Cool! I live in Arkansas, where chickens are one of the biggest, if not the biggest products in our state. We grow unreal numbers of chickens,so we may be sitting on a goldmine of chicken waste. Most of time, chicken waste, or "chicken litter" as it's called here, is used as fertilizer for fields, primarily hay pastures. But I'm sure there's a lot more of it than is needed for fertilizer.
I was hoping the link would have a way for anyone on the internet to pet the chicken. Somehow, I think it might be fun and relaxing to pet the chicken even though it's not my chicken.
What an awful notion! African people aren't stray puppies, they're people. Not feeding them so that the population will do down is not an acceptable solution.
Letting people starve to death will not stop wars and end dictatorships, in fact poverty encourages war and support for dictators. Hungry people will lay their ideals aside in exchange for the promise of better conditions. If a crazy warlord or dictator says he has a plan to get his supporters and countrymen food and health care, they're going to let that glimmer of hope overshadow that he's awful. People who have their basic needs met are able to have the "luxury" of making decisions based on less immediate needs. If you're fed and clothed and healthy, then you can worry about civil rights and ethics and freedom. Until Africans or the West can find a way to meet the most basic of the people's needs, there's no hope of being able to deal with the other injustices.
But meeting Africa's needs is more complicated than just delivering truckloads of food or sending money. There needs to be a lot more work on sustainable changes, permanent solutions instead of emergency aid. More needs to be invested in things like education and industry and agriculture. People need to be educated, both academically, and in things like how to prevent diseases and unwanted pregancy. Education, especially for women, is crucial. Empowerment is important. Giving people, especially females, the economic leverage they need to help themselves out of poverty will help foster the idea that they are the masters of their own destiny and that they can make a difference in their own lives and their country's future. Extreme poverty leads to a sort of hopelessness that's hard to even grasp in the West. People should invest in real sources of income in Africa, factories, farms, businesses etc. Africans aren't stupid. They aren't lazy. They are just people. Maybe the West needs to stop looking at Africa as a place that needs our charity and more at a place that we can invest in.
By the way...If anyone is interest in helping the working poor in Africa, they might look into www.kiva.org At Kiva, you can loan (yes, loan, as in they pay it back) as little as 25 dollars to an individual entrepreneur that you choose in the developing world (lots of them in Africa)and then when the money is repaid you can either cash it out and keep it or choose another person to reloan it to. I'm a kiva lender and I love it.
Since the option to get whatever treatments are necessary to get healthy is totally free, I see no problem with it. It would be unfair to expect employees to pay for weight-loss programs or whatever else was necessary to avoid the surcharge. But since it doesn't cost them to get healthier, if they opt to not do it, they should have to pay. They are making a conscious choice to be unhealthy and cost the system more, so the cost of their decision should be passed on to them.
The program should be really written,though. With well defined standards and with well defined exceptions. Like that you should have to fail more than one standard to have to pay the surcharge. Like if you fail the cholesterol test AND the BMI test or the blood pressure test and the weight test. That way people that are obviously fit healthy people with one strange characteristic aren't charged unfairly. Like I saw something once where they were showing pro athletes, obviously at the peak of health, and that their BMIs would be considered obese. Also there should be noted exceptions for people with other medical conditions that would make it impossible for them to get fit enough to meet the standards. I'd hate for someone with a serious heart condition to be expected to excercise enough to be fit or someone with an untreatable thyroid condition fined for being heavy.
But seriously, even with the surcharge, it's 25 dollars a month. I'd be THRILLED to only pay 25 dollars a month and have health insurance! Absolutely delighted!
Maybe health insurance should be more like car insurance, with statistical risk factors factored into what rate you'll pay. A 24 year old single man with a red sportscar and a bad driving record is going to have to pay more for car insurance than a 50 year old married father with a mini-van and perfectly clean record. It makes sense. It works that way with home owner's insurance,too. It costs you more to insure a house on a Florida beach than it does a house where there's no chance of hurricane damage. Why not health insurance? If you have known risk factors that are going to cost more when the insurance has to pay out, why should your rates be the same as people with bodies that are known to be cheaper to maintain? And it's still a bargain if you have to pay the higher rate, since your risk of needing the insurance is higher. Like if you're the young guy with the sports car, yeah, you are likely to wreck, so it's worth paying more to have insurance to cover it when it happens. If you're the morbidly obese chain smoker, you're likely to have a heart attack, so it's worth paying more for insurance to cover it when it happens. If you're a safe driver with a safe car, you aren't as likely to ever use the insurance, so it's better for you to have lower monthly premiums. If you're a healthy person, you aren't as likely to be hospitalized, so lower monthly premimums are a plus.
Being unable to jail her in the traditional jail is no excuse for her to get out of it. She should have to be incarcerated in a place that can hold her, like a big cage inside the jail's bus garage or something. I'm sure she can get through a garage type loading bay door. She should be put on a strictly enforced, doctor designed and monitored diet and exercise plan until she's small enough to be jailed like other inmates. With no freedom to make unhealthy food choices and a rigorous excercise program and nothing else to do but get fit, she'll slim down. Logistics shouldn't stand in the way of justice.
It's always the fringe of any group that gives the whole group a bad name. Radical Muslims that commit violent acts of terror give billions of normal followers of the same faith a bad name. Crazy fringe Christians like Fred Phelps and David Koresh and the FLDS down in Texas make Christianity seem oppressive and nutball. The E.L.F gives environmental activists a bad name. People that blow up abortion clinics give the pro-life movement a bad image. There's extremists on the fringe of every religion and issue. It's a shame that most every group gets judged based on the few attention-getting crazy folks. The majority of people with any religion or view are a whole lot calmer and more rational and less radical than the people that get all the press.
It's a whole lot better story for ratings to cover the handful of muslims that blow up a bus than the billions that just go about their daily lives like we do, just with a different dress code. It's a much better story to cover the Christians that are fighting to have it taught in schools that the earth is only a few thousand years old and the ones that protest at soldier's funerals because gays are somehow the cause of all the world's problems than it is to cover my grandmother who goes to church every sunday and reads her bible before she goes to bed. It's a better story to write about the animal rights activists that throw paint on people than it is to write about the ones that swap brands of shampoo to support not testing on animals. The moderate majority is a boring story. It doesn't make for good journalism. Fringe radicals make headlines.
I don't think it would change drinking behaviors all that much. The age should be lowered,though. It's ridiculous that people are allowed to vote, get married, be held responsible for debts, be sent to adult prison, serve in military combat, and have most all of the other adult responsibilities, but not be trusted to make their own decisions about alchohol. Either the drinking age needs lowered or the age limit on everything else needs raised. It's hypocritical to say that 18-20 year olds are kids on that issue, and adults on most every other issue. As long as the law burdens them with most every adult responsibility, they should be open to most every adult freedom.
I think they look a bit small and not sectioned off enough to be quite right for being a permanent family home, but I can see lots of potential great uses for them the article missed. They'd be fine for post-disaster housing. They'd be fine for overnight use like as a guest house or pool house. They'd be great for a separate rec-room, work shop, artist's studio, or band practice space. They'd even work out pretty well for short-term single occupancy housing, like for a college child to live in during the summers when they're home from school or for business people on extended stay business trips.
I think part of it has to do with people waiting till later in life to marry and/or have children. It allows for people to have the kind of lifestyle that's the most fun in downtown areas longer. The interaction with lots of different strangers and fast pace of city life is more alluring to singles and childless couples. Some of the same effect applies to the swarm of baby boomers with their children finally grown up and on their own.
Suburbia is more for families. When you're married and have kids and such, you don't have as much time or desire for the interaction of urban life and things like cultural events and restaurants and clubs and such aren't as convenient or affordable or desireable. Suburbia is dull and lonely for singles and childless couples.
Calling cards are a great idea. I'm inspired to have some made for myself now. My business cards have my business email and such on them and that's great for business contacts, but it's not the one I want non-store related contacts to use. My Myspace address is my favorite way for personal connections to get in touch with me, but it's not right for my professional contacts.I always end up scribbling my personal info on the back of my business card. Calling cards would be a perfect and elegant solution.
My sister is a tattoo artist. She makes every single customer sign off on the spelling on their tattoo. Right there on the legal paperwork with their proof of age and such, they have to sign a statement of what they said they wanted the tattoo to be, a copy of the design, and the exact spelling they requested. Just in case they get the ink done and decide later to claim it wasn't what they asked for. Strangely enough, she's had customers that could simply not be convinced that the spelling they thought they wanted would be wrong. She could show them in a dictionary, on the internet, run the word through spell check, and they would still swear up and down that they were right and she and all the sources were wrong. The worst she says is names,though. They are why she had to eventually start requiring the sign off on all lettering. She's had husbands that couldn't spell their spouse's name, even had mothers that couldn't spell their own child's name correctly!
The guy who did it just to see who came to his funeral and only had one mourner got exactly what he deserved. If you're heartless enough to stage your own death and cause grief to your loved ones to satisfy your own curiosity, you don't deserve to have any loved ones. He shouldn't have been surprised in the slightest that no one came to pay respects to such a cruel and selfish man. Hopefully, not even his mom shows up when it's not a hoax.
Letting people starve to death will not stop wars and end dictatorships, in fact poverty encourages war and support for dictators. Hungry people will lay their ideals aside in exchange for the promise of better conditions. If a crazy warlord or dictator says he has a plan to get his supporters and countrymen food and health care, they're going to let that glimmer of hope overshadow that he's awful. People who have their basic needs met are able to have the "luxury" of making decisions based on less immediate needs. If you're fed and clothed and healthy, then you can worry about civil rights and ethics and freedom. Until Africans or the West can find a way to meet the most basic of the people's needs, there's no hope of being able to deal with the other injustices.
But meeting Africa's needs is more complicated than just delivering truckloads of food or sending money. There needs to be a lot more work on sustainable changes, permanent solutions instead of emergency aid. More needs to be invested in things like education and industry and agriculture. People need to be educated, both academically, and in things like how to prevent diseases and unwanted pregancy. Education, especially for women, is crucial. Empowerment is important. Giving people, especially females, the economic leverage they need to help themselves out of poverty will help foster the idea that they are the masters of their own destiny and that they can make a difference in their own lives and their country's future. Extreme poverty leads to a sort of hopelessness that's hard to even grasp in the West. People should invest in real sources of income in Africa, factories, farms, businesses etc. Africans aren't stupid. They aren't lazy. They are just people. Maybe the West needs to stop looking at Africa as a place that needs our charity and more at a place that we can invest in.
By the way...If anyone is interest in helping the working poor in Africa, they might look into www.kiva.org At Kiva, you can loan (yes, loan, as in they pay it back) as little as 25 dollars to an individual entrepreneur that you choose in the developing world (lots of them in Africa)and then when the money is repaid you can either cash it out and keep it or choose another person to reloan it to. I'm a kiva lender and I love it.
The program should be really written,though. With well defined standards and with well defined exceptions. Like that you should have to fail more than one standard to have to pay the surcharge. Like if you fail the cholesterol test AND the BMI test or the blood pressure test and the weight test. That way people that are obviously fit healthy people with one strange characteristic aren't charged unfairly. Like I saw something once where they were showing pro athletes, obviously at the peak of health, and that their BMIs would be considered obese. Also there should be noted exceptions for people with other medical conditions that would make it impossible for them to get fit enough to meet the standards. I'd hate for someone with a serious heart condition to be expected to excercise enough to be fit or someone with an untreatable thyroid condition fined for being heavy.
But seriously, even with the surcharge, it's 25 dollars a month. I'd be THRILLED to only pay 25 dollars a month and have health insurance! Absolutely delighted!
Maybe health insurance should be more like car insurance, with statistical risk factors factored into what rate you'll pay. A 24 year old single man with a red sportscar and a bad driving record is going to have to pay more for car insurance than a 50 year old married father with a mini-van and perfectly clean record. It makes sense. It works that way with home owner's insurance,too. It costs you more to insure a house on a Florida beach than it does a house where there's no chance of hurricane damage. Why not health insurance? If you have known risk factors that are going to cost more when the insurance has to pay out, why should your rates be the same as people with bodies that are known to be cheaper to maintain? And it's still a bargain if you have to pay the higher rate, since your risk of needing the insurance is higher. Like if you're the young guy with the sports car, yeah, you are likely to wreck, so it's worth paying more to have insurance to cover it when it happens. If you're the morbidly obese chain smoker, you're likely to have a heart attack, so it's worth paying more for insurance to cover it when it happens. If you're a safe driver with a safe car, you aren't as likely to ever use the insurance, so it's better for you to have lower monthly premiums. If you're a healthy person, you aren't as likely to be hospitalized, so lower monthly premimums are a plus.
It's a whole lot better story for ratings to cover the handful of muslims that blow up a bus than the billions that just go about their daily lives like we do, just with a different dress code. It's a much better story to cover the Christians that are fighting to have it taught in schools that the earth is only a few thousand years old and the ones that protest at soldier's funerals because gays are somehow the cause of all the world's problems than it is to cover my grandmother who goes to church every sunday and reads her bible before she goes to bed. It's a better story to write about the animal rights activists that throw paint on people than it is to write about the ones that swap brands of shampoo to support not testing on animals. The moderate majority is a boring story. It doesn't make for good journalism. Fringe radicals make headlines.
Suburbia is more for families. When you're married and have kids and such, you don't have as much time or desire for the interaction of urban life and things like cultural events and restaurants and clubs and such aren't as convenient or affordable or desireable. Suburbia is dull and lonely for singles and childless couples.