Health Benefits of Cayenne Pepper

Courtesy of Cayenne Pepper Info
Your Cayenne Pepper Guide

Cayenne Pepper Benefits
What are the health benefits of cayenne pepper, and how do cayenne peppers help you, if at all, with your weight loss diet regime?

The benefits of cayenne are almost too unbelieveable, but its reputation keeps growing and growing and deservedly so. It can do everything from kill cancer cells in the prostate, lungs, and pancreas to immediately stop a heart attack within 30 seconds. Incredible to hear I know.

Specific cayenne pepper benefits
Cayenne pepper (or cayanne pepper as it's sometimes spelled as) increases metabolism by immediately influencing the venous structure. It is nothing short of amazing with its effects on the circulatory system as it feeds the vital elements into the cell structure of capillaries, veins, arteries and helps adjust blood pressure to normal levels.

Yes, cayenne pepper for high blood pressure is certainly one of its core uses, but cayenne cleans the arteries as well, helping to rid the body of the bad LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Considering that heart disease is the number one killer in America, this is significant.

Cayenne is also great for the stomach and the intestinal tract. It stimulates the peristaltic motion of the intestines and aids in assimilation and elimination. When taken internally, it warms the body and has even been used by some herbalist doctors to help heal and rebuild flesh due to frostbite.

Cayenne Pepper and Heart Health
The effect of cayenne pepper on your body is dramatic, even literally instant and no more so than with the heart. Cayenne pepper's benefits is one of the things that brought you to this article so now let’s discuss the phenomenal healing properties of cayenne pepper with the human heart.

Dr. John Christopher, the famed natural herbalist, was persecuted relentlessly by the government for his practice of herbal medicine all the while assisting patients in curing heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, infertility, rheumatism, leukemia, and every other incurable under the sun.

One of his greatest stories in his long career was how he could instantly stop a heart attack if he could get the patient to drink a glass of warm cayenne water. He said, "A teaspoon of cayenne should bring the patient out of the heart attack."

While this is not directly related to cayenne pepper and heart health, with internal hemorrhaging, if the patient can drink a glass of extra warm cayenne water, Dr. Christopher wrote, "...by the count of ten the bleeding will stop. Instead of all the pressure being centralized, it is equalized and the clotting becomes more rapid."

Perhaps now you can see why cayenne pepper is regarded as a true "miracle herb." With over 700,000 thousands Americans experiencing a stroke each year and almost half a million dying yearly of either heart disease or related issues, believe it not the cure is as close as your local health food establishment.

Of course, the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of the cayenne pepper you're using should be known. Most cayenne is between 30,000 to 50,000 SHUs.

Another benefit of cayenne peppers is its antifungal properties. Cayenne pepper antifungal properties are significant although this is not its primary health benefit. Cayenne has been shown in some studies to be active against phomopsis and collectotrichum -- both are fungal pathogens.

These fungal pathogens affect fruits especially strawberries and are not directly related to humans. Currently, cayenne immune system benefits are also the subject of studies conducted by many nutritional supplement companies and microbiologists.


Please click here to view the original article in its entirety, including a comprehensive list of all the things cayenne can do for your health.

Traditional Americans are Losing Their Nation

Pat Buchanan cites ways Obama progressives have alienated, radicalized white population

By Patrick J. Buchanan
World Daily Net

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters. Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be? Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia" writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them. "We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you." Prediction: Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom. And if the Pelosi-Reid progressives went postal over town-hall protesters, calling them "un-American," "Nazis" and "evil-mongers," one can imagine what they will do with the Oath Keepers.

As with Jimmy Carter's long-range psychoanalysis of Joe Wilson, the reflexive reaction of the mainstream media will likely be that these are militia types, driven to irrationality because America has a black president. Yet, the establishment's reaction seems more problematic for the republic than anything the Oath Keepers are up to. For our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation and to be wedded to a vision of America divorced from reality.

Progressives are the folks who, in the 1960s, could easily understand that urban riots that took scores of lives and destroyed billions in property were an inevitable reaction to racism, poverty and despair. They could empathize with the rage of campus radicals who burned down the ROTC building and bombed the Pentagon. The "dirty, immoral war in Vietnam" explains why the "finest generation we have ever produced" is behaving like this, they said. We must deal with the "root causes" of social disorder.

Yet, they cannot comprehend what would motivate Middle America to distrust its government, for it surely does, as Ron Brownstein reports in the National Journal: "Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year's turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations and the financial industry. ... Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick 'none' – a grim statement."

Is all this due to Obama's race?
Even Obama laughs at that. As he told David Letterman, I was already black by the time I was elected. And he not only got a higher share of the white vote than Kerry or Gore, a third of white voters, who said in August 2008 that race was an important consideration in voting, said they were going to vote for Obama.

With black voters going 24 to 1 for Obama, he almost surely won more votes than he lost because of his race. Moreover, the alienation and radicalization of white America began long before Obama arrived. He acknowledged as much when he explained Middle Pennsylvanians to puzzled progressives in that closed-door meeting in San Francisco.

Referring to the white working-class voters in the industrial towns decimated by job losses, Obama said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Yet, we had seen these folks before. They were Perotistas in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993 and blocked the Bush-Kennedy McCain amnesty in 2007.

In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on – then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

They see a government in Washington that cannot balance its books, win our wars or protect our borders. The government shovels out trillions to Fortune 500 corporations and banks to rescue the country from a crisis created by the government and Fortune 500 corporations and banks. America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.

The Organic Revolution:

How We Can Stop Global Warming
Article printed from CommonDreams.org
by Ronnie Cummins


Beyond the gloom and doom of the climate crisis, there lies a powerful and regenerative grassroots solution: organic food, farming, and ranching.

As politicians drag their heels and refuse to acknowledge that we have about ten years left of "business as usual" before we irreversibly destroy the climate and ourselves, there is a powerful, though largely unrecognized, life-force spreading its roots underground.

Millions of organic farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and backyard gardeners (supported by millions of organic consumers) are demonstrating that we can build a healthy alternative to industrial agriculture and Food Inc.

Our growing organic movement is proving that we can not only feed the world with healthy food, but also reverse global warming, by capturing and sequestering billions of tons of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases in the soil, through plant photosynthesis, composting, cover crops, rotational grazing, wetlands preservation, and reforestation.

Organic farms and ranches can provide us with food that is much more nutritious than industrial farms and ranches-food filled with vitamins, anti-oxidants, and essential trace minerals, free from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics, and sewage sludge.

In 2006, U.S. carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels (approximately 25% of the world's total) was estimated at nearly 6.5 billion tons.

If a 7,000 lb/CO2/ac/year sequestration rate were achieved on all 434 million acres of cropland in the United States, nearly 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide would be sequestered per year, mitigating close to one quarter of the country's total fossil fuel emissions.

If pastures and rangelands were similarly converted to organic practices, we would literally be well on our way to reversing global warming. But we need an organic revolution in ranching and livestock production, as well as farming and forestry.

We need to drastically reduce meat overproduction (77% of all U.S. agriculture resources are devoted to raising animals or animal feed), and over-consumption (a leading cause of obesity, heart disease and cancer) and ban methane-belching factory farms.

As the Rodale Institute points out, organic livestock raising practices can drastically reduce livestock-related emissions and, because of the massive acreage currently devoted to livestock production (nearly 2.5 times greater than croplands), can safely sequester approximately 60% of the total greenhouse gases that humans, animals, cars, and industry are pumping out every year.

The majority of Americans must not only stop buying chemical, GMO, globally sourced and so-called "natural" food, and switch to organic and more locally and regionally produced products, but we must also rise up as a political movement and change public policy.

We must literally force the politicians and the corporations to put a halt to our "business as usual" destruction of the climate and public health, and instead move to an ethical and scientifically grounded policy and practice that promotes health, conservation, greenhouse gas reduction, and organic sequestration.

To read more, please click here.

Expert: Multiyear Arctic ice effectively gone

By David Ljunggren

Editing by Rob Wilson
OTTAWA (Reuters)

The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world. But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.

"We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere," he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada's Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes. Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought -- and largely failed to find -- a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called "rotten ice" -- 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice. "I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said. "From a practical perspective, if you want to ship across the pole, you're concerned about multiyear sea ice. You're not concerned about this rotten stuff we were doing 13 knots through. It's easy to navigate through."

Scientists have fretted for decades about the pace at which the Arctic ice sheets are shrinking. U.S. data shows the 2009 ice cover was the third-lowest on record, after 2007 and 2008. An increasing number of experts feel the North Pole will be ice free in summer by 2030 at the latest, for the first time in a million years. "I would argue that, from a practical perspective, we almost have a seasonally ice-free Arctic now, because multiyear sea ice is the barrier to the use and development of the Arctic," said Barber.

Fresh first-year ice always forms in the Arctic in the winter, when temperatures plunge far below freezing and the North Pole is not exposed to the sun. Shipping companies are already looking to benefit from warming waters. This year two German cargo ships successfully navigated from South Korea along Russia's northern Siberia coast without the help of icebreakers.

The Arctic is warming up three times more quickly than the rest of the Earth, in part because of the reflectivity, or the albedo feedback effect, of ice. As more and more ice melts, larger expanses of darker sea water are exposed. These absorb more sunlight than the ice and cause the water to heat up more quickly, thereby melting more ice. Barber said the ice was now being melted both by rays from the sun as well as from below by the warmer water.

Scientists are also seeing more cyclones, which pick up force as they absorb heat from the warmer water. The cyclones help generate waves that break up ice sheets and also dump large amounts of snow, which has an insulating effect and prevents the ice sheets from thickening. After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes. "The Arctic is an early indicator of what we can expect at the global scale as we move through the next few decades ... So we should be paying attention to this very carefully," Barber said.

Oil spill fouls East Bay beaches, kills birds

San Francisco Chronicle
Staff Writers-Kelly Zito, Peter Fimrite
Alameda

Some of the hundreds of gallons of bunker fuel oil spilled Friday in San Francisco Bay have started washing onto shore, polluting area beaches and killing dozens of birds.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard authorities said they would investigate whether any mistakes were made in the initial response to the spill. Some environmental groups questioned why it took several hours to position containment booms around the leak and beaches in the spill zone.

"That's what the Coast Guard and Fish and Game are looking at right now ... the timeliness," said Lt. Rob Roberts of the California Department of Fish and Game.

At 6:48 a.m. Friday, the Panamanian tanker Dubai Star spilled bunker oil into the bay as the ship was being refueled about 2 1/2 miles south of the Bay Bridge.

The oil sheen quickly covered a miles-long swath of water; however, aerial assessments and measurements of the tanker's fuel capacity showed "only" (?-KNN's emphasis) 400 to 800 gallons of bunker fuel had been spilled, officials said Saturday.

The cause of the spill is still under investigation, but early evidence pointed to mechanical failure.

For watchdogs of the bay's ecosystem and wildlife, the incident brought back memories of the disastrous 2007 Cosco Busan incident, which dumped nearly 60,000 gallons of bunker fuel, killing thousands of birds and fouling sensitive shorelines. The Coast Guard and other agencies came under attack for the poor communication and sluggish response to that spill, which occurred two years ago this month.

Response time
It took several hours Friday to deploy booms around the tanker. And at least one environmental group wondered why responders didn't immediately place a protective boom along Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda - the spot hardest hit by the spill.

By Saturday, tar balls - some the size of silver dollars and a few as big as seat cushions - had washed up along shore every 5 to 10 yards.

About 60 oiled birds, about half that had died, were found at that site, according to the East Bay Regional Park District. The Coast Guard would confirm only the collection of 12 oiled-but-surviving birds.

"We have the beaches closed to provide an onshore refuge for the birds," Escobar said. "Oiled birds need to get onshore because they lose their insulation."

Herring habitat
Self worried about the oil's impact on eelgrass beds around Alameda, which provide important spawning habitat for herring. The herring season - the bay's last commercial fishery - was canceled in September because of concerns about the health of the fish population. Self and others believe the Cosco Busan spill may have played a large role in killing off herring eggs.

For its part, the Coast Guard and coordinating agencies said they responded with "surgical" precision, limiting the oil impact to about 6 miles of shoreline.

By Saturday afternoon, the Coast Guard had deployed 22 vessels, one helicopter and teams of wildlife crews to assess damage along San Francisco and Alameda shorelines. All told, 53,000 feet of containment booms had been set out around the ship itself as well as important beaches.

In addition to tar balls along Crown Memorial Beach, oil was washing up in the Ballena Isle Marina in Alameda, Coast Guard officials said.

Closed areas include the Alameda County shoreline between the Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge. Fishing should be avoided anywhere there is a visible sheen.

Beach closures
San Francisco officials asked people to refrain from swimming in the bay and stay away from local beaches. But those warnings didn't keep everyone away. Shoshanna Tenn, 36, of Oakland, went to Crown Memorial Beach and offered to help, but she was turned away.

"The bay is huge and we all use it, so it is important to keep it clean," Tenn said as she stared out at the booms laid out in the water protecting the bird sanctuary. "Our kids come to this beach. It's our home."

Report oiled birds
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is not asking for volunteer help at this point, but anyone who sees oiled wildlife should call (877) 823-6926.

Atlanta's Red & Black Affair

Is back again!!!
Ahk Ahmeenohn
KNN-Atlanta

Attention Saints & Friends of the Kingdom of Yah!

On behalf of the Brothers and Sisters on the Move on the Southern Region, we humbly invite you to enjoy a divine evening in royalty and elegance at this year's'Red & Black Affair'.

The Red and Black Affair is an annual function which is organized and hosted by the joint efforts of Brothers on the Move (BOM) and the Sisters on the Move (SOM) entities.

This year's Red and Black Affair will take place Mohtsai Shabbaht (Sat. night) December 19th, 2009, from 9:00 PM-until at the Return to Royalty Banquet Hall located at the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant South (Atlanta, Georgia).

Please stay tuned to KNN for more information on this upcoming event, or call Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at (404) 752-5194.

Sponsored by the Brothers and Sisters on the Move

Typhoon Smashes Philippines, Killing 11

The Chosun Ilbo
english.chosun.com

A powerful typhoon smashed through the Philippines early Saturday, killing at least 11 people and bringing new floods to areas still recovering from two earlier storms.

Officials in the Philippines say typhoon Mirinae (locally known as "Santi") has weakened to a tropical storm and moved west. The total number of dead and missing is still being determined.

The typhoon made landfall in the eastern province of Quezon just early Friday and swept over the capital, Manila, and southern provinces on the main Luzon island, flooding entire villages.

All flights to and from Manila were canceled Saturday. The coast guard also halted all maritime traffic. More than 100,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas ahead of the storm.

Tens of thousands of people were stranded on Luzon ahead of the All Saints holiday in early November, when many Filipinos travel to their home provinces to pay their respects to dead relatives.

Military troops and relief supplies have been sent to the flooded areas. Storms Ketsana (September 26) and Parma (October 3) caused the worst flooding in the Philippines in four decades.

The resulting floods and mudslides have killed more than 900 people, and affected nearly nine million others.

Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church

CNN
ROME, Italy

The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church. The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said.

The move comes some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England, forerunner of the Anglican Communion. The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy -- including those who are married -- who would be ordained as Catholic priests.

The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church increased in recent years as the Anglican Church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships.

Their talks with the Vatican recently began speeding up, Vatican officials said, leading to Tuesday's announcement. While married Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests, the same does not apply to married Anglican bishops, Levada said.

"We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," Di Noia said. "The Holy Spirit is at work here."

The Right Rev. Daren K. Williams, bishop ordinary of the western diocese of the Anglican Church of America, said his parishioners have generally been "very warmly receiving" Tuesday's announcement."It is encouraging for them to know their worship experience wouldn't be turned upside down by the Roman Catholic Church," Williams said.

"The person in the pew should see very little difference in the way we pray. We might be asked to pray aloud for any pope who happens to be in office, in addition to praying for our primate. "Really, there'd be very little other difference."

The Church of England said the move ends a "period of uncertainty" for Anglican groups who wanted more unity with the Catholic Church. Both groups have a "substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality" and will continue to hold official dialogues, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster said in a joint statement.

Preserving Anglican traditions, such as mass rites, adds to the diversity of the Catholic Church, he said. "The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows," he said. "Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' "


Please click here to read full article.

Soul Vegetarian is Cooking with the Sun

Soul Vegetarian begins cooking with their new solar cooker

Courtesy of
Ahk Yatneal Ben Nasik Rahm
Manager of Soul Vegetarian Restaurant #1
Atlanta


When the solar cooker was set up on the side of the resturant it started attracting attention left and right, and the food that we cooked that day was wonderful!

This is not some Boy Scout Field Badge project. The quality of the food cooked on the solar stove was far superior and better tasting than what we could have done on a conventional stove.

And, yes......all that's needed is a steady supply of sunshine!


For more information on the Solar Cooker, please call us at the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at (404) 752-5194.

US Clocks Go Back 1 Hour on Nov 1

Remember to reset your clocks!!!
KNN Staff

This past spring, the U.S. began its 2009 observance of Daylight Saving Time which resulted in longer days. Now, as the winter cycle draws nigh, the daily amount of sunlight hours is decreasing. This natural, seasonal change ushers in with it a later sunrise and an earlier sunset from now until next spring.

Although the Daylight Savings Time 'change' was created long ago to regulate natural time cycles, it has been made law by Congress, in modern times, throughout the US except for all Hawaii Islands and Arizona with the exception of the Navajo Nation which does observe DST.

In accordance with those laws, the time will "fall back" an hour to local standard time US time which "sprang forward" earlier this spring.

This year's Daylight Saving Time will officially end 2:00AM, on the first day (Sunday) of the 11th month (Nov. 1st or late Saturday night).

DST will re-commence next spring on March 14, 2010 and will end on November 7, 2010.

"And he shall think to change times and laws." - Dan.7:25

All-male college cracks down on cross-dressing

By Lateef Mungin
CNN-Atlanta

An all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia, has banned the wearing of women's clothes, makeup, high heels and purses as part of a new crackdown on what the institution calls inappropriate attire. No dress-wearing is part of a larger dress code launched this week that Morehouse College is calling its "Appropriate Attire Policy." The policy also bans wearing hats in buildings, pajamas in public, do-rags, sagging pants, sunglasses in class and walking barefoot on campus.

However, it is the ban on cross-dressing that has brought national attention to the small historically African-American college. The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college's 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services. "We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men," he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus' gay organization. "We talked about it and then they took a vote," he said. "Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it." There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom. "I feel that there will be a lot of resentment and backlash," Watson said. "It infringes on the student's freedom of expression. I matriculated successfully for three-and-half years dressing so how is this a problem?"

Senior Tyrone McGowan said he has mixed feelings about parts of the policy. "But I have been inspired by the conversation it has created," he said. "We have to find a way to create diverse leaders from this college. I don't want this to place all of us in one box."

Those breaking the policy will not be allowed to go to class unless they change. Chronic dress-code offenders could be suspended from the college. Bynum said the policy comes from the vision of the college's president, who wants the institution to create leaders like notable graduates Martin Luther King Jr., actor Samuel Jackson and film director Spike Lee.

Senior Cameron Titus applauds the change. "The policy is just saying that you have to show more respect in how you dress and there are things that are just not acceptable at Morehouse," Titus said. "We have a legacy that we are trying to uphold."

Report Recommends Healthier School Lunches

Students need more veggies, fewer calories

By Libby Quaid
Anchorage Daily News

adn.com

School lunches need more fruits, veggies and whole grains and a limit on calories, says a report urging an update of the nation's 14-year-old standards for cafeteria fare. But the changes won't come cheaply. Schools can't put just anything on a kid's lunch tray. They must follow federal standards, because the government's school lunch program subsidizes lunch and breakfast for needy kids in nearly every public school and many private ones. Yet those standards are lacking, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Tuesday. They don't restrict the number of calories kids are offered, even though childhood obesity keeps climbing. And they don't match up with the government's own dietary guidelines, which serve as the basis for the familiar Food Pyramid and were updated in 2005. They call for lots of fresh fruit and veggies and more whole grains.

"Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children, and childhood obesity is often referred to as an epidemic in both the medical and community settings," Virginia Stallings, who chaired the report committee, wrote. The proposed standards won't be cheap. The committee said breakfast prices could soar 20 percent, and lunch prices could rise by 4 percent. That's daunting for school kitchens, which get less from the government, $2.68, than it actually costs to make each free lunch, about $2.92, according to a recent survey done by the School Nutrition Association.

Combine that with rising food and fuel prices, and school kitchens are feeling the squeeze. Many have been raising prices for full-price meals. The federal dollars "simply do not keep pace with the rising costs on everything from food and labor to napkins and spoons," Dora Rivas, president of the association and head of food and nutrition in Dallas public schools, said in a statement last week. The group is pressuring Congress to boost spending on school lunches. The Institute of Medicine committee agreed, saying the reimbursement should be raised to cover the cost of adding more fruits and veggies to the menu and substituting healthier whole grains for refined grains.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Obama administration would review the report as it writes new rules for school meals. The report proposed new standards according to grade levels - kindergarten through five, six through eight and nine through 12. Among the recommendations:

-Each week, kids should be offered 2 1/2 to 5 servings of fruit for lunch, depending on their grade, and at least five servings of fruit for breakfast. No more than half the fruit servings should be juice.

-Kids should be offered 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 servings of vegetables for lunch, according to the report, which says that a half-cup of dark green and bright orange veggies and legumes like beans should be offered at lunch.

-And kids should be offered nine to 13 servings of grain for lunch and seven to 10 servings of grain for breakfast, the report said. At least half of those servings should be whole whole grains such as whole wheat bread, oatmeal and brown rice.

That is what they should be offered - under the proposed standards, a kid would be allowed to turn down some items in the cafeteria line as long as they still took a certain number of fruits, juices or veggies to their seats. The current standards only set minimum calorie levels, but the report says there should be a ceiling on calories, too. Lunch should be no more than 650 to 850 calories, and breakfast should be no more than 500 to 600 calories, depending on grade, the report said.

The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.

The Cell Tolls for Thee

The truth about the cell-phone–cancer link and what it means for you and your kids

By Julie A. Evans
Best Life

(Article submitted by Ahk Yehoadeen-Atlanta)

When Vin Khurana, PhD, an Australian (and Mayo Clinic-trained) neurosurgeon, announced that the link between cell-phone use and cancer was irrefutable-the resul of his analysis of more than 100 studies-it set off alarm bell around the world. Use a cell phone, he said, and you increase your risk of developing a milignant brain tumo by two to four times. Until recently, the majority of research indicated little or no link between cell phones and cancer (the World health Organizaiton and the American Cancer Society maintain that cell phones pose no threat), but several new long-term studies have cast doubt about their safety. Giventhat cell phones and PDAs serve as lifelines for so many peoole-24 percent of 10- and 11-year-olds carry them-it raises urgent questions. To find out what precautions you should take when using your cell phone, we dialed the nation's leading experts.

Do cell phones cause cancer?
Maybe…with extended use. Mobile-phone users are twice as likely to develop malignant, difficult-to-treat brain tumors called gilomas, according to a first-of-its-kind study that analyzed the effects of cell-phone use over 10 years or more and was published last year in the journal Occupational Environmental Medicine. The Bioinitiative Working Group, an international coalition of scientists and public-health experts, recently published a hefty report detailing the link between the nonionizing radiation caused by a cell phone’s electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and cancer, DNA damage, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases. “The cells in the body react to EMFs in cell phones just like they do to other environmental toxins, including heavy metals and chemicals,” says Martin Blank, PhD, a professor in bioelectromagnetics at Columbia University and one of the report’s authors. The study found that risk from cell-phone use starts at 260 lifetime hours.

Do cell phones emit radiation only when you are talking?
No. “Cell phones give off radiation any time they’re turned on so that they can communicate with base stations,” says Lou Bloomfield, PhD, professor of physics at the University of Virginia and author of How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary. “The radiation emitted, however, is stronger and more frequent when you’re talking or messaging.” Also, the greater distance you are from a base station, the more radiation your phone must emit in order to get a signal, which is why your phone feels hot when you have low reception. That heat you feel is radiation. The Bioinitiative study found that adverse effects to DNA can also occur before the phone heats up. To reduce your exposure, make calls only when you have strong reception, hang up before your phone heats up, and store your phone away from your body when it’s not in use.

What is a phone’s SAR value and why does it matter?
SAR stands for specific absorption rate, and it refers to the rate of radiation exposure from radio frequency and microwaves measured in watts per kilogram of tissue, says Bloomfield. The FCC limit on any cell phone sold in this country is 1.6 watts per kilogram. To find the SAR value for your phone, go to fcc.gov/cgb/sar/. At press time, the phone with the lowest radiation was the LG KG800, at 0.135 w/kg. The highest: Motorola V195s, at 1.6 w/kg. The Apple iPhone is in the middle, at 0.974 w/kg.

What is the range of the radiation?
Exposure to radiation from your cell phone drops off slowly for the first three to four inches from your body, and then it falls dramatically, says Bloomfield. To reduce your exposure, invest in a hands-free headset and limit the amount of time you spend talking on the phone. Khurana recommends using the speaker mode and holding the phone about eight inches away from you. Also, limit your use of Bluetooth devices. While it’s true that they emit the least amount of radiation (one study found they can operate as low as 0.001 watts per kilogram), even that can add up fast.

Is it risky to carry a cell phone in your pants pocket?
Maybe. One 2006 study found no link to testicular cancer, but other researchers suspect a link to male infertility. Ashok Agarwal, PhD, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, recently completed a study in which cell phones were set down for one hour in talk mode, next to sperm samples in test tubes. He found that the sperm’s motility and viability were significantly reduced, and levels of harmful free radicals increased after exposure. Agarwal suggests storing the phone in your jacket pocket to reduce exposure to cell-phone radiation. Pregnant women need to take precautions too, because a recent study found that cell-phone use while pregnant is linked to behavioral problems in children.

Are kids more at risk?
“Yes, since children’s nervous systems are still developing, and they have thinner scalps and skulls than adults, they should use cell phones only in emergencies,” says Gene Barnett, MD, professor and director of the Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center at the Cleveland Clinic. The association between childhood leukemia and exposure to EMFs like those from cell phones has led the International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify them as a “possible human carcinogen.” The medical establishments in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom all recommend severe restrictions on children’s cell-phone use, with some experts going so far as to say that children under 16 should not use cell phones at all. Make sure your kids opt for landlines when they’re at home, and if you must buy them a cell phone for emergencies, get one with a low SAR number.

What about texting?
It’s actually a safer way to communicate, says David O. Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany. Since kids hold phones away from their bodies when texting, they’re exposed to less radiation than when they have the phones to their ears. “We are very concerned about teen cell-phone use, fearing that we face an epidemic of brain tumors 10 to 20 years from now, and there are so few who are raising warning flags,” says Dr. Carpenter. Make sure your teen keeps his cell phone turned off and stored in his backpack when it isn't in use, which will dramatically reduce exposure.

The 10 worst cell phones according to their SAR numbers:
1. Motorola V195s.......................................1.60 w/kg
2. Motorola Slvr L6.......................................1.58 w/kg
3. Motorola Slvr L2.......................................1.54 w/kg
4. Motorola W385.........................................1.54 w/kg
5. Rim BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Sprint)......1.54 w/kg
6. Rim BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Verizon)...1.54 w/kg
7. Motorola Deluxe ic902.............................1.53 w/kg
8. T-Mobile Shadow......................................1.53 w/kg
9. Motorola i335.............................................1.53 w/kg
10. Samsung Sync SGH-C417....................1.51 w/kg

The 10 best cell phones according to their SAR numbers:
1. LG KG800..................................................0.135 w/kg
2. Motorola Razr V3x.....................................0.14 w/kg
3. Nokia 9300.................................................0.21 w/kg
4. Nokia N90...................................................0.22 w/kg
5. Samsung SGH-G800.................................0.23 w/kg
6. Samsung Sync SGH-A707........................0.236 w/kg
7. Nokia 7390..................................................0.26 w/kg
8. Samsung SGH-T809..................................0.32 w/kg
9. Bang & Olufsen Serene..............................0.33 w/kg
10. Motorola Razr2 V8....................................0.36 w/kg

Shabbaht Shalom
from
The Village of Peace!

KNN-Dimona, Israel


The Holy Hebraic Shabbaht (the seventh day) commences weekly at the setting of the sun each erev Shabbaht (Yom Sheshe or Friday) and ends at sunset on each Mohtsai Shabbaht (Saturday evening).

It is one day set aside each week as a day for humanity to cease from work and all activities in order to rest the body and soul, and to allow our minds, bodies and souls (the temple) to totally rest, be repaired, restored and rejuvenated from the wear and tear of daily activities.

The sunset time at Kefar HaShalom (the Village of Peace) in Dimona, Israel this Yom Sheshe, (Friday) October 16th-17th is 5:04PM. Please click here to find sunset times for your area.

Shabbaht Shalom.

(Peaceful sabbath)

Mekodeshet Announcement

The Prophetic Priesthood at Jerusalem

Shalom beloved family!

We are pleased to announce that the following couples have now entered into the sacred and holy cycle of Mekodeshet

Ahk Gedone and Ahkote Romeemah, and

Ahk Amariyah HaTsalem and Aturah Rifiyah

Let all saints govern themselves accordingly upon the hearing of this special announcement.

HalleluYah!!!

Yah Khai!!!

Airline Flies First Passenger Flight on Natural Gas

Reuters-London

The world's first commercial passenger flight powered by a fuel made from natural gas completed late on Monday (October$ 12, 2009) a six-hour journey from London to Qatar, one of the biggest producers of natural gas.

"Today's flight opens the door to an alternative to oil-based aviation fuel," Malcolm Brinded, Royal Dutch Shell's executive director upstream international, said in a statement late on Monday.

"We are now well on the way to launching GTL on a world scale for the first time," Brinded said. Shell developed and produced the 50-50 blend of synthetic Gas to Liquids (GTL) kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene fuel used in Qatar Airways' Airbus A340-800 aircraft powered by a Rolls-Royce Trent 556 engine.

"This is a major breakthrough which brings us closer to a world where fuels made from feedstocks such as wood-chip waste and other biomass is available for commercial aviation," Rainer Ohler, a spokesman for Airbus, said. "Airbus predicts that in 2030, up to 30 percent of jet fuel will be alternative."

The fuel burned with lower sulphur dioxide and particulate emissions, which should help improve local air quality at busy airports. Qatar will become the world's leading producer of GTL kerosene when it is put into commercial production from 2012. It is already the world's top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Qatar Petroleum and Shell are building the Pearl GTL plant, which has an annual capacity of around one million tons -- enough to carry 250 passengers around the world 4,000 times when used in a 50 percent blend to make GTL jet fuel.

"Commercial aviation is one of the exciting new markets that this opens up, helping us maximize the value from our natural resources," said Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry Abdulla bin Hamad Al-Attiyah.

The Burger That Shattered A Life

E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection
Michael Moss
nytimes.com

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to hamburger her family had eaten that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007. Stricken by E. coli, she was in a coma for nine weeks and was paralyzed after being infected and stricken with E. coli.

“I ask myself every day, ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why from a hamburger?’ ”Ms. Smith said. In the simplest terms, she ran out of luck in a food-safety game of chance whose rules and risks are not widely known.

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit.

Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states.

Ms. Smith’s reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin.

The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria. Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat. Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together.

The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged them to test ingredients first as a way of increasing the chance of finding contamination. However, unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

“Ground beef is not a completely safe product,” said Dr. Jeffrey Bender, a food safety expert at the University of Minnesota who helped develop systems for tracing E. coli contamination. He said that while outbreaks had been on the decline, “unfortunately it looks like we are going a bit in the opposite direction.”

Food scientists have registered increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make someone sick, and they warn that federal guidance to cook meat thoroughly and to wash up afterward is not sufficient. A test by The Times found that the safe handling instructions are not enough to prevent the bacteria from spreading in the kitchen.

Please click here to view entire article.

Overseas Airports May Screen For H1N1 Symptoms

WCBSTV.com
Washington (CBS)

With the holiday season just a few weeks away, there are fears that the swine flu will pick up right along with air travel. Now, officials in other countries may screen those traveling internationally from the United States as a precaution.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration say, however, that such screenings are not taking place at travel hubs within America.

A warning from Flu.gov tells travelers:

"Due to the outbreak of H1N1 (Swine) flu occurring in the United States and many other countries, airport staff in some countries may check the health of arriving passengers. Travelers from the United States arriving in other countries may be checked for fever and other symptoms of H1N1 (Swine) flu, and their travel may be delayed."

The site says that when you travel internationally from the United States, officials in other countries may ask you to:

-Pass through a scanning device that checks your temperature. (The device may look like an airport metal detector, a camera, or a handheld device.)
-Have your temperature taken with an oral or ear thermometer
-Fill out a sheet of questions about your health
-Review information about the symptoms of H1N1 (Swine) flu
-Give your address, phone number, and other contact information
-Be quarantined for a period of time if a passenger on your flight is found to have symptoms of H1N1 (Swine) flu
-Contact health authorities in the country you are visiting to let them know if you become ill

In addition, the site says "If you have a fever or respiratory symptoms or are suspected to have H1N1 (Swine) flu based on screening, you may be asked to:

-Be isolated from other people until you are well
-Have a medical examination
-Take a rapid flu test (which consists of a nasal swab sample)
-Be hospitalized and given medical treatment, if you test positive for H1N1 (Swine) flu

"It feels a little bit overboard," Stanford, Conn. resident Derek Ferguson said. "I'm all for it, I really am," Mount Vernon resident Rosa Raspaldo said. "Because – guaranteed – if people are coughing on the plane, all of those germs will be spread around."

But the H1N1 virus isn't just a danger in the skies. Buses and trains can also be a breeding ground for germs. Millions of riders climb aboard every day, and that has many taking precautions."

I keep antiseptic in my purse and I use it all the time," said New York City resident Rose Donato.

Donato is a daily commuter, and says she isn't relying on others to take responsibility for her health.

"We're in Grand Central – I'm sure there are people that are sick and are walking around, and are spraying their germs all over the place," Donato said.

New York, along with other transportation agencies around the country, is posting signs reminding customers to keep their sneezes and coughs to themselves. It's common sense advice that doctors echo.

"Get vaccinated, wash your hands frequently, and you've really done the most that almost anybody can do to protect against influenza," Dr. Michael Phillips, of New York University's Langone Medical Center, said.

The first doses of swine flu vaccine arrived earlier this week, but new polls show that many people don't plan to get it. Flu shot or not, experts say that healthy habits will help make sure that, when you travel, germs don't take the trip with you.

If you have questions about the swine flu, check out our online resource guide here, including what you need for a swine flu survival kit. You can also check out information on screenings for travelers here.

Exercise can extend life even in 'oldest old'

By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer - Chicago

Even in the "oldest old," a little physical activity goes a long way, extending life by at least a few years for people in their mid- to late 80s, Israeli researchers found. The three-year survival rate was about three times higher for active 85-year-olds compared with those who were inactive. Getting less than four hours of exercise weekly was considered inactive; more than that was active.

The results "clearly support the continued encouragement of physical activity, even among the oldest old. Indeed, it seems that it is never too late to start," the researchers wrote in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, which published the study. They noted that exercise reaped benefits even for previously sedentary 85-year-olds; their three-year survival rate was double that of inactive 85-year-olds. Oldsters didn't have to be super-athletes to live longer; walking at least four hours weekly counted, even if it was just in 15-minute strolls a few times daily.

"As little as four hours a week was as beneficial as more vigorous or prolonged activity," said study author Dr. Jeremy Jacobs, a geriatric specialist at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. Active octogenarians also reported less depression and loneliness and a greater ability to perform daily tasks. Similar benefits have been shown in people in their 60s and 70s, but there has been little research about exercise benefits in people in their 80s.

The study involved 1,861 Jerusalem residents who were 70 years old in 1990. Participants filled out questionnaires about their health and activity levels through 2008. At age 85, 64 percent were physically active, a relatively high percentage that reflects the Israeli lifestyle, Jacobs said. But he said similar benefits from exercise likely would be seen among the very old in other countries. There were 512 deaths. Slightly fewer than 7 percent of the active 85-year-olds died by age 88, versus about 24 percent of those who were inactive.

Jacobs said the researchers took into account factors that also affect survival, including participants' overall health and whether they smoked, and still found that activity levels were strongly related to longevity.

Dr. James Webster, a professor of geriatric medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said the study can't completely rule out that participants who were able to exercise were already healthier than the others, and thus likely to live longer.
Still, Webster said the link between octogenarian exercise and longevity appears valid. He was not involved in the study.

Laura Thorp, a researcher at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, said very old patients who want to increase their activity should do so under a doctor's supervision. Still, Thorp said, "Even those who are not exercisers or athletes can start and still see substantial benefits."

Most babies born this century will live to 100

By Maria Cheng
AP Medical Writer
London

Most babies born in rich countries this century will eventually make it to their 100th birthday, Danish experts say since in the 20th century, people in developed countries are living about three decades longer than in the past. Surprisingly, the trend shows little sign of slowing down.

In an article published Friday in the medical journal Lancet, the researchers write that the process of aging may be "modifiable."

James Vaupel of the Max Planck Institute in Germany and colleagues in Denmark examined studies published globally in 2004-2005 on numerous issues related to aging. They found life expectancy is increasing steadily in most countries, even beyond the limits of what scientists first thought possible. In Japan, for instance, which has the world's longest life expectancy, more than half of the country's 80-year-old women are expected to live to 90.

"Improvements in health care are leading to ever slowing rates of aging, challenging the idea that there is a fixed ceiling to human longevity," said David Gems, an aging expert at University College London. Gems was not connected to the research, and is studying drugs that can lengthen the life span of mice, which may one day have applications for people.

"Laboratory studies of mice, including our own, demonstrate that if you slow aging even just a little, it has a strong protective effect," he said. "A pill that slowed aging could provide protection against the whole gamut of aging-related diseases."

While illnesses affecting the elderly like heart disease, cancer and diabetes are rising, advances in medical treatment are also making it possible for them to remain active for longer. The obesity epidemic, however, may complicate matters. Extra weight makes people more susceptible to diseases and may increase their risk of dying.

In the U.S., data from 1982 to 2000 showed a major drop in illness and disability among the elderly, though that has now begun to reverse, probably linked to the rise in obesity.
The graying population will slowly radically transform society, and retirement ages may soon be pushed back, said Richard Suzman, an aging expert at the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

"We are within five to 10 years of a watershed event where there will be more people on earth over 65 than there under five," he said. "Those extra years need to be financed somehow and we need to start thinking about it now."
See also: Half of babies born in rich world will live to 100

Approaching Epidemic: Brain Damage from Mobile Phone Radiation

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com

A collaborative team of international EMF activists has released a report detailing eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study.

The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:

• There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use


• Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors


• Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors

The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumors, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a ‘systemic-skew’, greatly underestimating brain tumor risk.

The design flaws include categorizing subjects who used portable phones (which emit the same microwave radiation as cell phones,) as ‘unexposed’; exclusion of many types of brain tumors; exclusion of people who had died, or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumor; and exclusion of children and young adults, who are more vulnerable.

Ronald B. Herberman, MD, Director Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has stated,

“Based on substantial evidence, especially from industry-independent studies that long term exposure to radiofrequency radiation may lead to increased risk for brain tumors, I issued a precautionary advisory last year to faculty and staff of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

Since then, my particular concern about exposure of children to radiofrequency has been supported by a report from Dr. Lennart Hardell. Some of my scientific colleagues have expressed skepticism about the reported biological effects, especially DNA0A damage by radiofequency radiation, because of the absence of a demonstrated underlying molecular mechanism.

However, based on the precautionary principle, I believe it is more prudent to take seriously the reports by multiple investigators that radiofrequency can damage DNA and increase the risk for brain tumors, and for industry-independent agencies to provide needed funding for detailed research to ascertain the molecular basis for such effects.”

Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says,

“Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled.

Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cell phones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. The public must be informed.”

The Mobile Aimed at Four-year-olds

By Laura Clark
Daily Mail Online

United Kingdom

A mobile phone designed for children as young as four is to be sold in Britain. The brightly coloured Firefly handset has just five buttons - including two which call Mum and Dad directly. Details of the phone, which looks like a toy, came as it emerged that more than half of under-tens now own a mobile.

There were warnings yesterday that the trend for such gadgets was 'eroding childhood' and concerns have been raised over the effect of phone radiation on children's health. More than 7,000 of the £85 Firefly handsets have already been sold in Ireland. The Dublin-based firm behind the invention is now planning a UK launch towards the end of the year.

But Margaret Morrissey, of the lobby group Parents Outloud, said: 'We are continually eroding childhood and making children miniature adults. 'The excuse will be that it is for the sake of safety, but in fact it's for the sake of the mobile phone company's bank balance.'

The warning came as figures from MobileYouth, a research consultancy which tracks technology use by youngsters, found that 52 per cent of UK children aged five to nine have a mobile. Among ten to 14-year-olds, usage is running at almost 85 per cent.

Aine Lynch, chief executive of Ireland's National Parents Council, said: 'Targeting a phone at a four-year-old causes us concern. It gives rise to questions as to where parental responsibility is going. 'Why would kids need to be contacted by mobile phone? Why are they not in the care of their parents, teachers or supervisors?'

Official Government advice to parents remains that they should avoid giving mobiles to under-16s as a precaution.


See: On sale soon: The mobile aimed at four-year-olds

EPA moves to regulate smokestack greenhouse gases

By Dina Cappiello

Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON

Proposed regulations would require power plants, factories and refineries to reduce greenhouse gases by installing the best available technology and improving energy efficiency whenever a facility is significantly changed or built.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposal announced Wednesday applies to any industrial plant that emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. These large sources are responsible for 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions - mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels - that are released in the U.S., the EPA said.

"By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation's largest greenhouse gas-emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said. "We know the corner coffee shop is no place to look for meaningful carbon reductions."

Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced it would start developing the first-ever greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks. Those regulations, which would take effect in 2010, compel the EPA to control greenhouse gases from large smokestacks as well, the agency said.

Industry groups immediately questioned the agency's argument. They charged that the EPA was skirting the law, since the Clean Air Act typically covers any facility releasing more than 250 tons a year of a recognized pollutant. That threshold would require more facilities to fall under the new regulations.

Jackson, speaking at a news conference at a climate change summit being hosted by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the rule was legally defensible. "The EPA would not propose a rule that we didn't believe ... made good legal sense," she said. The EPA's announcement came hours after Senate Democrats unveiled legislation that would set limits on the amount of greenhouse gases from large industrial sources.

The Senate bill, unlike the House-passed version, preserves the EPA's authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act. Environmentalists said Wednesday the two efforts go hand-in-hand. "You can't have one without the other if we're going to be successful in moving America to clean energy," said Emily Figdor, director of the global warming program at Environment America, an advocacy group.

See full article EPA Greenhouse Gases

See also: Environmental Protection Agency