Scrolling around...July 25th, 2012

CFL bulbs cause skin damage

..."Our study revealed that the response of healthy skin cells to UV emitted from CFL bulbs is consistent with damage from ultraviolet radiation," said lead researcher Miriam Rafailovich, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stony Brook University, in New York, in a statement. "Skin cell damage was further enhanced when low dosages of TiO2 nanoparticles were introduced to the skin cells prior to exposure."
According to Rafailovich, with or without TiO2 (a chemical found in sunblock), incandescent bulbs of the same light intensity had zero effects on healthy skin...  image


Albert Mohler: The Dark Night in Denver — Groping for Answers
The news hit the airwaves like a sudden onslaught, and the truth began to sink in. It has happened again. This time, 50 people shot while attending the midnight premier of the last in the Batman sequence, “The Dark Knight Rises.” According to press reports, a 24-year-old man burst into the crowded theater, wearing a gas mask and carrying an arsenal. After deploying what is believed to be tear gas, he opened fire with a shotgun, a rifle, and two handguns. At least 12 people are dead, and dozens are injured, many critically.
Over 100 police officers responded to the scene in Aurora, just a few miles from Columbine High School, where in 1999 two high school students killed 12 fellow students and one teacher in a rampage that also injured 21 other students. That school massacre became a milestone in the nation’s legacy of violence. Now, yet another Denver suburb joins that tragic list.
The inevitable media swarm focuses on the data first — the who, what, when, and where questions. Then they, along with the public at large, begin to ask the why question. That is always the hard one...


Nat Hentoff: What Still Shocks Me About ObamaCare
Amid the huge response — both triumphant and agonized — to the Supreme Court’s preservation of Obamacare, I was surprised at how little attention was being paid to that law’s core purpose: to strongly control health care costs where government funding is involved, as it increasingly will be.
What still shocks me about this law is the government’s interference with the doctor-patient relationship. Many government bureaucracies will not pay for doctor-prescribed treatments costing more than a predetermined figure. And none of these bureaucracies’ members will have actually seen the individual patient...


Hey, Boston: Leave Chick-fil-A Alone
It's one thing for Hollywood moppets and television Muppets to protest Chick-fil-A over the fast-food chain president's support for traditional marriage. They're private citizens and entities. But when an elected public official wields the club of government against a Christian business in the name of "tolerance," it's not harmless kid stuff. It's chilling...


Seventh Circuit: Holding a High School Graduation in a (Richly Iconographically Religious) Church Violates the Establishment Clause
The Seventh Circuit has come down with a ruling that holding a public school graduation in a church violates the Establishment Clause when the church has an indeterminate number of religious icons and other material which run afoul of the standards that the Supreme Court has encrusted on the Establishment Clause. It was undisputed that the choice to hold the graduation in the church was made for the sake of convenience, price, and accommodation of the large number of students, and not for any religious reason. It was also undisputed that no reference was made to religion during the graduation ceremony...


Obama Thanks Gay Porn King for Organizing Fundraiser
...“I want to thank someone who put so much work into this event, Terry Bean,” President Obama said as the crowd began to cheer. “Give Terry a big round of applause.”
Terry Bean is, according to the New York Post, a “gay-porn kingpin.”


The Outrageous Farm Bill That’s Packed with Pork
...What’s hidden in this mess? How about money for windmills, for 15 different duplicative food programs, cash – lots of it – to make sure country folk get great Internet service, a grant to study moth pheromones, funding to help ethanol producers (thought we’d gotten rid of that, didn’t you?), protection of our wealthy sugar producers, $25 million to study the health benefits of peas and lentils, an amendment that could allow Californians to continue enjoying foie gras, insurance against lower milk prices for dairy farmers, grants for the locavore movement (consult your dictionary), help for popcorn growers, grants to study how to make cut flowers last longer in a vase, a boost to organic growers (as though their price premiums aren’t sufficient compensation), a boost for maple syrup makers, lofty cotton supports and money to underwrite wine tastings overseas.
Leaving off the food stamps portion of the bill, taxpayers are essentially underwriting one of our richest industries. Farmers enjoyed record income last year and saw their land values hit all-time highs, while the rest of the country struggled.


UK gov’t official calls for sanctions against large families
...Louise Casey, head of a government agency set up to deal with troubled families following last summer’s riots, said the state should “interfere” and tell women they are irresponsible and should be “ashamed” of how they are damaging society if they have “too many children,” according to a report in the Telegraph.


Court Orders Planned Parenthood: Inform Women of Abortion-Suicide Link
A federal appeals court has upheld a provision of a South Dakota law requiring the states lone abortion business, operated by Planned Parenthood, that it has to inform women of the validity of the link between abortion and suicide. With women facing a host of mental health issues following an abortion, Planned Parenthood can no longer keep women in the dark about them...