Author Archives: RupertxMcmillan

8 Tips for Avoiding Food Waste

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on April 25, 2013

Susan Brandon

on

Beautiful Skin Tip: Apple Cider Vinegar

2 minutes ago

customize your newsletter

causes & news
animal welfare
global warming
environment & wildlife
human rights
women’s rights
news
submit news story
healthy living
food & recipes
health & wellness
healthy home
family life
true beauty
pets
shopping
take action
browse petitions
create a petition
daily action
volunteer
jobfinder
click to donate
community & sharing
people
groups
singles
photos
blogs
polls
ecards
my care2
my account
my groups
my page
my friends
my petitionsite
my messages
join care2
about us
advertise
partnerships
careers
press
contact us
terms of service
privacy
subscription center
help
rss feeds

Copyright © 2013 Care2.com, inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved

healthy living
food
health
love + sex
nature
pets
spirit
home
life
family
green
do good
all recipes
appetizers & snacks
basics
desserts
drinks
eating for health
entrees
green kitchen tips
raw
side dishes
soups & salads
vegan
vegetarian
videos
ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES
AYURVEDA
CONDITIONS
DIET & NUTRITION
FITNESS
GENERAL HEALTH
HEALTHY AGING
Mental Wellness
MEN’S HEALTH
NATURAL REMEDIES
WOMEN’S HEALTH
VIDEOS
dating
friendship
relationships
sex
videos
environment
lawns & gardens
natural pest control
outdoor activities
wildlife
videos
Adoptable Pets
Animal Rights
Behavior & Communication
Cats
Dogs
Everyday Pet Care
Humor & Inspiration
Less Common Pets
Pet Health
Cute Pet Photos
Safety
Wildlife
Remedies and Treatments
Videos
Biorhythms
Deepak Chopra’s Tips
Exercises
Global Healing
Guidance
Inspiration
Peace
Self-Help
Spirituality & Technology
Videos
home
life
family
beauty
green
do good
crafts & designs
news
videos
conscious consumer
blogs
astrology
my favorites
my Care2 main
my account
my butterfly rewards
my click to donate
my eCards
my friends
my groups
my kudos
my messages
my news
my page
my petitionsite
my photos
my sharebook
my subscriptions
my thank you notes

Continued here: 

8 Tips for Avoiding Food Waste

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 8 Tips for Avoiding Food Waste

Is This the Hat Worn by Boston Bombing Suspect #1?

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on April 18, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

One of the suspects’ hats may be this Bridgestone Golf hat:

Here’s a second side-by-side of the back of the Bridgestone cap and a photo that Reddit user streetsim says he or she took at the marathon (text is also visible on the back of Suspect 1’s hat in the video the FBI released):

Right-side image by Reddit user streetsim

See the rest of the photos the FBI released of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects here.

Read article here:

Is This the Hat Worn by Boston Bombing Suspect #1?

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Is This the Hat Worn by Boston Bombing Suspect #1?

Background Checks in Danger of Being Shot Down in the Senate

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on April 15, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

UPDATE 2, Monday, April 15, 5:00 p.m.: Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said this afternoon that he will vote for Manchin-Toomey, becoming the 52nd senator to do so.

UPDATE, Monday, April 15, 1:52 p.m.: The New York Times reports that the absence or presence of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been out of the Senate as a result of complications from stomach cancer treatments, could prove crucial to whether Harry Reid can secure 60 votes for the background check compromise. Lautenberg supports the legislation.

ORIGINAL POST: Last Thursday, the Senate overcame a filibuster threat and voted 68 to 31 to allow debate on gun legislation that centers on a compromise amendment to expand background checks. But that was just the difficult beginning for the legislation, brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to vote on the amendment, but it lacks a clear path to the 60 votes it needs to head to the House.

Of the 16 Republican senators who voted to allow debate, only three so far—Toomey, Susan Collins (Maine), and Mark Kirk (Ill.)—have signalled they will support the Manchin-Toomey bill. On Sunday, John McCain said he was “very favorably disposed” to it.

Five others—Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Roger Wicker (Miss.)—plan to vote against the bill. Johnny Isakson (Tenn.) said he will probably also vote no.

That leaves Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), John Hoeven (N.D.), and Dean Heller (Nev.), as the remaining undecided Republicans from that group. A spokesperson for Heller remained vague on the senator’s position, telling the Hill that Heller “will not support any plan that creates a federal gun registry.” That’s a red herring, though: Manchin-Toomey affirms a ban on a federal gun registry that has been in place since 1986. (Naturally, that hasn’t stopped some Republican hardliners from warning of that dire possibility anyway.)

Continue Reading »

Read article here:

Background Checks in Danger of Being Shot Down in the Senate

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Background Checks in Danger of Being Shot Down in the Senate

At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on April 10, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Following an awkward, earnest speech to an audience at Howard University, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) insisted several times that he did not oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever,” Paul told a questioner, following what was the first speech by a Republican legislator at the historically black university in decades. “This was on tape,” the questioner responded.

That’s true. It is on tape. Here it is:

In 2010, during an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal flagged by ThinkProgress, Paul made it very clear that he opposed a key part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination on the basis of race in “places of public accommodation,” such as privately owned businesses that are open to the public. Here’s the transcript:

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I’m all in favor of that.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the “but.” I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that’s most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

If federal civil rights laws only outlawed segregation in “anything that gets any public funding,” the state would still be called upon to enforce racism by enforcing the property rights of business owners who did not want to serve people on the basis of skin color (or religion, or national origin). Only by extending the ban on discrimination to all places of public accommodation, including privately owned businesses, could freedom against discrimination actually be upheld. Paul elaborated later in the interview when he said that he “became emotional” reading the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.

INTERVIEWER: But under your philosophy, it would be okay for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?

PAUL: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part—and this is the hard part about believing in freedom—is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example—you have to, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things and uh, we’re here at the bastion of newspaperdom, I’m sure you believe in the First Amendment so you understand that people can say bad things. It’s the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we’re civilized people, we publicly criticize that, and don’t belong to those groups, or don’t associate with those people.

Paul expressed similar sentiments in interviews with MSNBC and NPR.

So Paul made it quite clear in 2010 that he didn’t believe in federal law banning discrimination in privately owned businesses that are open to the public. At Howard, Paul seemed to be saying he never opposed the Civil Rights Act in its entirety, but he certainly opposed a key part of it that completely reshaped American society. Supporting the right of white business owners not to serve blacks may be the “hard part of freedom” for someone, but not for anyone who looks like Rand Paul.

Paul got a warm reception from the Howard audience for some of his positions on foreign policy and the war on drugs. But in what seems like a tacit acknowledgement that his past position on a piece of historic civil rights legislation is embarrassing, Paul fibbed about what that position actually was.

Taken from – 

At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act

The Slow Death of the Driver’s License

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on March 16, 2013

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It’s pretty common knowledge by now that teenagers don’t drive cars nearly as much as they did back when I was growing up. Partly that’s because getting a license is more onerous, partly it’s because parents are more willing to be chauffeurs, and partly it’s because social media has made it more attractive to spend time at home.

But I was a little surprised to read in the LA Times this morning that this has already had a significant downstream effect. Even among 30-year-olds, the number of people with driver’s licenses is down from 96 percent to 89 percent. That’s a surprisingly large drop. I suppose part of this could be explained by the increasing population of large metro areas with decent transit, but I’m not sure that fits the facts. The population of rural areas has shrunk over the past few decades, but I think most of the corresponding population growth has been in small cities and suburbs, which are tough to get around in without a car.

So….I’m not sure what’s going on. Zipcar and similar services are nowhere near big enough to explain it. I suppose Google has the answers somewhere, but it’s Saturday and I don’t feel like spending the time to find out. I’m going to go toss some frisbees around instead.

Mother Jones
Read this article:  

The Slow Death of the Driver’s License

Posted in ATTRA, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Slow Death of the Driver’s License

Ask Me Anything (About Catblogging)

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on March 14, 2013

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

If you’re interested in asking me about catblogging, here’s the link to my Reddit Ask Me Anything session today:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1aaj3f/im_kevin_drum_and_ten_years_ago_today_i_invented/

It starts at 10 am Pacific time and runs for a couple of hours. I’ve never done one of these before, so I’m not really sure what kinds of questions people might have. Come on over and surprise me!

UPDATE: That was fun. It’s over now, but you can still click the link if you want to read all the questions and answers.

Mother Jones
Read this article:

Ask Me Anything (About Catblogging)

Posted in FF, GE, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , | Comments Off on Ask Me Anything (About Catblogging)

Could melting glaciers slow down climate change?

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on March 12, 2013

Could melting glaciers slow down climate change?

By John Upton

Shutterstock

/ Anders PeterChockablock with plankton food.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt and flood the world, they are releasing a type of nutrient that’s lapped up by tiny creatures that could help reduce global warming.

Glaciers contain surprisingly high concentrations of iron, according to the results of a study published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Iron is a nutrient that’s essential for the growth of plankton, which forms the base of ocean food webs.

As plankton blooms feast on iron and grow, they also suck down large quantities of carbon dioxide. Some of that carbon is then passed up the food chain to larger animals. When plankton and animals that feed upon them die, some of the biomass sinks to the bottom of the ocean, taking all that carbon to a deepwater grave and removing it from the atmosphere.

From R&D Magazine:

Iron from wind-blown dust and river runoff fuels annual plankton blooms in the world’s ocean. Ice sheets and glaciers are now also thought to contribute iron from sediments on the bottom of calved icebergs and glacially-derived dust. Until now, meltwater runoff from glaciers and ice sheets was considered too dilute to carry much iron, although previous research has shown a strong correlation between the plankton blooms and the runoff from Greenland ice sheet.

“Glacial runoff has only recently been considered a potentially important source of nutrients that are useable, or bioavailable, to downstream ecosystems,” says [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researcher Maya] Bhatia. “We believe our study now adds iron to that list of nutrients, and underscores the potential for a unique but as-yet-undetermined chemical impact from increasing ice sheet meltwater runoff.”

The scientists warn that more research is needed to establish whether the melting glaciers and ice sheets are actually serving the counterintuitive purpose of slowing down the very global warming that is leading to their demise. To grow in large enough volumes to affect global warming, they say, plankton would also need phosphates and nitrates — and it’s unclear at this point whether there are enough of those nutrients to help make a difference.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

Read more:

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Link: 

Could melting glaciers slow down climate change?

Posted in ALPHA, Amana, G & F, GE, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Could melting glaciers slow down climate change?

LEDs will soon light your home

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on March 6, 2013

LEDs will soon light your home

By John Upton

CreeLooks like a regular old lightbulb, but doesn’t suck energy like one.

Forget mercury-laden compact fluorescents. The efficient homes of tomorrow will be lit with LEDs.

Or so say executives at Cree, a lighting company that has started selling affordable LED lightbulbs that outwardly resemble the traditional, energy-hogging incandescent bulbs of old. The company claims that its new 60 watt-equivalent LED bulb, which costs $13 or $14 depending on which variety you buy, lasts 25 times longer and uses 84 percent less juice than does a traditional lightbulb.

Quick explainer: Light emitting diode (LED) bulbs use less energy to light a room than do compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs (not to mention incandescents) and last longer, but they are more expensive. Fluorescent lights contain mercury, a toxic heavy metal that’s not found in LEDs or outdated incandescent bulbs.

“We have the first LED bulb that really looks like an [incandescent] lightbulb, and we’ve designed it in a way that it works like a lightbulb,” Cree CEO Chuck Swoboda told Co.EXIST. “Those two things combined with the price we think can get consumers to really try LED lighting.”

Cree is not the only company pushing the boundaries of the emerging consumer LED market. Philips says it expects its LED business to grow about 40 percent this year. From Bloomberg:

The company sees a “growth tipping point” with the debut this year of its 60-watt equivalent LED light bulb that will retail for about $10, [Philips North America CEO Greg] Sebasky said. That will help the energy-efficient technology make up about 50 percent of Philips’ lighting sales by 2015, up from 25 percent last year, he said.

“People are starting to see lighting as a durable good,” Sebasky said, taking lighting products with them when they move.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

Read more:

Climate & Energy

,

Living

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Read this article:

LEDs will soon light your home

Posted in ALPHA, Amana, G & F, GE, LG, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on LEDs will soon light your home

State Department Again Sees No Environmental Barriers to Keystone Pipeline

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on March 1, 2013

green4us

View original post here:  

State Department Again Sees No Environmental Barriers to Keystone Pipeline

Posted in eco-friendly, GE, Greenworks, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on State Department Again Sees No Environmental Barriers to Keystone Pipeline

Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on February 26, 2013

Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

By John Upton

ShutterstockTires should not be burned for electricity.

Take a cloud of carbon monoxide. Mix in nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, and ammonia. Sprinkle it with a heap of soot.

That poisonous recipe is cooked up and released into the air when tires are burned. And it’s what residents of the heavily polluted, low-income, predominantly black community of Ford Heights, Ill., have been breathing, on and off, since a tire-incinerating power plant began operating in their neighborhood in 1995.

But relief has finally arrived: Following a string of air pollution citations and a federal civil rights complaint, Geneva Energy has agreed to stop burning tires to generate electricity at the sprawling Cook County facility.

“This settlement will eliminate the source of almost 200 tons of air pollutants each year, in a community that has historically been disproportionately impacted by environmental contamination,” EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman said in a statement on Monday.

The company began operating the incinerator in 2006. By 2010, it had been cited four times by state inspectors for pollution violations at the facility, at which point the EPA stepped in with the civil rights complaint, the Chicago Tribune reports. In 2011, the incinerator was switched off. In Monday’s announcement, the EPA said that it had reached an agreement that prevents the company from switching the incinerator back on.

The power plant’s history is as flavorful as the pollution it produces. From the Tribune article:

Throughout its troubled history, the Ford Heights plant had political patrons in Springfield pushing laws to make it financially viable.

The facility was built in 1995 amid growing debate about a state law that required power companies to buy electricity from incinerators at above-market rates. Lawmakers repealed the subsidies a year later, the original owners of the incinerator went bankrupt and the company defaulted on nearly $80 million in state bonds.

Another group of investors flourished during a Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall in 2000 but filed for bankruptcy after the incinerator’s turbine blew up in 2004.

In 2010, the same year the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights began its investigation, the Illinois House passed a bill that would have added tire burning to the state’s definition of green, renewable energy. The measure would have made the incinerator a player in a growing market for renewable energy in Illinois, where power companies must get at least 10 percent of their electricity from pollution-free sources by 2015 and 25 percent by 2025.

At the time, the incinerator’s owner told the Tribune that green energy subsidies would be “the difference between us making it or not.” The measure later failed in the Illinois Senate.

The closure of the plant is good news for anybody who breathes the air in Cook County, which encompasses most of Chicago. Tires should not be burned to generate electricity: There are eco-friendlier ways of handling the hundreds of millions of tires discarded every year by Americans, such as recycling them into paving and construction materials.

But a similar facility continues to operate in Sterling, Conn. It is now the nation’s only remaining tire-to-energy power plant, although it might soon have some company. A new one is proposed to be built in Pennsylvania, with controversial permit approvals currently tied up in court.

Read more:

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Jump to original: 

Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes