Scrolling around...February 7, 2013

The disgusting consequences of plastic-bag bans
...Most alarmingly, the industry has highlighted news reports linking reusable shopping bags to the spread of disease. Like this one, from the Los Angeles Times last May: “A reusable grocery bag left in a hotel bathroom caused an outbreak of norovirus-induced diarrhea and nausea that struck nine of 13 members of a girls’ soccer team in October, Oregon researchers reported Wednesday.” The norovirus may not have political clout, but evidently it, too, is rooting against plastic bags.

Warning of disease may seem like an over-the-top scare tactic, but research suggests there’s more than anecdote behind this industry talking point. In a 2011 study, four researchers examined reusable bags in California and Arizona and found that 51 percent of them contained coliform bacteria. The problem appears to be the habits of the reusers. Seventy-five percent said they keep meat and vegetables in the same bag. When bags were stored in hot car trunks for two hours, the bacteria grew tenfold.

That study also found, happily, that washing the bags eliminated 99.9 percent of the bacteria. It undercut even that good news, though, by finding that 97 percent of people reported that they never wash their bags... image

Obamacare’s Fiscal Nightmare-If the law isn't scaled back by 2014, we're ruined.
...The savings provisions of the ACA are insufficient to both finance an extension of Medicare solvency and to fund a massive new health entitlement. So even if the law’s savings provisions all worked as originally envisioned, the ACA would still add at least $340 billion to federal deficits over its first ten years. Even this outcome would require that lawmakers allow many of its provisions to inflict a steadily higher toll on taxpayers, providers, and beneficiaries over time. If instead Congress re-indexes these provisions in keeping with historical precedent, the deficit increase under this more pessimistic scenario would be over $500 billion in the first decade alone...

Major winter storm heading toward New England
..."This has the potential for being a dangerous storm, especially for Massachusetts into northeast Connecticut and up into Maine," said Louis Uccellini, director of the weather agency's National Centers for Environmental Prediction...

The Postal Service and America's fiscal problems: Why we're doomed
...We are doomed because last year the House and Senate considered separate measures aimed at reforming the Postal Service. Neither of them made it out of Congress. The farther-reaching House bill never came to a vote. The Senate bill passed, but was not taken up by the House. And, really, it wasn't a reform bill at all. Rather, it delayed the reforms sought by the service, and put off a decision on Saturday delivery for two years. Even with the American people pushing at their backs, the senators could not take that baby step. The service had to use some dubious legal reasoning to finally pull off the move...

Founder of Ground Zero Mosque Accused of Taking $3 Million from Mosque Fund

Harvard Study: Just 6 in 10 Millennials have jobs, half are part-time
...The report, released by Harvard's Institute of Politics, paints a depressing economic portrait of young Americans, many of whom are stuck with huge college tuition bills and little chance of finding a high-paying job. Those figures are stark: 62 percent halve jobs; 31 percent of those work part-time; and 27 percent are out of the workforce. The rest are dubbed "unemployed."...

Pew Charitable Trusts Study: Yeah, Voting Is Kind Of A Hot Mess
Surprise! ...The group ranked all 50 states based on more than 15 criteria, including wait times, lost votes and problems with absentee and provisional ballots, and the order often confounds the conventional wisdom...

Go to church or the devil will get you!
...But, more positively, if “go to church” means be part of a gospel-shaped community, and “the devil will get you!” means you’re more susceptible to his schemes apart from such community, then the sign is absolutely right. By all means, if this meaning is the case, go to church or the devil will get you. Here’s why: first, Satan is real and he hates you; second, God designs that Christians persevere in faith by means of one another....

Beyoncé: Power or Bondage?
...Women say they want men to stop objectifying them, yet I wonder. Are we helping our cause with hyper-sexual performances such as Beyoncé's? I do not fault her alone. I believe she is a product of her environment, the pop music industry. Sex sells, and she's a smart businesswoman...

Turning Our Schools Into Totalitarian Enclaves
...Nowhere is this more evident than in the increasingly harsh punishments and investigative tactics being doled out on young people for engaging in childish behavior or for daring to challenge the authority of school officials. Whereas in the past minor behavioral infractions at school such as shooting spitwads may have warranted a trip to the principal’s office, in-school detention or a phone call to one’s parents; today, they are elevated to the level of criminal behavior with all that implies. Consequently, young people are now being forcibly removed by police officers from the classroom, strip searched, arrested, handcuffed, transported in the back of police squad cars, and placed in police holding cells until their frantic parents can get them out. For those unlucky enough to be targeted for such punishment, the experience will stay with them long after they are allowed back at school. In fact, it will stay with them for the rest of their lives in the form of a criminal record...

Just 15% Think Today’s Children Will Be Better Off Than Their Parents
Optimism about the future of today’s children continues to hover around all-time lows.

Pro-Obama voters took us ‘a step deeper in the culture of death’: Brooklyn’s Bishop
...“The forces of death press on from every side in contemporary American culture,” he said. “It is clear there is an assault on the people of faith in our country.”...

As sin becomes a civil right, Catholic military chaplains could soon become outlaws
...The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda. One year ago, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains tried to forbid Catholic chaplains from reading a statement from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees all priests in the Catholic Ordinariate for the Armed Forces, in which he objected to federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception in violation of the right to religious freedom. Now the government would compel chaplains to acquiesce in “same-sex” simulations of marriage. The Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel has said that military members who dissent from this agenda are “bigoted” and “need to get out."...

This Is What The Internet Did To A Photo Of Obama Shooting A Gun


Sheer Delight!