Month: May 2013

Categories
democrats Politics

Remember Something Called The Economy?

Remember the economy?

The election year was dominated by talk about jobs and the economy, but neither the administration nor Congress seems to have any grand ideas for jump-starting a still sluggish recovery — and they’re not even talking about it much.

President Obama sought to turn attention back to economic issues with a speech last week in Texas on manufacturing, but that’s already long since been forgotten. A cascade of scandals has driven the issue entirely off the Washington radar.

Even before Benghazi, the IRS and the Department of Justice controversies started heating up, the economy had consistently taken a back seat to issues such as immigration and gun control.

“The economy is by far the most important issue for voters,” says Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s not unusual for Washington preoccupations to be different than those of the public.”

She says that the public is skeptical that Washington can provide economic answers at this point. Politicians themselves seem a little dubious.

Categories
Health

How to Keep Excellent Eyesight Part 2

This is the 2nd part in the series “How to Keep Excellent Eyesight: 15 Ways to Prevent Blindness.” In a world where the cost of healthcare continues to rise and getting health care is more and more complicated the best thing we can do is prevent health problems from coming.

The cynic can always find a loophole or a reason why personal efforts are not worth the effort.

However, I am and will remain a huge believer in preventative medicine.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment.  Enjoy.

8.   Be aware of the effects of diabetes on the eyes.

When not managed, diabetes is dangerous for eye health.  Out of control sugar levels wreak havoc on the eyes, leading to diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetic retinopathy is one of the leading causes of blindness in the USA today.

And it is preventable.

Be proactive in keeping blood sugars under control, enjoy a healthy diet and maintain a regular relationship with the optometrist to diabetic retinopathy.

There is constant research being done to help us understand these diseases better and find cures.

Hope for diabetic eye disease cure may be on its way.  The University of Michigan Kellog Eye Center has identified a specific protein that regulates the leaky blood vessels which cause the vision impairment in diabetic eye disease.  Researchers believe they have found a way to block the damage done, preventing the vessels from leaking and stopping the vision problems.  “We still have a long way to go…but the results are very promising,” one of the lead authors stated.

9.  Taking care of your eyes helps decrease your chance of falling and hip problems.

Fix your cataracts and avoid hip surgery?

Yes, according to researchers there is a big connection between eyesight and how well we live, especially as we get older.

Having cataracts removed may decrease your risk of hip surgery.  Victoria Tseng from Brown University, Rhode Island, states that people with better vision decrease their risk of falls at significant levels.  She and her colleagues state they found that cataracts are “one of the most common causes of fracture-related visual impairment.”

10.  Decrease or stop smoking.

Smoking is hard to quit but the positive influence on your health is magnanimous.

Smoking affects many parts of our bodies and our eyes are not immune.

Researchers from China concluded an extensive study showing the correlation between smoking and different kinds of cataracts.

Age-related cataracts are the most common kind that comes from smoking (that scientists can tell).  While cataract removal remains one of the most successful surgeries in the Western World, there is a notable cost attached that some people cannot afford.  Preventing cataracts in the first place by not smoking is important for quality life and vision at all stages of life.

11.   Avoid Computer Vision Syndrome.

If we have poor posture at our work desks, not sitting close enough OR too close to the computer screen, our eyes work harder to make up for the difference.  Computer vision syndrome can result in eye weariness, headaches, red eyes, dry eyes and changes in vision.

To avoid computer vision syndrome, do the following:

Make sure you are seated correctly at your work station, approximately two feet away from the screen.  Feet should be flat on the floor.  Eyes should focus straight with shoulders back and neck in a upright position.  For more information on computer vision syndrome, check out http://allaboutvision.com/cvs

12.  Protect the eyes from the harmful UV rays of the sun.

The harmful UV rays of the sun don’t only burn our skin.  Exposure to the harmful UV rays can lead to burning around the eyes, increased risk of cataract development and other eye problems.  Protect your eyes with UV protective sunglasses.

13.  Some of the most successful operations in the United States are for the eyes, helping many people return to a high quality life.

Cataract surgery remains one of the most successful elective surgeries in the United States.

In the past advanced cataracts would interfere with vision and quality of life.  Today, there are easily removed and individuals continue on with hardly a break in their routine.

Add in the advances of Lasik and Orthkeratoloy procedures and more adults are enjoying better vision today than ever before.

14.  Indulge in fish and lean meats.

Eating fish and lean meat can help protect the eyes.  Salmon and other fish are filled with the healthy omega-3 fatty acids.  Multiple studies show how omega-3 fatty acids can directly protect the eye from wear and tear.

15.  Keep your blood pressure at a healthy level.

We are holistic beings.  Our different body systems affect one another.  If a body system is not functioning properly, it has the potential to infect other parts.

High blood pressure will cause problems for every part of the body because each organ needs the life giving nutrients and oxygen the circulatory system brings.   High blood pressure is nicknamed “the silent killer” because the effects of unrelenting and uncontrolled high blood pressure are often symptom-less until the damage has been done.

When blood pressure is high, the circulatory system running through the eyes wears down and gets weaker.  Optometrists can assess blood pressure when he or she looks into your eyes with their equipment.

Take charge of your blood pressure now and keep your eyes healthy and your vision bright for the future.

Conclusion

Just like having a healthy blood pressure, having good vision has a little bit to do with genetics and physiology.  There are some things in life we can’t outrun.  Some eye problems, like glaucoma and macular degeneration, have a genetic component that scientists haven’t figured out how to fix.

The good news is that a lot of your vision depends on habits, not genetics.

Even if there are some variables in the genetic pool working against you, we can fight them with today’s excellent technology and scientific knowledge to overcome them.

Blindness is mostly avoidable today.

If we our conscious of our lifestyles and practice preventative healthy only a few people should suffer from blindness in old age from unpreventable factors.

Most people today who will be blind in their later years could have taken steps to stop it from advancing so far.  Blindness is becoming an avoidable malady.

Protect yourself. Protect your loved ones.  Take care of your eyes.

You can read more of Melissa AuClair’s writing at http://www.launchyourcreativelife.com 

 

Categories
News sandy hook shooting

Four Year Old Kills Six Year Old Playmate – Father Gets Arrested

His son is only 4 years old and the son had a six-year-old playmate. That playmate is no longer alive because the four-year old found a gun in the house and killed his friend. Now the four-year old’s father is under arrest.

Anthony Senatore, 33, was arrested Monday evening and charged with several counts of endangering the welfare of children, the acting prosecutor in Atlantic County, Jim McClain, announced in a statement.

According to the charges, which also include one count of being a disorderly person for allegedly allowing minors to access a firearm, Senatore had at least three weapons in his house in addition to the rifle that his son was holding on April 8 when he fatally shot his neighbor, Brandon Holt, in the head.

The other guns in the house, where three children ages 4, 8 and 12 live, included two Harrington & Richardson shotguns and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, officials said. All were found “unsecured and in close proximity to ammunition and accessible to Senatore’s own children,” McClain said.

Senatore was released during the night on $100,000 bail.

The NRA would say that the way to fix this problem would be to give the six year old his own gun.

Categories
Movies

Angelina Jolie Removes Both Breasts to Avoid Cancer

In an op-ed on the New York Times the 37 year old award winning actress, wrote that she underwent the surgery because of her six kids, and watching  mother die from breast cancer.

“My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.”

“They have asked if the same could happen to me.”

Doctors told Jolie that she had an 87% chance of getting the deadly disease after the BRCA1 gene that causes breast cancer was found in her system.

Jolie hopes that by making this information public, she would be able to help other women facing the same decision.

“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

Categories
Entertainment Movies

Best Man 2 [Watch The Trailer Here]

After 15 years the whole gang is back. According to Blackfilm.com,

Taye Diggs (television’s Private Practice), Nia Long (Big Momma’s House), Morris Chestnut (Kick-Ass 2), Harold Perrineau (Zero Dark Thirty), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Sanaa Lathan (Contagion), Monica Calhoun (Love & Basketball), Melissa De Sousa (Miss Congeniality) and Regina Hall(Scary Movie franchise) reprise their career-launching roles in the next chapter to the film that ushered in a new era of comedy. When the college friends finally reunite over the Christmas holidays, they will discover just how easy it is for long-forgotten rivalries and romances to be ignited.

Best Man Holiday is scheduled to hit theaters on November 15, 2013. The trailer was released today and you get to see it here.

Categories
Benghazi Benghazi Politics

Obama: Benghazi Talking Points a ‘Side Show’

Washington (CNN) – GOP outrage over a changed set of talking points related to September’s attack in Benghazi is a political “side show,” President Barack Obama argued Monday, asserting the tragedy was being used for political gain by his rivals.

The Republicans who claim Obama’s administration was intentionally misleading in the way they characterized the Benghazi attack are ignoring key facts and sullying the memory of the four Americans who died, the president claimed.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of people in the State Department who consistently say, ‘You know what, I’m willing to step up, I’m willing to put myself in harm’s way because I think that this mission is important in terms of serving the United States and advancing our interests around the globe.’ And so we dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus,” he said.

Obama was speaking at a press availability alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron, in Washington to discuss next month’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Republicans’ accusations of an administration-led cover up in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack were fueled last week by the release of internal e-mails showing top administration officials scrubbing any mention of al Qaeda from talking points given to members of Congress and Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The unclassified talking points have become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attack last September 11 was a planned terror operation while they were telling the public it was an act of violence that grew out of a demonstration over a video produced in the United States that insulted Islam.

That was the story that Rice told five days later when she made the rounds of all five Sunday morning television talk shows.

The attack occurred two months before the November election, in which President Barack Obama’s campaign often pointed out that it had “decimated” al Qaeda.

Obama noted Monday that he referred broadly to “acts of terror” in a Rose Garden statement the day after the attack, and that Republicans pointing to an administration “cover up” were ignoring stated facts by himself and other officials.

“The whole thing defies logic, and the fact that this keeps getting churned out, frankly has a lot to do with political motivations,” Obama said, echoing other Democrats who say the GOP focus on Benghazi is founded in an attempt to discredit former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading 2016 Democratic presidential prospect.

h/t – CNN

Categories
New Orleans News

Update: Police Release Surveillance Video of Suspects in New Orleans Mother’s Day Shooting

UPDATE: 11:00 AM EST

New Orleans police have released a photo of possible suspect in Mother’s Day parade shooting:

—-

UPDATE: May 12th, 7:45 AM EST

Police have released surveillance video of one of the suspects in the shooting yesterday in New Orleans. The reward for any information leading to an arrest is $10,000. Call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.

—-

UPDATE: May 12, 2013 7:00PM EST

WPIX has just release VERY GRAPHIC cell phone footage of the aftermath of the shooting in New Orleans.  WARNING the video has a lot of blood in it, so click if you are able to handle.

SOURCE: WPIX

—-

UPDATE: 5/12/13 5:21 PM EST

A vine taken at the very moment the shots went off at the parade has just been posted by someone who was on the scene.

You can see folks quickly scatter to save their lives. Watch above!

——-

UPDATE: 5/12/13 5:09 PM EST

According to CBS, police are looking for three suspects, one of which was described as a dark skin male, 18-22 years old with short hair, a white shirt and blue jeans.

All suspects are still on the loose and not in custody.

——-

We sadly report, New Orleans’ Superintendent Ronal Serpas says that at least twelve people have been shot at a Mother’s Day second-line parade in the 7th Ward.

According to the WWLTV news:

Read more Here.

Categories
Sports

O.J Simpson Back in Court Hoping for New Trial

The problem, according to Simpson and his new lawyers, is the lawyer that represented the football great in the trial that landed him in jail in the first place. That lawyer they claimed, had personal reasons for sending OJ to orison, was ill equipped to handle the case and failed to gave OJ the proper representation.

“To me, the claims are solid. I don’t know how the court can’t grant relief,” said Patricia Palm, the Simpson appeals lawyer who produced a 94-page petition dissecting Galanter’s promises, payments and performance as Simpson’s lawyer in the trial that ended with a jury finding Simpson and a co-defendant guilty of 12 felonies.

Galanter declined to comment ahead of his is scheduled testimony.
Of the 22 allegations of conflict-of-interest and ineffective counsel that Palm raised, Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell has agreed to hear 19.

The proceedings, technically neither a trial nor appeal, are expected to take all week before Bell decides whether Simpson deserves a new trial. It’s not clear whether she’ll rule immediately.
Some who’ve watched the Simpson saga say he might have a chance.

Categories
News

Malcolm X’s Grandson, Killed in Mexico City

Mr. Shabazz died after being assaulted outside a bar, above, in a tourist area of Mexico City early Thursday morning.

“I know a lot of people,” Mr. Shabazz said, Mr. Stevens recalled.

Mr. Shabazz, who earned notoriety as a 12-year-old when he set a fire that killed his grandmother, Malcolm X’s widow, pulled out his phone and made some calls. Twenty minutes later, Mr. Stevens said, Mr. Shabazz told him he had a plane ticket to Los Angeles for the next day, and an appointment to see a Hollywood producer in Beverly Hills on Mr. Stevens’s behalf.

Mr. Stevens, 34, drove Mr. Shabazz to the airport.

But Mr. Shabazz soon ended up in Mexico City, where he died early Thursday morning in a popular tourist area after being assaulted outside a bar, the authorities said. It was a violent end to a young and tumultuous life.

 

h/t – newyorktimes

Categories
News

Dozen Injured in New Orleans Mother’s Day Parade Shooting

At least  12 people in New Orleans were injured on Sunday when multiple gunmen opened fire on a Mother’s Day parade, police said.

One of the victims was a 10-year-old girl who was grazed by a bullet and is in good condition, police said. Another person sustained an injury as parade members ran from the gun fire.

None of the injuries are expected to be fatal.

Authorities saw three people running away from the scene after the shooting. At least one suspect was described as a man between ages of 18 and 22.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said there may have been as many as three shooters, and that two different types of weapons were likely used.

The victims were marching in what is known as a second line parade, common in New Orleans: A brass band plays while marching in the streets, while a “second line” of people follows the band, celebrating.

h/t – sfgate

Categories
News sandyhook shooting

Brother of 8-Year-Old California Girl Arrested in her Stabbing Death

CNN) — Detectives on Saturday arrested the 12-year-old brother of Leila Fowler on a homicide charge in connection with his 8-year-old sister’s death, Calaveras County, California, Sheriff Gary Kuntz said.

The brother — who Kuntz did not name, but did speak publicly after his sister’s death — was arrested at 5:10 p.m. (8:10 p.m. ET) at a county sheriff’s office substation in his hometown of Valley Springs, according to the sheriff.

“Citizens of Calaveras County can sleep a little better tonight,” Kuntz said.

Leila Fowler and her brother were said to be alone on Saturday, April 27, in their family’s northern California home when she was found dead. The 12-year-old told police that he’d seen an intruder leaving the home, then found his sister suffering from stab wounds.

The 8-year-old died minutes after arriving at a hospital, authorities said.

After the incident, police offered a sketchy description of the suspect as a 6-foot-tall white or Hispanic male with a muscular build.

They also interviewed registered sex offenders in the area, ran down leads and searched in attics, storage sheds and more in the rural, mountainous community located about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento.

Authorities also combed the Fowler’s home and neighborhood looking for evidence.

“We did collect fingerprints during that search,” Calaveras County Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Macedo said days after the attack, “and we did collect what we believe to be DNA.”

Kuntz said law enforcement officers “put over 2000 hours into this investigation to provide Leila Fowler’s family with answers in her death.”

h/t/ – CNN

Categories
Music Videos

Gas pump Prank Turns Couple into Internet Sensation

This video could possibly be one of the most pleasant, and in many ways, funniest video you’ll see this year. It shows a guy at a gas station getting ready to pump his gas. And then the unexpected happens. He gets talked into doing Karaoke. He is later joined by his passenger and a duet ensues.

A great happy moment indeed.

 

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