Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality issued a no swimming warning for Sandy Point Beach, at Lucky Peak State Park. The reason is high levels of e.coli bacteria.
Officials say that other beach areas at the park are OK for swimming.
As of now they don’t know where the e.coli is coming from, but the potentially deadly bacteria normally originates in human/animal feces.
Idaho’s slash and burning of Medicaid continues. The latest cuts are taking away $34 million in state funding.
Idaho began their destruction of Medicaid services last year. By October of 2010 a total of $105 million in state and federal cuts hit Idaho’s Medicaid program.
Some Idaho dentists say they are providing free services, out of sympathy for patients who’re being denied needed services, because of Idaho’s cuts. Idaho lawmakers claim the cuts to the Medicaid dental program do not affect “necessary” dental services, but, dentists point out that many of the treatments being hit by funding cuts actually prevent more serious conditions, and would be more cost effective.
On top of that Idaho is now limiting providers, in some cases only one provider is allowed. This has resulted in a lawsuit, brought by two disabled men and their families. It could turn into a class action suit.
The new Idaho rules actually violate federal laws which protect a patient’s right to choose which provider they want.
In June, the average amount of time a person is unemployed reached a record 39.9 weeks.
“We have had many, many months to stimulate this economy and still not seeing businesses hire, it’s a real concern.”-Frank Davis, LEK Securities
“I send out 50 to 60 resumes a week. Nobody ever gets back to you.”-Rob Attanasio, unemployed more than one year
“I feel washed out from the statistics, in terms of not being heard, in terms of the energy that it has taken for me to keep trying to find work. I don’t feel like I’m even on the radar screen in Washington.”-N. David Cooper, unemployed more than one year
“I’ve had nightmares about my family living on the street.”-Said Nasser, unemployed more than one year
“What we’re seeing here is a sort of settling into the reality of where things are, maybe not holding out as much hope as they once held out that there’s going to be a big recovery, and all of it is going to come back. Instead, people are looking around and saying, ‘Maybe this is going to be what it’s going to be.'”-Rusty Rueff, Glassdoor.com
“Your hope soars when you snag a job interview; then it’s dashed when there’s no job offer. Repeat this over and over again and you start to feel like it’s better not to get your hopes up.”-Fran Hopkins, unemployed more than one year
“It’s very hard when you’re over 60. Nobody wants us. We’ve just been leaving resumes, that’s it. You get no reply.”-Mary Kadin, unemployed since April 2011
“Today, companies are producing more goods and services than ever before. The economy is able to do that with 7 million fewer workers. If we can do so much with so much less, where is the incentive to hire?”-Bernard Baumohl, The Economic Outlook Group
For the past few days the stock markets have been going up (mainly those reported by the Dow Jones). Some mainstream U.S. media outlets were saying it’s because of good jobs data. It turns out their claims of good jobs data was based solely on “expert” economists, who were just plain guessing (like always).
Today, July 8, the U.S. Department of Labor released the official job hiring numbers for June, and boy are the “expert” economists way off. The mainstream media had been reporting that “expert” economists predicted 120,000 people would be hired in June. The actual number of people hired…18,000. That’s a big difference. It’s also clear proof that the U.S. economy is not recovering.
The job creation number is a “net” number, meaning it’s what’s left over after you subtract the number of people who lost jobs. Another way to say it is that corporate america fired way more people than they hired. And this has been going on for years now.
“We are backsliding. The chances are that we go into another recession or we muddle along at technical growth, but actually making no improvements as far as Main Street goes. The chance of one of those things happening is extremely high.”-Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute
How bad is the unemployment situation? Officially 7 million people lost their jobs as a direct result of the credit crisis, which started in 2007/2008. Today, officially there is still 6.3 million people with no jobs! And by “officially” I mean those people who’re still counted by state and federal unemployment agencies, there are potentially millions who’re no longer counted.
If you notice I used two quotes from economist who seem to know what’s really going on. I see many reports and comments from such economists, yet the mainstream U.S. media always goes with the “experts” who always get it wrong.
Why would the mainstream U.S. media continue to report faulty data? Could it be because the mainstream U.S. media is not only traded on the stock markets, but is actually invested in the stock markets, so basically they’re scamming potential investors to give up their money to the biggest casino in the world, The Stock Market?
There are also those who believe the mainstream U.S. media is doing the bidding of the Federal government, in trying to make things look better than they really are, to try and prevent mass civil disobedience (like what’s happening in some European countries).
In any event, it is clear that you can’t rely on the mainstream U.S. media for “facts” about our economy. And you can not use the stock market as a gauge for the performance of our economy.
The fact that 6.3 million people are still officially out of work, shows that after three years of promises about improving our economy, and claims that the recession is over, absolutely nothing has improved and many “Main Streeters” think we’re heading into a Depression.
U.S. media reported that the continued increase in the New York Stock Exchange (reported by the Dow Jones) is because of good economic data, like better than expected job numbers.
Monthly unemployment numbers are still over 400,000, and many economists have repeatedly stated that it needs to drop below 400,000, for several months in a row, to be considered a “good” sign.
Could the real reason be that the NYSE (aka NYSE Euronext) was just approved, by shareholders, to take over one of Germany’s stock markets: Deutsche Boerse AG.
The take over still needs approval of Deutsche Boerse shareholders.
This seems to be a more likely reason for the upswing in the NYSE trades, because Germany is the only economic powerhouse left in the European Union, thanks to its many trade deals with China.
According to the NYSE website, “…NYSE Euronext’s equities markets include the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, NYSE Amex, NYSE Alternext and NYSE Arca. NYSE Euronext also operates NYSE Liffe, a European derivatives business.”
The Dow Jones is a stock market index, which includes the NYSE Euronext trades in its daily reporting.
In an effort to fight inflation the Chinese government recently ordered banks to tighten their grip on the money supply. One way is to cut back on loans.
The China Construction Bank announced they will increase down payments on homes, for first time buyers, to 40% of the purchase price. The Chinese banks were told to either raise the amount of down payments, or increase interest rates on mortgages. This could pop China’s housing market bubble.
Despite repeated public statements, protests and even attacks against U.S. troops, U.S. officials are still haranguing the Iraqi Prime Minister about letting them stay.
U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen admitted that his staff is having a hard time convincing the Iraqi officials that the United States should stay past their agreed upon withdraw date. The U.S. is now taking the stand that Iraq has serious security gaps, that only the U.S. can fill.
In response to the continued efforts of the Obama administration to renege on the promised withdraw date, 100 Iraqi lawmakers signed a letter of warning, which basically said if the U.S. gets its way all hell will break loose in Iraq, with the focus of that hell upon U.S. forces.
In Japan, the restart of the Genkai nuclear power plant has been put on hold, after a whistler blower revealed that the company boss ordered false statements about the plant’s safety.
Operator Kyushu Electric Power Company got the go ahead to restart the nuclear plant, located in Saga prefecture, after a public meeting in which email testimonies were read in favor of restarting the plant. Those emails, supposedly from independent observers, and even affiliates of KEPCo, turned out to be lies.
Saga is located many hundreds of miles from Fukushima, on the southern island of Kyushu.
It’s been revealed that the boss of KEPCo ordered false emails to be sent to the public hearing, in order to win approval for restart.
Now local officials will wait until the central Japanese government completes its new stress tests, before giving the go ahead for restart.
“Our data suggest that the presence of periodontal disease is a modifiable risk factor, which can increase a woman’s time to conception, particularly for non-Caucasians.”-Roger Hart, University of Western Australia.
An Australian study links clean teeth to increased birth rates. 3,416 women were tracked, and the results suggest that bad oral hygiene in Caucasian women delayed their ability to get pregnant by two months.
The study might be “racist”, but it concluded that non-Caucasian women with gum disease took a full year to get pregnant.
Previous studies have also concluded that men with dirty mouths have a hard time getting women pregnant. I don’t know how serious we should take these studies, because other studies have linked dirty mouths to type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even respiratory problems.
“Cutting down on the amount of salt has no clear benefits in terms of likelihood of dying or experiencing cardiovascular disease.”-Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
No fewer than seven international studies have concluded that reducing salt in your diet does not reduce the chance of death.
A moderately low salt diet might reduce your blood pressure, but there is no evidence it will prolong your life. However, there is evidence that people who have congestive heart failure might increase there chance of death with a low salt diet.
This makes sense to me, because salt, along with potassium, helps prevent your muscles from cramping. Your heart is a muscle.
The studies looked at 6,000 people. Researchers admit they need to do more detailed studies, like looking at cardiovascular morbidity in people with normal or high blood pressure.