age where they know everything. I think that now happens around 13 years-old. (@My Supercharged Life)
Index Fund Investing Overview. If you are looking for a place to invest with high diversification and relatively low fees (for broader index funds with low turnover), index funds are a great place to start. (@Money Smart Life)
5 Reasons To Line Dry Your Laundry. My wife and I may soon be installing a clothesline in our backyard. In many neighborhoods they are frowned upon - one of the reasons I don’t like living in a neighborhood. I digress. One of our neighbors recently put up a clothesline, and we might just follow his lead. (@Simple Mom)
A Few Others I Enjoyed
* 4 Quick Tips for Getting Out of a Rut * Young and Cash Rich * Embracing Simple Style * First Trading Experience With OptionsHouse * The Exponential Power of Delayed Consumption * How Much Emergency Fund is Enough? * 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind * Save Money On Car Insurance
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm174749.htm
United Food Group, Inc. Recalling Product Because Of Possible Health Risk
Contact:
Barbara Boyer
(847) 622-1803
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — July 30, 2009 — United Food Group, Inc announced a voluntary recall of products that contain instant nonfat dry milk manufactured by Plainview Milk Products Cooperative. This recall is a precautionary measure due to the voluntary recall of instant nonfat dry milk announced by Plainview Milk Products Cooperative on June 29, 2009.
Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
Due to the products potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, the following are being recalled:
Victorian Inn®
Cream of Mushroom Soup
.66 lb Can
Victorian Inn®
Baked Potato w/ Bacon Soup
.66 lb Can
Victorian Inn®
Cream of Chicken Soup
.66 lb Can
Victorian Inn®
Cream of Broccoli Soup
.55 lb Can
Victorian Inn®
Cream of Chicken Soup
21g Single Serve Packet
Victorian Inn®
Cream of Broccoli
21g Single Serve Packet
Victorian Inn®
Baked Potato w/ Bacon Soup
21g Single Serve Packet
Perfect Servings™
French Vanilla Cappuccino
1.5 lb. Bags
Perfect Servings™
Cream of Mushroom
1.5 lb. Bags
Perfect Servings™
Potato w/ Bacon
1.5 lb. Bags
Perfect Servings™
Cream of Chicken
1.5 lb. Bags
Perfect Servings™
Cream of Broccoli
1.5 lb. Bags
Victorian Inn®
Cappuccino Topping
1.1 lb. bags
Victorian Inn®
Cappuccino Frothing Milk
1.5 lb. Bags
Herico™
Horchata, Can
1.25 lb. Can
Herico™
Horchata, Bag
1.25 lb. Bags
Herico™
Horchata, Bucket
25lb. Bucket
Perfect Servings™
Double Dutch Hot Chocolate w/ Marshmallows
1.5 lb. Bags
No other products other than these listed above are involved in the recall and only if distributed between 6/4/2007 and 6/4/2009. These products were distributed nationwide.
Consumers who have purchased these products are urged to return them to the place of purchase. Consumers with questions may contact the company at 1-847-622-1803.
United Food Group, Inc. has not received any reports of illness in connection with the items listed above to date, and no other United Food Group, Inc. products are affected by this action. For more information on Salmonella, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Website at http://www.cdc.gov.
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Photos: Product Labels
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Page Last Updated: 07/31/2009
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm174811.htm
Undeclared Sulfites in “Chi Ling Gourmet Foods Hot Olive”
Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:35:00 -0500
New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker today alerted consumers that Tiffany Food Corp., located at 1182 Flushing Ave., Brooklyn, New York is recalling “Chi Ling Gourmet Foods Hot Olive” due to the presence of undeclared sulfites. People who have severe sensitivity to sulfites may run the risk of serious or life-threatening reactions if they consume this product.
Do goats and parrots have that fiesty independent attitude too?<<<
Do they ever, Dink left me bleeding most of the time, but loved me...well a little.
When Bill was able to go to work after his heart problems, he had to go out of town, that is where the jobs were, Dink never spoke a word from Sunday until Thursday, only bit me.
Considering that he did not live in a cage, that meant he could make a flying attack and draw blood on the run.
Then Bill came home for the weekend and poor sweet Dink would be there when he woke up, he would even preen the sleep from Bills long eye lashes.
Dink would find my cigarette package, pull them out one by one, take a bite out of the middle, drop it to the floor, turn his head sideways, look to make sure it was on the floor and reach for another.
It took me years to figure out when he knew to wake me up and you had better be feet on the floor when that alarm went off.
Then one morning, I was awake and I heard it, the alarm made a click, before it started ringing and that was Dink’s clue.
Jo had told me that she thought that I should take him, for he was lonely at her house, Jim was a cop and she worked at the bank, so they were gone for long hours, and there was always something in my house, and I was raising/breeding birds.
Finally one day, she said please follow me home and get Dink, she had him for 2 or 3 years, he was an illegal immigrant, came across at a day or two old and the arresting officer, asked Jo to try and save for in the 1970’s we had no one to take care of the smuggled birds in our area.
I had no idea what I was going after, got there, found a small parrot, a Petz Conure, who LOL, had a 6 foot tall cage.
We got the cage loaded and Dink in a carry cage and started home, of course to the far side of town.
It was late and Bill was still in the goat pen, for that was the day one choose to have a difficult birth, which Bill was good at dealing with.
We set up the cage and went to bed.
Bill got up early and did not like my chattering, for they said that I hit the floor talking and it was more jobs for Bill, if he listened.
So over the years, we settled into married life, he got up alone in the morning, did not want food or talk.
I stayed up at night and did crafts, read or whatever and even when we had a house full of foster kids, we both had periods of being alone.
The first morning with Dink went like this:
“I am putting my pants on damn it”
repeated several times, as Bill stood by the bed, attempting to put his pants on and talk at the same time.
LOL, of course I woke up and asked what was going on, then I heard Dink, in the other room yelling “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” over and over.
Seems Bill went to start the coffee and woke Dink up, who considered him to be an intruder.
I thought it was funny, Bill did not.
When I got up and went in the kitchen, Dink started in on me,
“I Want a Bath!!!”, I want a bath, over and over, with more cuss words as he rejected my efforts to put bowls of water in his cage.
When I got to work and told Jim, he said Jo forgot to give me the bathtub.... an 8 inch round cake pan, to be placed in the sink and a trickle of water allowed to run, so Dink could shower, himself and the entire kitchen.
In later years, he took a shower on my shoulder, most of the time...for he got in the habit of wanting a bath in every glass of water and as you watered house plants.
I had a list of 139 words that he could say and did when he wanted to, that were used correctly.
He would scream at me, I was the evil stepmother, I did not allow him to drink beer and none of the cans that I opened, ever had beer in them.
My brother had allowed Dink to share a beer and forever after Dink wanted beer in every can.
Mary would come to dinner and he would set on her knees and talk to her, as if he knew he was talking to a real victorian lady.
But let Bill’s boss’s wife come to dinner and Dink was plain rude, he would mock what she said and she was one of those, who bragged a lot, how dink knew which words to repeat, I did not figure out, but he would pick her brags up and sit there repeating them.
Dink was with me about 24 years.
>>>Wow - I think your dog is smarter than a lot of 3rd graders! <<<
Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but he takes his time and seems to think things through.
When we went to Florida to see Christi before we adopted her, we left him at home (Florida will not allow dogs at any motels) He had way more water than he could drink and way more food out for him than he could possibly eat, and we put puppy pads down all over for him. When we came back, he had not eaten nor drunk hardly anything.
So, when we went down for the final adoption, we didn’t feel that it was fair for him to be so distraught, so we put him in a really nice kennel. This one is run by a really nice lady who keeps it spotless, it is air conditioned and each dog has their own private run and she has trampoline beds for them to sleep on. This lady pampers all the dogs in her care like you wouldn’t believe.
Well, she called us after 3 days so we could talk to him on the phone because he wasn’t eating or drinking, just sitting there in the middle of his bed. Even that didn’t help. He definitely wanted his family to come back.
This continued for the whole week we were gone, and when we picked him up, he ran to the car and jumped in, climbed up on the center console, and almost as if he had spent the whole week thinking what to say, he put his head back like a wolf would do, and very very clearly told us what he wanted... “Home, Home, Home!” He must have repeated that 10 times as we drove the 6 miles home.
Even now, when wife gets home from work, he runs to the door and puts his head up and declares - “Home, Home, Home!”
I can’t say that he spent that time thinking of what to say, but is sure does seem like it.
For Vegetable Gardeners, It’s the Second Season
July 30, 2009
Susan Reimer
Baltimore Sun
Those who caught the vegetable gardening bug that swept the nation this spring need not weep when the last tomato is harvested. The second season of vegetable gardening begins - now.
Seeds for cold-weather crops will be available at garden centers by the first of August, if they are not there already. And seedlings - an easy shortcut for vegetable gardeners - are not far behind.
Broccoli, cauliflower, beets, turnip greens, chard, cabbages, carrots and peas, not to mention another round of lettuce and spinach, are the most popular fall crops. Not only can they survive a frost, they taste better for it.
“The fall may be the better time for anything in the cabbage family,” said Gene Sumi, education coordinator at Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville. “They are actually going to taste better when they get hit by a frost because the low temperature brings the sugar out.
“And fall is another chance for people who love lettuce and spinach.”
Homestead, like other home and garden centers, is preparing for a significant uptick in sales for fall vegetables.
Carrie Engel of Valley View Farms in Cockeysville said she has ordered 20 percent to 25 percent more fall crops, especially lettuces, spinach and broccoli, because of April sales. “We sold more greens than we ever have before.”
Burpee Home Gardens reports that garden centers in its Dallas test market ordered nearly the same number of plants for the fall vegetable and herb gardening season as they did for spring.
“Dallas represents a warmer zone with a longer gardening season, but still illustrates a trend that retail garden centers have recognized and are capitalizing on - fall gardening is more popular,” said Burpee representative Jessie Atchison.
Fall crops come with their own set of issues, however.
Gardeners can “free sow,” simply scattering seeds in a way that isn’t possible in the cold and wet of early spring. But drought and insects are a problem in the fall. And critters still devour seedlings, just as they do in the spring.
“Insects are a problem,” said Engel. “The best thing to use are translucent row covers to protect against them.”
Gardeners should start planning now for their fall crops. Here is some advice:
•Clear the garden of spent plants, composting any material that shows no signs of disease. Test the soil to make sure the ph level is still above 6.0. If not, add hydrated lime, which will work quickly for the fall crops.
•Add more compost and dig it in. Any portion of the garden that will not be planted with fall crops should be covered with hay, black plastic or a cover crop of rye grass.
•Even if you did not have a vegetable garden this spring, consider planting in the bald spots that appear in the perennial gardens in the fall. The south side of your yard will have the best sun during the shortening days of fall.
•Seeds for fall crops of broccoli and cauliflower should be sown in containers now. Likewise, late crops of squash, beans and cucumbers can be directly sown now, according to the University of Maryland Extension Service.
•If you are starting seeds in containers, you won’t need to provide an artificial heat and light source. But too little moisture and daytime temperatures that are too high can be a problem. It makes sense to nurture seedlings in a stable environment.
•Although you can start seeds in containers any time now, some crops may require you to wait to free sow until after Labor Day. That way, temperatures will have moderated by the time the plants are mature, said Sumi. The same is true for planting seedlings. In any case, read the packages directions for fall planting carefully.
•The old wives’ tale is true: Don’t harvest until after the first frost. The vegetables will taste sweeter, Sumi said.
•And finally, planting fall vegetable crops holds the promise of a wonderfully fresh Thanksgiving feast.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/home-garden/bal-ae.li.susan30jul30,0,659126.column
http://www.millennium-ark.net/NEWS/09_Food_Water/090731.gardeners.2nd.season.html
boomark
Haven’t been feeling well-just getting caught up and want to mark my place.
//Snip// Re: H.R. 2749 just passed by the House.
The legislation requires food manufacturers to identify the particular risks they face, create controls to prevent that contamination, monitor those controls to make sure they are working and update those measures regularly.
//snip//
It also allows the FDA to quarantine a geographic area, blocking the distribution of suspect food to the rest of the country. And the FDA would gain access to records at farms and food production facilities.
Under the legislation, the food agency will get new enforcement powers and be able to impose beefed-up civil and criminal penalties. One provision allows the FDA to declare food “adulterated” simply if the grower or manufacturer has failed to follow safety standards, regardless of whether the food is actually tainted.
The bill does not address the fractured nature of U.S. food regulation, which is spread among 15 federal agencies, as well as thousands of state and local health departments.
Agriculture interests were able to win key concessions. Small farms are exempt from registration fees, ranchers and farmers now regulated by the Agriculture Department are excluded from the requirements of the bill and the FDA will have to consider the special concerns of small growers and organic farmers, among other provisions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003271.html?hpid=topnews
>>>Haven’t been feeling well-just getting caught up and want to mark my place.<<<
Hope you soon feel fit and chipper...
On the second part - (pardon me for this, but we were talking dogs earlier)
Hey, my dog does that too... Marks his place every chance he gets...
Again, sorry, just could not resist that.
Has the sun found Maine yet?
Well, Granny - we knew this was coming didn’t we...
- - - - - -
Military to Deploy on U.S. Soil to “Assist” with Pandemic Outbreak
related: Military Planning for Possible H1N1 Outbreak
July 30, 2009
By Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Until now, what I’m about to tell you would have been easily dismissed as a conspiracy theory. It’s the kind of story that you might expect from some extreme fringe blogger... the kind of story that never appears in the mainstream media. Only today, it did. And it’s not a conspiracy theory, either.
CNN is reporting this evening that the U.S. military is gearing up to get involved in the H1N1 swine flu outbreak widely expected to strike the U.S. this fall. As CNN reports, “The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.”
When it comes to the U.S. military, the word “assist,” of course, could mean almost anything. Typically, the U.S. military offers assistance at the end of a rifle. This “assistance” could mean assisting with quarantines, assisting with rounding up infected people or assisting with arresting and imprisoning people who resist vaccine shots.
Just to make it even more interesting, this operation will include “personnel from all branches of the military” and it will involve cooperation with FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is the group of geniuses who handled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They’re the ones who confiscated firearms from law-abiding citizens defending their own homes, then thrust people into toxic temporary housing that caused neurological symptoms and breathing problems.
Internationally, FEMA is known as the Federal Emergency Laughing Stock Administration. But now, with H1N1 swine flu, FEMA will be backed by the power of highly-trained, heavily-armed military personnel.
Imagine One Possible Future in America...
There’s a knock on your door. A peek through the window reveals two young soldiers in urban camo fatigues gripping M16 rifles slung across their chests. In front of them, an official-looking doctor person sports an N95 mask and carries a clipboard thick with ruffled papers.
Knock knock. “Is anyone home?”
One of the soldiers catches a glimpse of you peering through a sliver of curtain covering the living room window. “I’ve got movement.” He tightens his grip on his rifle and elbows the soldier next to him. “Someone’s home. Knock again.”
Knock KNOCK. “We’re here from the pandemic response team,” insists the doc. “We’re here to help. Open up or we’ll be forced to come in.”
Reluctantly, you inch towards the door and grip the doorknob with damp, sweaty hands. Your pulse pounds hard as you crack open the door.
But the doctor isn’t in front of your door anymore. It’s one of the soldiers — the larger one — and he wedges his foot between your door and its frame, prying it open and forcing his intimidating self into your doorway. “We’re with FEMA. Please step away from the door.”
“Our records show you haven’t received the swine flu vaccine yet,” squeaks the doctor from behind the bulk of the domineering soldier now squarely positioned in front of you. “We’re here to administer your vaccine.”
“I don’t want a vaccine,” you protest. “They’re not safe.”
The soldier chuckles, blurts out, “They’re as safe as the U.S. government says they are.”
The doctor peers out from behind his military companion and makes eye contact. “Sir, as you well know, vaccines have been required for all U.S. residents since President Obama’s emergency pandemic declaration last month. Please extend your arm and we’ll be on our way.”
He produces a syringe and stabs it into a half-filled vaccine cylinder. As he pulls the plunger and liquid races into the syringe, you realize you have mere moments to make a decision. Will you willingly accept the vaccine and avoid being beaten, arrested or shot by the two armed enforcers at your door, or will you resist and pay the consequences?
“Please extend your arm now,” the doctor says. The military grunt clenches his jaw, eyeing your hesitation with obvious scorn. He fingers the safety on his rifle and clears his throat...
... what will your choice be?
We’re Only Here to Help
That scenario might seem like fiction now, but it could unfold in America in the next few months. What seems outlandish today could become a police state reality before Christmas.
But this is no joke. These people are serious. Even the words tell too much: The order to approve all this is about to be signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and it’s called an “execution order.”
So what, exactly, would military personnel be doing in your neighborhood in the event of a swine flu outbreak? The CNN story says they could assist with the “...testing of large numbers of viral samples from infected patients.” There’s nothing in the story about rounding people up, maintaining quarantine road blocks or cremating the infected bodies of the dead. These realities of a pandemic outbreak are better left unsaid if you’re the U.S. military (or the mainstream media).
That’s why the full story of what the U.S. military is planning for will never be told to the masses. It’s too disturbing. But make no mistake: The military is planning for a worst-case scenario (that’s what the military does), and a worst-case pandemic outbreak scenario would involve gunpoint-enforced isolation, military-enforced quarantine zones and most likely the forced vaccination of nearly everyone. Those who resist the vaccinations would be arrested (or detained) and injected at gunpoint, then set free back into the population.
Hollywood has already imagined some of what might happen in such a scenario. Rent the movie The Siege (Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington) to catch an imaginative glimpse of how the U.S. military might handle things in an “emergency situation.” It’s not a documentary, of course, but much of what it presents seems strangely on track with what’s shaping up if a pandemic outbreak occurs.
The very fact that the military is now leaking this story to CNN says something all by itself: The U.S. military is preparing to be stationed on U.S. soil, and whatever freedoms you mistakenly think are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution will be long gone by the time the soldiers arrive at your door.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026732_military_pandemic_outbreak.html
Story pretty well nails it, except the ‘doctor’ will not be at the door, an Americorp member will be and the syringe will actually be an air pressure gun, to dispense with concern for injection site infections.
FEMA Report Missing Section Detailing Palmer, TX “Population Removal”
July 30, 2009
By Joey G. Dauben
The Ellis County Observer, Texas
PALMER, Texas - The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s reports of how to mitigate potential civil uprisings and disasters have sections dealing with the mass relocation and confinement of citizen populations: except in Palmer, a city 20 miles south of Dallas.
The City of Palmer and the Palmer Police Dept., according to a former reporter for conservative weekly The Ellis County Press who requested the FEMA documents for three months, have the federal plans but the section instituting population relocations came up missing.
“I have already talked to [Palmer PD Chief Mike Zaidle] about FEMA in Palmer the section of the emergency management plan regarding moving people into camps is totally gone from the 3 inch binder,” said Brandy Owen, the former reporter who penned a series of articles on the Trans Texas Corridor last year. “There is a chapter or [section in] it but the section is gone from the plan.
“He [Zaidle] is quite aware of federalization and says he has tried to be “compliant” and make proper arrangements for housing people in the high school gymnasium and other places,” she said. “FEMA always tells him his plans are inadequate.”
Recently, plans were announced by the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office to team up with local church pastors for a “safety seminar.” Some critics of the federal government plans involving local police agencies and churches cite FEMA’s attempt to “quell” dissent and facilitate the confiscation of guns from private citizens.
“A shocking KSLA [Shreveport, La.] news report has confirmed the story we first broke last year, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to “quell dissent” and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law,” Paul Joseph Watson reported two years ago for Austin-based website Infowars.com.
“In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
“A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.”
When she first approached the City of Palmer, Owen said Mayor Lance Anglin fielded requests to City Administrator Doug Young.
“For three months I asked and checked back in with Palmer City Hall,” she said. “Mayor [Anglin] turned all of his emergency plan responsibility to Young. Lots of sections are missing but specifically relocation of people.”
Copyright 2009 The Ellis County Observer and Joey G. Dauben
http://www.elliscountyobserver.com/?p=7948
Red Cross Stresses H1N1 Preparedness
(ABC 6 NEWS) – There are two things about H1N1 that health officials agree on:
“We are going to see a rise in the number of h1n1 cases that are being diagnosed,” says Brigitte Campbell of the Mower County Red Cross.
“Just because it’s out there doesn’t mean everybody’s going to have to get it,” adds Vince Lynch, a Red Cross Disaster Services volunteer.
The American Red Cross says now is the time to put together your plan for the next outbreak of H1N1. You can start by putting together a two week supply of things you might need in the event of a severe outbreak.
“Kleenex, medicine, food, canned food. That’s part of a plan,” says Campbell.
You might compare it to preparing a fire-escape plan: what works in your house might not work in someone else’s house. An H1N1 plan should be put together the same way.
http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S1053509.shtml?cat=10151
Breastfeeding A Strategy To Save Babies’ Lives
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Last Updated on Saturday, 01 August 2009 08:56 Written by Azlan Othman Saturday, 01 August 2009 08:50
nite03_1
Bandar Seri Begawan - World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from August 1-7 all over the world to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies. It commemorates the Innocenti Declaration made by WHOM and UNICEF policy-makers in August 1990 to protect, promote and support breastfeeding.
Brunei through the Ministry of Health is also celebrating the week where the theme of World Breastfeeding Week 2009 is “Breastfeeding - a vital emergency response. Are we ready?” This was highlighted in the message from the Minister of Health, Pehin Orang Kaya lndera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Hj Suyoi, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week.
The theme highlights the need to protect, promote and support breastfeeding in emergencies, especially for a baby’s and young child’s survival, health and development. “The number of emergencies is rising and we must be prepared before and during emergencies,” the message said.
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding until a baby is six months old and continued breastfeeding with the addition of nutritious complimentary foods for up to two years or beyond.
Children are among the most vulnerable groups during - emergencies due to their increased risk of death. Risk of death can increase two to 70 times higher because of diarrhoea, pneumonia and ‘malnutrition. During emergencies, uncontrolled donations of breast milk substitutes may undermine breastfeeding and should be avoided.
Breastfeeding is the best life-saving strategy. Even in non-emergency settings, babies under two months old who are not breastfed have six times higher risk of death. Even in emergencies, breastfeeding mothers are still able to give their babies a clean, safe sustainable food and water supply, and actively protect their babies from infections.
Infant formula offers no immune protection and harms an infant’s gut defence mechanisms, making infections easier, Further risks emerge from dependence on quality and supply of formula, water and fuel, intrinsic contamination of infant formula and difficulty in cleaning feeding bottles.
As part of the emergency preparedness plan, networking between the experts in breastfeeding and the national disaster management council needs to be initiated and executed.
Healthcare workers from both Health and Medical Services under the Ministry of Health need to be trained in lactation management course so that they can help and support breastfeeding mothers. “With all our efforts in emergency preparedness, may Allah grant his blessing for our country,” said the minister’s message. — Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin
The New Face of America
Back to a simpler life: People are gardening more, up 30% over last year. Sales of canning and preserving products are also up. Companies that make sewing products say more people are learning to sew and people are looking for small- and farm towns in which to live.
By Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal
A small sign of the times: USA Today this week ran an article about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient. The Wojtowicz family—36-year-old Patrick, his wife Melissa, 37, and their 15-year-old daughter Gabrielle—have become, in the words of reporter Judy Keen, “21st century homesteaders,” raising pigs and chickens, planning a garden and installing a wood furnace.
Photo: Nothing tastes as good as veggies from your own garden.
Mr. Wojtowicz was a truck driver frustrated by long hauls that kept him away from his family, and worried about a shrinking salary. His wife was self-employed and worked at home. They worked hard and had things but, Mr. Wojtowicz said, there was a “void.” “We started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other.” So he gave up his job and now works the land his father left him near Alma, Mich. His economic plan was pretty simple: “As long as we can keep decreasing our bills we can keep making less money.”
The paper weirdly headlined them “economic survivalists,” which perhaps reflected an assumption that anyone who leaves a conventional, material-driven life for something more physically rigorous but emotionally coherent is by definition making a political statement. But it didn’t look political from the story they told. They didn’t look like people trying to figure out how to survive as much as people trying to figure out how to live. The picture that accompanied the article showed a happy family playing Scrabble with a friend.
Their story hit a nerve. There was a lively comment thread on the paper’s Web site, with more than 300 people writing in. “They look pretty happy to me,” said a commenter. “My husband and I are making some of the same decisions.” Another: “I don’t know if this is so much survivalism as a return to common sense.” Another: “The more stuff you own the harder you have to work to maintain it.”
To some degree the Wojtowicz story sounded like the future, or the future as a lot of people are hoping it will be: pared down, more natural, more stable, less full of enervating overstimulation, of what Walker Percy called the “trivial magic” of modern times.
The article offered data suggesting the Wojtowiczes are part of a recent trend. People are gardening more if you go by the sales of vegetable seeds and transplants, up 30% over last year at the country’s largest seed company. Sales of canning and preserving products are also up. Companies that make sewing products say more people are learning to sew. I have a friend in Manhattan who took to surfing the Web over the past six months looking for small- and farm towns in which to live. The general manager of a national real-estate company told USA Today that more customers want to “live simply in a less-expensive place.”
Photo: Canning is so cool, it’s hot!
Some of this—the desire to live less expensively, and perhaps with greater simplicity—seems to key off what I am seeing in Manhattan, a place still generally with more grievances than grief, and with a greater imagination about how badly things are going to go than how bad it is right now. Many think that no matter how much money is sloshing through the system from Washington, creating waves that lead to upticks, the recession is really a depression. We won’t “come out of it,” as the phrase goes, for five or seven years, because the downturn is systemic, global, and because the old esprit is gone. The baby boomers who for 40 years, from 1968 through 2008, did the grunt work of the great abundance—work was always a long-haul trip for them, they were the first in the office in 1975 and are the last to leave the office to this day—know the era they built is over, that something new is beginning, something more subdued and altogether more mysterious. The old markers of success—money, status, power—will not quite apply as they have. They watch and work as the future emerges.
In New York some signs of that future are obvious: fewer cars, less traffic, less of the old busy hum of the economic beehive. New York will, literally, get dimmer. Its magical bright-light nighttime skyline will glitter less as fewer companies inhabit the skyscrapers and put on the lights that make the city glow.
A prediction: By 2010 the mayor, in a variation on broken-window theory, will quietly enact a bright-light theory, demanding that developers leave the lights on whether there are tenants in the buildings or not, lest the world stand on a rise in New Jersey and get the impression no one’s here and nobody cares.
The New York of the years 1750 to 2008—a city that existed for money and for all the arts and delights and beauties money brings—is for the first time going to struggle with questions about its reason for being. This will cause profound dislocations. For a good while the young will continue to flock in, for cheaper rents. Artists will still want to gather with artists—you cannot pick up the Metropolitan Museum and put it in Alma, Mich. But there will be a certain diminution in the assumption of superiority on which New York has long run, and been allowed, by America, to run.
More Predictions
The cities and suburbs of America are about to get rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity chic. Storefronts, pristine buildings—all will spend less on upkeep, and gleam less.
So will humans. People will be allowed to grow old again. There will be a certain liberation in this. There will be fewer facelifts and browlifts, less Botox, less dyed hair among both men and women. They will look more like people used to look, before perfection came in. Middle-aged bodies will be thicker and softer, with more maternal and paternal give. There will be fewer gyms and fewer trainers, but more walking. Gym machines produced the pumped and cut look. They won’t be so affordable now.
Hollywood will take the cue. During the depression, stars such as Clark Gable were supposed to look like normal men. Physical perfection would have distanced them from their audience. Now leading men are made of megamuscles, exaggerated versions of their audience. That will change.
The new home fashion will be spare. This will be the return of an old WASP style: the good, frayed carpet; dogs that look like dogs and not a hairdo in a teacup, as miniature dogs back from the canine boutique do now.
A friend, noting what has and will continue to happen with car sales, said America will look like Havana—old cars and faded grandeur. It won’t. It will look like 1970, only without the bell-bottoms and excessive hirsuteness.
* More families will have to live together.
* More people will drink more regularly.
* Secret smoking will make a comeback as part of a return to simple pleasures.
* People will slow down.
* Mainstream religion will come back.
Walker Percy again: Bland affluence breeds fundamentalism. Bland affluence is over.
http://www.millennium-ark.net/NEWS/09_USA/090731.new.face.of.America.html
Codex Threatens Health of Billions
Thursday, July 30, 2009 by: Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor
(NaturalNews) Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Yet, according to the projections based on figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a minimum of 3 billion people will die from the Codex mandated vitamin and mineral guideline alone.
Former Nazi is father of contemporary Codex
Codex is the enemy of everyone except those who will profit from it. Codex has an association with those who committed crimes during the Nazi regime. At the end of World War II, the Nuremberg tribunal judged Nazis who had committed horrendous crimes against humanity and sentenced them to prison terms. One of those found guilty was the president of the megalithic corporation I.G. Farben, Hermann Schmitz. His company was the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in the world, and had extraordinary political and economic power and influence with the Hitlerian Nazi state. Farben produced the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers, and the steel for the railroads built to transport people to their deaths.
While serving his prison term, Schmitz looked for an alternative to brute force for controlling people and realized that people could be controlled through their food supply. When he got out of prison, he went to his friends at the United Nations (UN) and laid out a plan to take over the control of food worldwide. A trade commission called Codex Alimentarius (Latin for food code) was re-created under the guise of it being a consumer protection commission. But Codex was never in the business of protecting people. It has always been about money and profits at the expense of people.
In 1962, the timetable was set for Codex to be fully implemented on a global level by December 31, 2009. Under Codex, committees were established to create guidelines on such topics as fish and fisheries, fats and oils, fruits and vegetables, ground nuts, nutrition, food for specialized uses, and vitamins and minerals. There were 27 committees in all, creating a huge bureaucracy. Under Codex there are over 4,000 guidelines and regulations on everything that can be put into your mouth with the exception of pharmaceuticals which are not regulated by Codex.
Codex is a weapon being used to reduce the level of nutrition worldwide
Codex is an industry dominated regulation setting organization, and as such has no legal standing. Participation in Codex is said to be voluntary. But Codex has risen to the level of de facto legal standing because Codex is administered by the WHO and FAO. They fund it and run it at the request of the UN. Since the WHO and FAO are supposed to be about health, there is conflict of interest. The committees of Codex work up guidelines, rules and regulations, and present them to a Codex commission for ratification. Once they are ratified and approved by consensus, they become mandatory standards for any country that is a member of the WHO.
Codex was accepted when the WTO was formed in 1994 as a means of harmonizing food standards globally for easy trade between countries. As a result, countries must harmonize with Codex if they want to have any standing in a trade dispute. When disputes arise and countries are pulled in to WTO, the one that is Codex compliant automatically wins, regardless of the merits of its case.
Codex has become a weapon to make every nation scurry to become compliant to its mandated decline in nutritional standards. Compliance in the U.S. will mark the end of its consumer protection laws. Codex will not serve consumers. Codex will serve the interests of the medical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, and big agricultural industries.
Under Codex, nutrients are classified as poisons
The Dietary Substances Health and Education Act (DSHEA), was signed into law in 1994 for the purpose of ensuring that safe and appropriately labeled products would remain available to those who wanted to use them. In the findings associated with this law, Congress stated that there may be a positive relationship between sound dietary practice and good health, and a connection between dietary supplement use, reduced health-care expenses, and disease prevention. Under DSHEA, nutrients and herbs are classified as food. There is no upper limit set, and access is freely given. Americans are allowed to have any nutrients they want, because under English common law, anything that is not expressly forbidden is permitted.
Codex, on the other hand, is based on Napoleonic law and is much more restrictive. In 1994, the same year DSHEA was signed, Codex had nutrients declared to be toxic and poisonous. And as poisons, they claimed people must be protected from them through the use of toxicology and risk assessment, under which scientists test small doses on animals until they are able to discern an impact. They then take the first sign of the most minimal impact and divide this amount by 100 to establish a safety margin required from these poisons. This means that the largest dose of any nutrient allowed under Codex is 1/100th of the amount shown to produce the first discernable impact.
Nutrients allowed under Codex are limited to those on the positive list, expected to contain only 18 nutrients, one of them being fluoride. Although fluoride has no biological benefit whatsoever, it does make people complacent.
The Codex proponents now have several bills before Congress designed to overturn and get rid of DSHEA. Once this is accomplished, the U.S. will have been harmonized with the vitamin and mineral guidelines of codex. High potency, therapeutically effective, significant nutrients will then be illegal in the way that heroin is illegal. They will not even be available by prescription.
Codex supports toxic food additives, pesticides and GM foods
Codex poses a significant threat to the food supply, according to Dr. Robert Verkerk, founder and director of the Alliance for Natural Health. About 300 dangerous food additives that are mainly synthetic will be allowed under Codex, including aspartame, BHA, BHT, potassium bromate, tartrazine, and more. Dr. Verkerk is particularly concerned that no consideration has been given to potential risks associated with long-term exposure to mixtures of additives.
Codex sets limits for the dangerous industrial chemicals that can be used in food, but they are incredibly high, and the list of chemicals that can be used is long. In 2001, 176 countries including the U.S. got together and decided that 12 highly toxic organic chemicals, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPS), were so bad that they had to be banned. There are many more than 12 toxic chemicals used on food, but these 12 were unanimously declared to be the worst. Of these, 9 are pesticides.
Under Codex, 7 of the 9 forbidden POPS will again be allowed in the production of food. All together, Codex allows over 3,275 different pesticides, including those that are suspected carcinogens or endocrine disrupters. There is no consideration of the long-term effects of exposure to mixtures of pesticide residues in food.
Organic food governance will be dumbed down to suit the interests of large food producers. Various synthetic chemical additives and processing aids will be allowed, and food labeled as organic may be irradiated. Labeling will permit the use of hidden, non-organic ingredients.
Monsanto, a member of Codex, will benefit greatly as production of genetically modified (GM) foods are stepped up and more GM plants are given the green light. Terminator seeds will be approved for international trade. GM food animals will also be on the way.
Under Codex, every dairy animal can be treated with growth hormone, and all animals in the food chain will be treated with sub-clinical levels of antibiotics. Codex will lead to the required irradiation of all foods with the exception of those grown locally and sold raw.
Codex is food regulations that are in fact the legalization of mandated toxicity and under-nutrition. Of the 3 billion people initially expected to die as the result of the Codex vitamin and mineral guidelines, 2 billion of them will die from the preventable diseases that result from under-nutrition, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many others. Those who will live will be the wealthy elites who are able to somehow provide themselves with sources of clean food and other nutrients.
Codex is legalized genocide
Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D., writing for Natural News, has characterized Codex as “population control for money”. He sees Codex as run by the U.S. and controlled by the big pharmaceutical corporations and the likes of Monsanto with the purpose of reducing the population of the world to a level considered sustainable by those promulgating the New World Order. This would mean a reduction of approximately 93 percent of the current world population.
Once Codex standards are adopted there will be no turning back. When Codex compliance is instigated in any area, as long as the country remains a member of the WTO, those standards cannot be repealed, or altered in any way.
The time for modifying Codex guidelines is rapidly disappearing
Some hope remains. Over the years, the WTO has accepted Codex standards as presumptive evidence of the rules of trade between countries. However, several times in history, the WTO has refused to make Codex the single and only standard to be used in trade disputes. Under Codex`s own statutes, their guidelines are claimed to be “advisory”, and nations are able to set up their own guidelines as long as they are more restrictive than those of Codex.
Since compliance with Codex standards is simply presumptive evidence, and not finally determinative, a nation can opt out of the guidelines in an effort to protect its traditional foods and remedies. The Codex two step process is a legal strategy developed to help nations wanting to do this. Under step one, the country develops its own food and health guidelines that may be at variance with Codex guidelines. For example, it may be much stricter on the issues of toxins in the food supply or on the issue of genetically modified foods. It may require, for example, that companies using GM ingredients be required to indicate them on food labels. In countries that refuse to use GM foods, this can be indicated on their label too, so that people can make informed choices. The second step is to adopt a national law that implements those guidelines on a sound scientific basis.
Normally, in a trade dispute before the WTO, the country that has adopted Codex guidelines will be the winner of that dispute based on those guidelines being presumptive evidence. However, when countries have gone through the two step process to create their own guidelines, there is no such presumption, and the WTO will look at the science behind the guidelines.
In the U.S. the door is open to Codex
In 1995, the FDA issued a policy statement saying that international standards such as Codex would supersede U.S. laws governing all food. Under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is illegal under current U.S. law, but is legal under international law, the U.S. is required to conform to Codex as it stands on December 31, 2009, unless it creates its own guidelines and gets them approved under the two step process. Given current government sentiment, this seems unlikely. Besides, as guidelines are one-by-one chiseled into standards, time is running out.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026731_CODEX_food_health.html
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