(Livescience.com) Drinking diet soda is associated with a 50-percent increase in stroke risk, according to a study presented earlier this month at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles.
Not surprisingly, reaction to the news among dieters has been disparaging and defensive, as each person cycles through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief, from denial and anger to bargaining, depression and acceptance.
"Now the health police tell us we can't drink Diet Coke," captures the tone on many of the diet blogs.
If it's any consolation for diet-soda fans, the results presented at the meeting — based on preliminary analysis from a 2,500-person subset of the ongoing Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS) — are far from definitive.
There's no way to tell yet, for example, what ingredient would be associated with strokes or whether lifestyle choices among drinkers are the real cause.
That said, is drinking diet soda safe? Of course not, especially when it is the main source of liquid refreshment every day. You're drinking copious amounts of phosphoric acid, artificial colors, artificial flavors, and some laboratory-crafted chemical that tricks your brain into perceiving the sensation of sweet.
Diet soda is an alternative to regular soda, but neither is healthy. You are merely trading calories from sugar for chemicals of questionable nature.
Hooked on sugar
The proliferation of diet soda cuts to the core of what's wrong with the Western diet. The Western approach is to remove the most obvious dangers from an unhealthy habit — in this case, removing the 12 teaspoons of sugar per can of fizzy water laced with acids, colors and flavors of uncertain origin — so that we can continue that habit in denial of other dangers.
The underlying problem is that we are addicted to sugar; beverages without a sweetener now seem bland. For the first million years or so of pre-human and human existence, water was adequate to quench our thirst. But apparently no longer.
Hold the sugar and corn syrup and pass the aspartame. Some doctors actually encourage dieters to drink diet soda to cut calories instead of recommending zero-calorie water or tea.
We see this "short-cut" diet phenomenon also among some people who want to be vegetarian. They eat vegetarian hot dogs and other faux-meat dishes made from heavily processed soy and vegetable meal loaded with salt, sugar and fat. This is likely unhealthier than the meat they are shunning.
So, similarly, at issue is that we are so addicted to meat that meals without it no longer seem satiating. To do vegetarianism right, you'd have to learn how to cook lentils, beans, grains and other staples of a vegetarian diet, and that's too consuming for many people.
Writing on the wall
Studies on diet soda have been flawed, because researchers have discounted one important fact: Those drinking diet soda likely drink it not because they are health nuts but because they have a certain health condition. They are either overweight or diabetic. Thus, they are at risk for strokes, heart attacks and cancer regardless of the type of beverage they prefer.
One of the more impressive aspects of the NOMAS project is that researchers can control for weight and other health conditions. It's inevitable that NOMAS and similar studies will tease out the dangers of drinking too much soda in general, either diet or regular.
It is a shame the United States cannot adopt Asia's tradition of unsweetened teas, ubiquitous in shops and vending machines. But even otherwise healthy green tea in the United States is tainted with sugar or artificial sweetener — yet another example of corrupting a healthy alternative.
The bottom line is that dieters need to cycle through those Kubler-Ross stages to reach acceptance: Diet soda is no healthy alternative, and nothing beats water.
*This isn't new news about diet sodas. Everyone knows that sodas-diet and all, isn't healthy for you. It is a shame that many people know but don't care. Seeing those people who buy fast food and then order a diet soda is truly sad. It's funny but not funny, in a sense that many are informed but still choose to drink those nasty drinks. In these times, it's no excuse to be overweight or to complain that your not informed, because of the enormous amount of information at your finger tips. At the end of the day, if you drink a diet soda or plain soda, it's own damn fault.*
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Mobile etiquette getting worse, not better - poll!
(Reuters) Whether is it texting during dinner, talking on a cellphone in a public restroom or using a laptop while driving, most people think mobile etiquette is getting worse, not better.
Ninety one percent of U.S. adults questioned in a new poll by computer innovation company Intel said they have seen people misuse technology, and three quarters think mobile manners have decreased in the past year.
"New digital technologies are becoming a mainstay in consumers' lives, but we haven't worked out for ourselves, our families, communities and societies what all the right kinds of behaviours and expectations will be," said Genevieve Bell, the head of interaction and experience research at Intel.
The poll of 2,000 adults revealed that most U.S. adults wished people practised better mobile etiquette and found the lack of cellphone manners extremely annoying, even though about 20 percent admitted to poor etiquette themselves.
Nearly 75 percent said the lack of mobile manners has created a new form of public rage and 65 percent admitted they became angry around people who misused mobile devices.
The most annoying behaviours were the use of mobile devices during driving, followed by talking on a cellphone loudly in a public place and walking in the street while texting or talking on the phone.
People reported seeing, on average five mobile offenses every day, according to the poll. Nearly a quarter said they had even seen someone using a laptop while driving, and one in five said they checked their mobile devices before getting out of bed in the morning.
*What a shame that grown ups don't know phone etiquette. For some reason people believe that you can do whatever you want with your cell phone. Having etiquette in everything is extremely important even when using a cell phone. To some people that's just common sense!*
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Ninety one percent of U.S. adults questioned in a new poll by computer innovation company Intel said they have seen people misuse technology, and three quarters think mobile manners have decreased in the past year.
"New digital technologies are becoming a mainstay in consumers' lives, but we haven't worked out for ourselves, our families, communities and societies what all the right kinds of behaviours and expectations will be," said Genevieve Bell, the head of interaction and experience research at Intel.
The poll of 2,000 adults revealed that most U.S. adults wished people practised better mobile etiquette and found the lack of cellphone manners extremely annoying, even though about 20 percent admitted to poor etiquette themselves.
Nearly 75 percent said the lack of mobile manners has created a new form of public rage and 65 percent admitted they became angry around people who misused mobile devices.
The most annoying behaviours were the use of mobile devices during driving, followed by talking on a cellphone loudly in a public place and walking in the street while texting or talking on the phone.
People reported seeing, on average five mobile offenses every day, according to the poll. Nearly a quarter said they had even seen someone using a laptop while driving, and one in five said they checked their mobile devices before getting out of bed in the morning.
*What a shame that grown ups don't know phone etiquette. For some reason people believe that you can do whatever you want with your cell phone. Having etiquette in everything is extremely important even when using a cell phone. To some people that's just common sense!*
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*THE BIG BAD LITERARY WOLF-"aka" WRITER'S BLOCK!*
"STOP! I HAVE WRITER'S BLOCK! I CAN'T GO ON!"
(Diva's House Of Literary Coffee) The instantaneous melt down of a writer in the moment. It's the screeching halt we allow ourselves as writers to buy into as if we are buying into the latest scam of the year. Excuses, excuses and more excuses that we ratify so we can take a break from what we say we so-call love to do.
The must have fad in literature that has been giving more writers grief then anything else is the big bad literary wolf "aka" writer's block. It rings true all over the world and many have backed down from the "big bad literar wolf." The art of writing is a very complex one depending on who you ask. As we gear ourselves up for the creative process we sort of knowingly schedule the the big bad literary wolf "aka" writer's block into our writing time. The mind works on repetition and the more we subconsciously tell ourselves that we have writer's block the more it will repeat itself and interwind in the daily grind of your writing process.
Stepping up to the plate and letting this literary wolf know who's boss is what any writer must do. If you are serious enough to break through then, getting your mind right is your writer's calling card. It's the single most important aspect of the creative process. In time what you think is writer's block will utltimately disappear and you will be able to keep it moving and complete your writing without any knocks from the big bad literary wolf.
Opening your mind and taking it to the next level is very necessary as a writer. A high stategic and high valocity of imagination is all it takes. You the writer just have to give yourself permission to incorportate those things to put your writing in check. The obvious is there when it comes to breaking down barries such as writer's block. We just have to keep pushing through until we get that literary drive and keep it moving into shear explosive storytelling.
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
(Diva's House Of Literary Coffee) The instantaneous melt down of a writer in the moment. It's the screeching halt we allow ourselves as writers to buy into as if we are buying into the latest scam of the year. Excuses, excuses and more excuses that we ratify so we can take a break from what we say we so-call love to do.
The must have fad in literature that has been giving more writers grief then anything else is the big bad literary wolf "aka" writer's block. It rings true all over the world and many have backed down from the "big bad literar wolf." The art of writing is a very complex one depending on who you ask. As we gear ourselves up for the creative process we sort of knowingly schedule the the big bad literary wolf "aka" writer's block into our writing time. The mind works on repetition and the more we subconsciously tell ourselves that we have writer's block the more it will repeat itself and interwind in the daily grind of your writing process.
Stepping up to the plate and letting this literary wolf know who's boss is what any writer must do. If you are serious enough to break through then, getting your mind right is your writer's calling card. It's the single most important aspect of the creative process. In time what you think is writer's block will utltimately disappear and you will be able to keep it moving and complete your writing without any knocks from the big bad literary wolf.
Opening your mind and taking it to the next level is very necessary as a writer. A high stategic and high valocity of imagination is all it takes. You the writer just have to give yourself permission to incorportate those things to put your writing in check. The obvious is there when it comes to breaking down barries such as writer's block. We just have to keep pushing through until we get that literary drive and keep it moving into shear explosive storytelling.
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*Join The Conversation*
Friday, February 25, 2011
White House reverberates with Motown sound, moves!
(AP) The White House reverberated like a long-ago basement sound studio in Detroit on Thursday as the likes of John Legend, Seal, Jamie Foxx, Nick Jonas and Sheryl Crow channeled their inner Motown before Michelle and Barack Obama. Musical pioneers Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder joined in for the celebration of all things Motown.
Obama called it "the soundtrack of the civil rights era," and credited Motown's tight lyrics, catchy melodies and deep soul with helping to "blur the line between music that was considered either black or white."
Foxx, Seal, Legend and Jonas launched the East Room concert celebrating the Motown sound with a high-energy medley in which the four took turns as backup dancers, complete with some smooth dance moves to the likes of "Get Ready," "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "Can't Get Next to You" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
Not to be outdone, the trio of Natasha Bedingfield, Jordin Sparks and Ledisi took a Supremes-esque turn singing "Stop! In the Name of Love."
Legend delivered a soulful rendition of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" that left Foxx, who also served as the program's host, to joke that nowadays the story was more likely to be "heard it through my Twitter."
"I'm going to tweet it right now," he joked.
Obama and the singers paid homage to the genuine Motown greats in the lineup: Robinson and Wonder. And Motown founder Berry Gordy was in the audience to hear Obama recount his record label's modest beginnings in a basement on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, decorated with a banner outside that read "Hitsville, USA."
"At concerts in the South, Motown groups literally brought people together — insisting that the ropes traditionally used to separate black and white audience members be taken down," Obama recounted.
Robinson teamed up with Crow to sing one of his earliest hits, "You've Really Got a Hold On Me." And then he turned the stage over to "another guy who was here right from the beginning" — Wonder.
Wonder said he'd really just come to watch, but couldn't resist, performing "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and kicking off the finale that brought all the artists back on stage for "Dancing in the Street."
Earlier Thursday, Legend and Jonas performed before cheering teenagers at a workshop in the State Dining Room that served as a tutorial on the history of the genre.
"Times have changed but the amazing thing is that that music is still relevant," Legend told reporters after he had delivered a room-filling rendition of Wonder's "Love's in Need of Love." He said his first exposure to
Motown came from hearing his father and uncle sing around the piano, and that those songs were a huge influence on his own music.
"You can still put that music on now and get the party going," he said.
Michelle Obama told the young people that the color-barrier-shattering music of her youth "was so much more than just a soundtrack. It was a heartbeat."
"As Motown rose, so did the forces of change in this country," she said. "During that time, it was the time of King and Kennedy, it was a time of marches and rallies and groundbreaking civil rights laws."
The first lady introduced Robinson and Gordy as "true trailblazers," adding:
"There wouldn't be an Usher if there wasn't a Smokey Robinson. You know, there wouldn't be an Alicia Keys without a Gladys Knight."
And she confessed to a soft spot for one Motown artist in particular: "Who's my favorite?" she asked aloud. "Stevie Wonder, yes indeed."
Fans who didn't make the guest list for the concert can see it Tuesday on PBS' "The Motown Sound: In Performance at the White House."
*Amazing in all fashions! It's always interesting to hear how many celebrate music. Now it's the President and the First Lady. They truly know how to celebrate with a mix of different artist and evoke the feel of music. Music is universal and it touches everyone around the world. The good thing about this concert and the celebration, is that it was fun, and it was diverse mix of artist who just love music.*
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
Obama called it "the soundtrack of the civil rights era," and credited Motown's tight lyrics, catchy melodies and deep soul with helping to "blur the line between music that was considered either black or white."
Foxx, Seal, Legend and Jonas launched the East Room concert celebrating the Motown sound with a high-energy medley in which the four took turns as backup dancers, complete with some smooth dance moves to the likes of "Get Ready," "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "Can't Get Next to You" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
Not to be outdone, the trio of Natasha Bedingfield, Jordin Sparks and Ledisi took a Supremes-esque turn singing "Stop! In the Name of Love."
Legend delivered a soulful rendition of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" that left Foxx, who also served as the program's host, to joke that nowadays the story was more likely to be "heard it through my Twitter."
"I'm going to tweet it right now," he joked.
Obama and the singers paid homage to the genuine Motown greats in the lineup: Robinson and Wonder. And Motown founder Berry Gordy was in the audience to hear Obama recount his record label's modest beginnings in a basement on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, decorated with a banner outside that read "Hitsville, USA."
"At concerts in the South, Motown groups literally brought people together — insisting that the ropes traditionally used to separate black and white audience members be taken down," Obama recounted.
Robinson teamed up with Crow to sing one of his earliest hits, "You've Really Got a Hold On Me." And then he turned the stage over to "another guy who was here right from the beginning" — Wonder.
Wonder said he'd really just come to watch, but couldn't resist, performing "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and kicking off the finale that brought all the artists back on stage for "Dancing in the Street."
Earlier Thursday, Legend and Jonas performed before cheering teenagers at a workshop in the State Dining Room that served as a tutorial on the history of the genre.
"Times have changed but the amazing thing is that that music is still relevant," Legend told reporters after he had delivered a room-filling rendition of Wonder's "Love's in Need of Love." He said his first exposure to
Motown came from hearing his father and uncle sing around the piano, and that those songs were a huge influence on his own music.
"You can still put that music on now and get the party going," he said.
Michelle Obama told the young people that the color-barrier-shattering music of her youth "was so much more than just a soundtrack. It was a heartbeat."
"As Motown rose, so did the forces of change in this country," she said. "During that time, it was the time of King and Kennedy, it was a time of marches and rallies and groundbreaking civil rights laws."
The first lady introduced Robinson and Gordy as "true trailblazers," adding:
"There wouldn't be an Usher if there wasn't a Smokey Robinson. You know, there wouldn't be an Alicia Keys without a Gladys Knight."
And she confessed to a soft spot for one Motown artist in particular: "Who's my favorite?" she asked aloud. "Stevie Wonder, yes indeed."
Fans who didn't make the guest list for the concert can see it Tuesday on PBS' "The Motown Sound: In Performance at the White House."
*Amazing in all fashions! It's always interesting to hear how many celebrate music. Now it's the President and the First Lady. They truly know how to celebrate with a mix of different artist and evoke the feel of music. Music is universal and it touches everyone around the world. The good thing about this concert and the celebration, is that it was fun, and it was diverse mix of artist who just love music.*
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
Psst. No shutdown during a 'government shutdown'
Social Security checks would still go out. Troops would remain at their posts. Furloughed federal workers probably would get paid, though not until later. And virtually every essential government agency, like the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, would remain open.
That's the little-known truth about a government shutdown. The government doesn't shut down.
And it won't on March 5, even if the combatants on Capitol Hill can't resolve enough differences to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government while they hash out legislation to cover the last seven months of the budget year.
Fewer than half of the 2.1 million federal workers subject to a shutdown would be forced off the job if the Obama administration followed the path taken by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And that's not counting 600,000 Postal Service employees or 1.6 million uniformed military personnel exempt from a shutdown.
So we're talking fewer than one in four federal workers staying at home. Many federal workers get paid on March 4, so it would take a two-week shutdown for them to see a delay in their paychecks.
The rules for who works and who doesn't date back to the early 1980s and haven't been significantly modified since. The Obama administration hasn't issued new guidance.
The air traffic control system, food inspection, Medicare, veterans' health care and many other essential government programs would run as usual. The Social Security Administration would not only send out benefits but would continue to take applications. The Postal Service, which is self-funded, would keep delivering the mail. Federal courts would remain open.
The cherry blossoms in Washington would bloom as usual, and visitors to the city would be able to park and see them in all their glory around the Tidal Basin.
But they wouldn't be able to take the elevator up the Washington Monument, visit museums along the National Mall or take a White House tour. National parks would be closed to visitors, a loss often emphasized in shutdown discussions.
The Capitol would remain open, however. Congress is deemed essential, despite its abysmal poll ratings.
The IRS wouldn't answer its taxpayer hotline — at the height of tax-filing season. Under IRS precedents, the agency would process tax returns that contain payments. But people getting refunds would have to wait.
All sides say they don't want a so-called shutdown like the two separate partial government closings in 1995-1996, when President Clinton and a then-new GOP majority in Congress were at loggerheads over the budget. Republicans took most of the political blame, and the episodes gave Clinton critical momentum on his way to re-election.
There haven't been any shutdowns since then. The politics stink.
But from a practical perspective, shutdowns usually aren't that big a deal. They happened every year when Jimmy Carter was president, averaging 11 days each. During President Reagan's two terms, there were six shutdowns, typically of just one or two days apiece. Deals got cut. Everybody moved on.
In 1995-96, however, shutdowns morphed into political warfare, to the dismay of Republicans who thought they could use them to drag Clinton to the negotiating table on a balanced budget plan.
Republicans took a big political hit, but a compendium of the other hardships experienced reads like a roster of relatively minor inconveniences for most Americans: closed parks, delays in processing passport applications, 2,400 workers cleaning up toxic waste sites being sent home, and a short delay in processing veterans' claims. A new government standard for lights and lamps was delayed.
To be sure, furloughs can be a major hardship for federal workers. Even those in essential jobs — and required to work — could see their paychecks delayed if a stalemate dragged on.
Lawmakers, however, typically provide back pay, even for employees who weren't required to work. A repeat of that could raise hackles with some in the tea party-backed House GOP freshman class. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, wouldn't address whether furloughed federal workers would receive back pay if there is a shutdown this time.
Regardless, federal contractors would lose out. Many contract workers could be furloughed without pay and not receive lost wages retroactively, especially in an extended shutdown.
Under a precedent-setting memorandum by Reagan budget chief David Stockman, federal workers are exempted from furloughs if their jobs are national security-related or if they perform essential activities that "protect life and property."
In 1995, that meant 571,000 Defense Department civilian employees, some 69 percent, remained at post, while 258,000 other Pentagon workers were furloughed. Eighty-five percent of Veterans Administration employees went to work as did 70 percent of Transportation Department workers.
But just a handful of Environmental Protection Agency employees and only 7 percent of NASA workers were on the job, according to Clinton administration data.
This year, NASA would face widespread furloughs that suggest a shutdown could interrupt preparation for space shuttle flights this spring — though the "life and property" rules would almost certainly be invoked so that the Space Shuttle Discovery could land as scheduled on March 7. It took off Thursday afternoon.
Just 4 percent of employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development went to work in the 1995 shutdown, as did 11 percent of Department of Education employees. The National Archives shut down completely, as did the tiny Selective Service System.
Then there's Social Security. Current beneficiaries need not worry; their payments wouldn't be affected. And given the most recent precedent from the Clinton administration, those eligible to apply for benefits would be able to do so.
During the first shutdown in 1995, the Social Security Administration initially furloughed 93 percent of its workers and stopped enrolling new beneficiaries. But it reversed course in the second shutdown and kept 50,000 additional workers on the job.
If the federal government is shut down for several days, the Census Bureau could miss its April 1 legal deadline to provide 2010 redistricting data to the states. The bureau is currently in the midst of checking its population tallies, which are broken down by race and ethnicity down to the neighborhood level, for many states.
By the March 4 deadline, the bureau expects it will have distributed the data to about roughly half the states, with big states such as California, New York and Florida potentially left hanging if the government closes down.
*We all know that a government shutdown won't happen totally. With that, it's truly a shame that our political leaders isn't working hard to calm the chatter of such. When are they going to realize that the more they stall, the more it pisses on progress for this country? Having your own individual agenda doesn't help what's broken in this country. Having your own individual agenda sure as hell doesn't help the America people get a leg up. Again, here we are again with talks of a shudown because politicians are having "politi-mantrums" because they aren't getting they're way. It's truly sad that our so-called leaders can't be true leaders and do what it is they were elected to do.*
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
That's the little-known truth about a government shutdown. The government doesn't shut down.
And it won't on March 5, even if the combatants on Capitol Hill can't resolve enough differences to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government while they hash out legislation to cover the last seven months of the budget year.
Fewer than half of the 2.1 million federal workers subject to a shutdown would be forced off the job if the Obama administration followed the path taken by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And that's not counting 600,000 Postal Service employees or 1.6 million uniformed military personnel exempt from a shutdown.
So we're talking fewer than one in four federal workers staying at home. Many federal workers get paid on March 4, so it would take a two-week shutdown for them to see a delay in their paychecks.
The rules for who works and who doesn't date back to the early 1980s and haven't been significantly modified since. The Obama administration hasn't issued new guidance.
The air traffic control system, food inspection, Medicare, veterans' health care and many other essential government programs would run as usual. The Social Security Administration would not only send out benefits but would continue to take applications. The Postal Service, which is self-funded, would keep delivering the mail. Federal courts would remain open.
The cherry blossoms in Washington would bloom as usual, and visitors to the city would be able to park and see them in all their glory around the Tidal Basin.
But they wouldn't be able to take the elevator up the Washington Monument, visit museums along the National Mall or take a White House tour. National parks would be closed to visitors, a loss often emphasized in shutdown discussions.
The Capitol would remain open, however. Congress is deemed essential, despite its abysmal poll ratings.
The IRS wouldn't answer its taxpayer hotline — at the height of tax-filing season. Under IRS precedents, the agency would process tax returns that contain payments. But people getting refunds would have to wait.
All sides say they don't want a so-called shutdown like the two separate partial government closings in 1995-1996, when President Clinton and a then-new GOP majority in Congress were at loggerheads over the budget. Republicans took most of the political blame, and the episodes gave Clinton critical momentum on his way to re-election.
There haven't been any shutdowns since then. The politics stink.
But from a practical perspective, shutdowns usually aren't that big a deal. They happened every year when Jimmy Carter was president, averaging 11 days each. During President Reagan's two terms, there were six shutdowns, typically of just one or two days apiece. Deals got cut. Everybody moved on.
In 1995-96, however, shutdowns morphed into political warfare, to the dismay of Republicans who thought they could use them to drag Clinton to the negotiating table on a balanced budget plan.
Republicans took a big political hit, but a compendium of the other hardships experienced reads like a roster of relatively minor inconveniences for most Americans: closed parks, delays in processing passport applications, 2,400 workers cleaning up toxic waste sites being sent home, and a short delay in processing veterans' claims. A new government standard for lights and lamps was delayed.
To be sure, furloughs can be a major hardship for federal workers. Even those in essential jobs — and required to work — could see their paychecks delayed if a stalemate dragged on.
Lawmakers, however, typically provide back pay, even for employees who weren't required to work. A repeat of that could raise hackles with some in the tea party-backed House GOP freshman class. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, wouldn't address whether furloughed federal workers would receive back pay if there is a shutdown this time.
Regardless, federal contractors would lose out. Many contract workers could be furloughed without pay and not receive lost wages retroactively, especially in an extended shutdown.
Under a precedent-setting memorandum by Reagan budget chief David Stockman, federal workers are exempted from furloughs if their jobs are national security-related or if they perform essential activities that "protect life and property."
In 1995, that meant 571,000 Defense Department civilian employees, some 69 percent, remained at post, while 258,000 other Pentagon workers were furloughed. Eighty-five percent of Veterans Administration employees went to work as did 70 percent of Transportation Department workers.
But just a handful of Environmental Protection Agency employees and only 7 percent of NASA workers were on the job, according to Clinton administration data.
This year, NASA would face widespread furloughs that suggest a shutdown could interrupt preparation for space shuttle flights this spring — though the "life and property" rules would almost certainly be invoked so that the Space Shuttle Discovery could land as scheduled on March 7. It took off Thursday afternoon.
Just 4 percent of employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development went to work in the 1995 shutdown, as did 11 percent of Department of Education employees. The National Archives shut down completely, as did the tiny Selective Service System.
Then there's Social Security. Current beneficiaries need not worry; their payments wouldn't be affected. And given the most recent precedent from the Clinton administration, those eligible to apply for benefits would be able to do so.
During the first shutdown in 1995, the Social Security Administration initially furloughed 93 percent of its workers and stopped enrolling new beneficiaries. But it reversed course in the second shutdown and kept 50,000 additional workers on the job.
If the federal government is shut down for several days, the Census Bureau could miss its April 1 legal deadline to provide 2010 redistricting data to the states. The bureau is currently in the midst of checking its population tallies, which are broken down by race and ethnicity down to the neighborhood level, for many states.
By the March 4 deadline, the bureau expects it will have distributed the data to about roughly half the states, with big states such as California, New York and Florida potentially left hanging if the government closes down.
*We all know that a government shutdown won't happen totally. With that, it's truly a shame that our political leaders isn't working hard to calm the chatter of such. When are they going to realize that the more they stall, the more it pisses on progress for this country? Having your own individual agenda doesn't help what's broken in this country. Having your own individual agenda sure as hell doesn't help the America people get a leg up. Again, here we are again with talks of a shudown because politicians are having "politi-mantrums" because they aren't getting they're way. It's truly sad that our so-called leaders can't be true leaders and do what it is they were elected to do.*
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Early Childhood Might Affect Love Life in Adult!
(HealthDay News) -- How quickly and smoothly people move on from a lover's quarrel has a lot to do with the relationships each partner had in earliest childhood with the people who raised them, new research reveals.
The finding stems from the the University of Minnesota's ongoing tracking of a group of people that began in the mid-1970s, before the study participants were even born.
Doctoral candidate Jessica E. Salvatore and a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota report their observations in the current issue of Psychological Science.
The authors explain that when the study participants reached the age of 20, each was asked to enlist his or her romantic partner in a discussion exercise in which they were first instructed to launch a topic of conversation about an issue on which there was disagreement.
The resulting quarrel was then followed by a second discussion of a subject on which the partners saw eye to eye. This discourse was viewed as a "cool-down" period, designed to transition away from the previous conflict.
However, Salvatore and her co-authors noticed that not all cool-downs transpired with equal ease. In some cases, the partners were able to quickly leave their fight behind; in others, one or both partners were unable to let go of the previous conflict.
A subsequent look at each partner's early childhood background (between the ages of 1 and 18 months) unearthed a connection between the quality of their early connection to their caregivers and their ability to move on from conflict as adults.
Specifically, those who had more so-called "secure" attachments to their childhood caregivers seemed to have less of a problem dealing with conflict in the present. In other words, caregivers who had more success regulating the negative emotions of their young wards instilled them with better coping skills for dealing with negative emotions as adults.
That said, the authors noted that those with saddled with a less-than-idyllic past are not necessarily doomed to live out a contentious present. Their suggestion: when it comes to compensating for an emotionally negative childhood, marry up -- emotionally.
"We found that people who were insecurely attached as infants but whose adult romantic partners recover well from conflict are likely to stay together," Salvatore noted. "If one person can lead this process of recovering from conflict, it may buffer the other person and the relationship."
"That, to us, was the most exciting finding," he added. "There's something about the important people later in our lives that changes the consequences of what happened earlier."
*Very interesting as most adults do have issues with other adults in life. So much of what we learn as a child is carried with us into our adult hood. That could be good or bad, depending on the situation. However, as an adult; if you recognize that your coping skills are destructive, then it's clearly up to you to seek help and get yourself in a better place. It keeps you from constantly blaming your childhood as you progress in your adult life.*
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The finding stems from the the University of Minnesota's ongoing tracking of a group of people that began in the mid-1970s, before the study participants were even born.
Doctoral candidate Jessica E. Salvatore and a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota report their observations in the current issue of Psychological Science.
The authors explain that when the study participants reached the age of 20, each was asked to enlist his or her romantic partner in a discussion exercise in which they were first instructed to launch a topic of conversation about an issue on which there was disagreement.
The resulting quarrel was then followed by a second discussion of a subject on which the partners saw eye to eye. This discourse was viewed as a "cool-down" period, designed to transition away from the previous conflict.
However, Salvatore and her co-authors noticed that not all cool-downs transpired with equal ease. In some cases, the partners were able to quickly leave their fight behind; in others, one or both partners were unable to let go of the previous conflict.
A subsequent look at each partner's early childhood background (between the ages of 1 and 18 months) unearthed a connection between the quality of their early connection to their caregivers and their ability to move on from conflict as adults.
Specifically, those who had more so-called "secure" attachments to their childhood caregivers seemed to have less of a problem dealing with conflict in the present. In other words, caregivers who had more success regulating the negative emotions of their young wards instilled them with better coping skills for dealing with negative emotions as adults.
That said, the authors noted that those with saddled with a less-than-idyllic past are not necessarily doomed to live out a contentious present. Their suggestion: when it comes to compensating for an emotionally negative childhood, marry up -- emotionally.
"We found that people who were insecurely attached as infants but whose adult romantic partners recover well from conflict are likely to stay together," Salvatore noted. "If one person can lead this process of recovering from conflict, it may buffer the other person and the relationship."
"That, to us, was the most exciting finding," he added. "There's something about the important people later in our lives that changes the consequences of what happened earlier."
*Very interesting as most adults do have issues with other adults in life. So much of what we learn as a child is carried with us into our adult hood. That could be good or bad, depending on the situation. However, as an adult; if you recognize that your coping skills are destructive, then it's clearly up to you to seek help and get yourself in a better place. It keeps you from constantly blaming your childhood as you progress in your adult life.*
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Best Tips and Tools to Whiten Your Smile!
(Good Housekeeping)Turn back time with the latest lip enhancers, tooth whiteners, and more.
You can easily romanticize a few laugh lines (hey — every wrinkle is but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life, according to Dickens). But time's effects on your smile can be considerably harder to write off, no matter how talented the scribe. There's the yellowing or graying of teeth, the thinning of lips, the appearance of lip lines...and the list goes on. On the bright side, home tools that fight tooth discoloration (to say nothing of the latest in-office procedures) are getting ultra high-tech, and there are plenty of low-tech anti-aging essentials, too. Read on for these, plus top dermatologist and makeup-artist tips for adding major spark — and sparkle — to your smile.
Tooth Care (or Conseqences)
However unsexy, nuts-and-bolts dental hygiene is key to keeping your smile young-looking. "Your teeth control the lower third of your face," says New York City dentist Michael Apa, D.D.S. Their gradual wearing down and shifting with age contributes to the formation of frown lines and the hollowing of the cheeks. Tooth decay and loss only exacerbate these issues. In addition to what you already know (brush at least twice a day, floss once a day, and see a dentist regularly), here are some things you may not:
1. Rinse your mouth after every meal or glass of wine — red or white. "White wine has acids that penetrate the enamel, allowing staining and decaying food particles to penetrate more easily," says New York City dentist and Supersmile creator Irwin Smigel, D.D.S. Red, by contrast, creates only superficial staining. But whatever you eat or drink, a subtle swishing and swallowing of water right away at the table helps minimize residue, staining, and tooth decay, says Smigel.
2. Chew sugarless gum. "As you age, your salivary glands shrink and produce less saliva, which is a natural antimicrobial that helps prevent decay," says Smigel. "But gum chewing restimulates the flow."
3. Floss down into your gums, not just between your teeth. Plaque and bacteria can get stuck in those voids, causing inflammation and decay.
4. Ask your dentist to check the state of your fillings. "Every filling eventually has to be replaced," says New York City dentist Marc Lowenberg, D.D.S. Silver, or amalgam, lasts between 10 and 20 years, so your childhood dental work may be overdue for replacement. Fresh fillings can help prevent tooth decay and loss — and, down the road, root canals and implants.
5. Consider orthodontics if your teeth have shifted significantly. "Your jaw is shifting along with your teeth," says Apa. "Left unchecked, the situation can create a collapsed look" (think Disney's Evil Queen disguised as the old lady in Snow White). Invisalign or behind-the-teeth braces are the subtlest options for grown-ups. Ranging from $3,500 to $8,000, the investment for them isn't small. But the long-term payoff is big.
Lip Service
The skin surrounding your mouth and teeth is as much an element of a youthful smile as your teeth themselves. Your lips, like all exposed skin, need a high-SPF, broad-spectrum sunscreen: "UV damage can manifest as inflammation of the lips, redness and flaking, and, over time, wrinkling and even cancer," says Macrene Alexiades, Ph.D., M.D., a dermatologist in New York City. An important aside: Though skin cancer of the lips is uncommon, when it does form, it tends to spread to the lymph nodes very quickly. Try Blistex Five Star Lip Protection (Starting at $2.00, Yahoo! Shopping) with SPF 30 or Kiehl's Lip Balm SPF 15 (Starting at $9.50, Yahoo! Shopping).
To combat wrinkling of the skin around the mouth, start with Olay Professional Pro X Deep Wrinkle Treatment (Starting $30, Yahoo! Shopping) for eight weeks; if you don't see results, move up to prescription Renova. For pronounced peaks and valleys, you may want to ask your dermatologist about injectables. A hyaluronic acid filler like Juvéderm or Restylane — ranging in price from a few hundred to a thousand dollars or so, depending on the area you're treating and the area you live in — is delicate enough to plump the fine lines above and below the mouth. Dr. Alexiades likes to pair one of the aforementioned fillers with Botox. "It's the best crowd-pleaser for instant gratification," she says.
Kiss and Makeup
"Lipstick bleeding is the first sign of an aging mouth," says New York City makeup artist Laura Geller. To stop lip color from migrating into lines, pretreat the area around the mouth with concealer: Using your fingertip, lightly dot on one that contains reflective particles. Try Boots No7 Radiant Glow Concealer ($13, Yahoo! Shopping), and then lightly dust with translucent powder. The rest of Geller's tips for younger-looking lips:
1. Use a lip brush to apply lipstick. The tool gives you optimum precision as well as control over how much color you lay down near the edges.
2. Go bright. "The brighter, the better," says Geller. If your teeth are stained, "muted colors make graying or yellowing teeth look worse." Brights, however, are like a face-lift in a tube. Think pink, rose, or a true red. Try Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Gentlemen Prefer Pink ($8, drugstores) or Laura Geller Lipstick in On Stage ($15.50, laurageller.com).
3. Steer clear of matte lipsticks that are either too dry (true mattes) or too glossy (creams). Either extreme highlights signs of age: matte, by emphasizing lines; cream, by bleeding all too easily into them. "A pearlescent formula looks moist and stays put," says Geller.
4. Line your lips with a lip pencil after you apply lipstick. "You'll get a fuller-looking pout than if you do the reverse," says Geller. "To make sure the liner is undetectable, use one that's the same shade as your lip color."
All The White Moves
The biggest smile booster, bar none, is whitening. In-office treatments, which range from laser- and light-activated bleaching to veneers, provide dramatic improvement, but they also come with a hefty price tag ($300 - $5,000). "But if your teeth just need a little pick-me-up, you'll probably be fine with an over-the-counter bleaching product," says Apa. One he particularly likes: the new Crest 3D 2 Hour Express Whitestrips (Starting at $50, Yahoo! Shopping). Like in-office treatments, at-home bleaches oxidize stain molecules with hydrogen peroxide — or ingredients that break down into it — albeit in lower concentrations. The other kinds of at-home whiteners — whitening toothpastes or rinses — use polishing and other non-bleach agents to either scrub off or chemically remove stains that are closer to the surface.
Whether you whiten with a toothpaste, strip, or rinse, you're not likely to sensitize or harm your teeth: "The old bleaches that abraded have been discontinued," says Apa. Any sensitivity you experience should subside as soon as you stop whitening, he says. While whiteners don't lighten bonds, veneers, and other dental work, certain brands, like Go Smile, Supersmile, and Glo, do remove stains on artificial tooth surfaces. A few more products to try: Colgate Total Advanced Whitening Gel ($3.80, drugstores); Supersmile Whitening Professional Whitening System (Starting at $30, Yahoo! Shopping), and, as of next month, from Jonathan Levine, D.M.D., the GLO, a light-activated home whitening system that claims to mimic in-office results ($275, Sephora).
*Interesting as many people are trying to go for that healthy smile these days. It's important to keep one at all times*
Diva's Nation
*Join The Conversation*
You can easily romanticize a few laugh lines (hey — every wrinkle is but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life, according to Dickens). But time's effects on your smile can be considerably harder to write off, no matter how talented the scribe. There's the yellowing or graying of teeth, the thinning of lips, the appearance of lip lines...and the list goes on. On the bright side, home tools that fight tooth discoloration (to say nothing of the latest in-office procedures) are getting ultra high-tech, and there are plenty of low-tech anti-aging essentials, too. Read on for these, plus top dermatologist and makeup-artist tips for adding major spark — and sparkle — to your smile.
Tooth Care (or Conseqences)
However unsexy, nuts-and-bolts dental hygiene is key to keeping your smile young-looking. "Your teeth control the lower third of your face," says New York City dentist Michael Apa, D.D.S. Their gradual wearing down and shifting with age contributes to the formation of frown lines and the hollowing of the cheeks. Tooth decay and loss only exacerbate these issues. In addition to what you already know (brush at least twice a day, floss once a day, and see a dentist regularly), here are some things you may not:
1. Rinse your mouth after every meal or glass of wine — red or white. "White wine has acids that penetrate the enamel, allowing staining and decaying food particles to penetrate more easily," says New York City dentist and Supersmile creator Irwin Smigel, D.D.S. Red, by contrast, creates only superficial staining. But whatever you eat or drink, a subtle swishing and swallowing of water right away at the table helps minimize residue, staining, and tooth decay, says Smigel.
2. Chew sugarless gum. "As you age, your salivary glands shrink and produce less saliva, which is a natural antimicrobial that helps prevent decay," says Smigel. "But gum chewing restimulates the flow."
3. Floss down into your gums, not just between your teeth. Plaque and bacteria can get stuck in those voids, causing inflammation and decay.
4. Ask your dentist to check the state of your fillings. "Every filling eventually has to be replaced," says New York City dentist Marc Lowenberg, D.D.S. Silver, or amalgam, lasts between 10 and 20 years, so your childhood dental work may be overdue for replacement. Fresh fillings can help prevent tooth decay and loss — and, down the road, root canals and implants.
5. Consider orthodontics if your teeth have shifted significantly. "Your jaw is shifting along with your teeth," says Apa. "Left unchecked, the situation can create a collapsed look" (think Disney's Evil Queen disguised as the old lady in Snow White). Invisalign or behind-the-teeth braces are the subtlest options for grown-ups. Ranging from $3,500 to $8,000, the investment for them isn't small. But the long-term payoff is big.
Lip Service
The skin surrounding your mouth and teeth is as much an element of a youthful smile as your teeth themselves. Your lips, like all exposed skin, need a high-SPF, broad-spectrum sunscreen: "UV damage can manifest as inflammation of the lips, redness and flaking, and, over time, wrinkling and even cancer," says Macrene Alexiades, Ph.D., M.D., a dermatologist in New York City. An important aside: Though skin cancer of the lips is uncommon, when it does form, it tends to spread to the lymph nodes very quickly. Try Blistex Five Star Lip Protection (Starting at $2.00, Yahoo! Shopping) with SPF 30 or Kiehl's Lip Balm SPF 15 (Starting at $9.50, Yahoo! Shopping).
To combat wrinkling of the skin around the mouth, start with Olay Professional Pro X Deep Wrinkle Treatment (Starting $30, Yahoo! Shopping) for eight weeks; if you don't see results, move up to prescription Renova. For pronounced peaks and valleys, you may want to ask your dermatologist about injectables. A hyaluronic acid filler like Juvéderm or Restylane — ranging in price from a few hundred to a thousand dollars or so, depending on the area you're treating and the area you live in — is delicate enough to plump the fine lines above and below the mouth. Dr. Alexiades likes to pair one of the aforementioned fillers with Botox. "It's the best crowd-pleaser for instant gratification," she says.
Kiss and Makeup
"Lipstick bleeding is the first sign of an aging mouth," says New York City makeup artist Laura Geller. To stop lip color from migrating into lines, pretreat the area around the mouth with concealer: Using your fingertip, lightly dot on one that contains reflective particles. Try Boots No7 Radiant Glow Concealer ($13, Yahoo! Shopping), and then lightly dust with translucent powder. The rest of Geller's tips for younger-looking lips:
1. Use a lip brush to apply lipstick. The tool gives you optimum precision as well as control over how much color you lay down near the edges.
2. Go bright. "The brighter, the better," says Geller. If your teeth are stained, "muted colors make graying or yellowing teeth look worse." Brights, however, are like a face-lift in a tube. Think pink, rose, or a true red. Try Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Gentlemen Prefer Pink ($8, drugstores) or Laura Geller Lipstick in On Stage ($15.50, laurageller.com).
3. Steer clear of matte lipsticks that are either too dry (true mattes) or too glossy (creams). Either extreme highlights signs of age: matte, by emphasizing lines; cream, by bleeding all too easily into them. "A pearlescent formula looks moist and stays put," says Geller.
4. Line your lips with a lip pencil after you apply lipstick. "You'll get a fuller-looking pout than if you do the reverse," says Geller. "To make sure the liner is undetectable, use one that's the same shade as your lip color."
All The White Moves
The biggest smile booster, bar none, is whitening. In-office treatments, which range from laser- and light-activated bleaching to veneers, provide dramatic improvement, but they also come with a hefty price tag ($300 - $5,000). "But if your teeth just need a little pick-me-up, you'll probably be fine with an over-the-counter bleaching product," says Apa. One he particularly likes: the new Crest 3D 2 Hour Express Whitestrips (Starting at $50, Yahoo! Shopping). Like in-office treatments, at-home bleaches oxidize stain molecules with hydrogen peroxide — or ingredients that break down into it — albeit in lower concentrations. The other kinds of at-home whiteners — whitening toothpastes or rinses — use polishing and other non-bleach agents to either scrub off or chemically remove stains that are closer to the surface.
Whether you whiten with a toothpaste, strip, or rinse, you're not likely to sensitize or harm your teeth: "The old bleaches that abraded have been discontinued," says Apa. Any sensitivity you experience should subside as soon as you stop whitening, he says. While whiteners don't lighten bonds, veneers, and other dental work, certain brands, like Go Smile, Supersmile, and Glo, do remove stains on artificial tooth surfaces. A few more products to try: Colgate Total Advanced Whitening Gel ($3.80, drugstores); Supersmile Whitening Professional Whitening System (Starting at $30, Yahoo! Shopping), and, as of next month, from Jonathan Levine, D.M.D., the GLO, a light-activated home whitening system that claims to mimic in-office results ($275, Sephora).
*Interesting as many people are trying to go for that healthy smile these days. It's important to keep one at all times*
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*Join The Conversation*
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