Health care for all

I'm sure Chinese health care isn't the best in the world (although I've never been there, so maybe I should say I'd assume) and who knows what they will be actually able to accomplish, but China just approved a universal health care plan, while the US hasn't:

China will spend 850 billion yuan ($124.26 billion) to offer health care to its 1.3 billion citizens.

At a meeting of the nation's State Council presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, the expenditure, with aims to guarantee universal medical coverage to China's population by 2011, was approved, Xinhua reported Wednesday.

Could this be any more embarrassing?

I do need to mention that China has 400 million people with no health care coverage, but still, at least they're trying to fix it.

More from Raw Story.

What a hypocrite

I'm referring to John Travolta, who had the audacity to preach about global warming and the need for everyone to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint when he owns 5 personal airplanes and uses them as freely as I use my car to go to work every day:

But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway.

Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions – nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally.

And as if this weren't arrogant and hypocritical enough:

Travolta made his comments this week at the British premiere of his movie, Wild Hogs.

He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" – after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson.

This is incredible!! Are you kidding me?! What the hell is wrong with you, man?? How can you talk about alternative energy and helping the environment when you arrive at the event's doorstep on a gas guzzler?

And naturally, he's blaming Hollywood for his choices:

Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business.

But his appointment as a "serving ambassador" for the Australian airline Qantas doesn't seem to have much to do with the movies. Nor does a recent, two-month round-the-world flying trip.
[...]
"I use them as a business tool though, as others do. I think it's part of this industry – otherwise I couldn't be here doing this and I wouldn't be here now."

Ludicrous and pathetically delusional, if my opinion. Take for instance Leonardo DiCaprio, arguably a bigger star than Travolta and himself an environmentalist. He drives a Prius, a hybrid that is, so that he doesn't look like a hypocrite when he preaches about saving the planet.

Take Al Gore, the start of An Inconvenient Truth. He purchases clean energy, which is more expensive than regular one, and has found other ways to offset his and his family's carbon footprint. He can then freely go out and tell us that we should all do our part.

I'm sure Travolta wasn't threatened with the loss of his compensation for the movie unless he drove a Harley down the red carpet to the premiere. I know he's wealthy enough that he doesn't need to sponsor Australian airline Qantas and fly their planes around the world for advertising. I'm sure he can find alternative and cheaper, albeit still satisfactory means of transportation than flying himself all over the world just because he can.

All these were his choices.

Saying you love nature while you soil it 100 times more than the average person, detracts from your words. At least don't tell us to do our part to save the planet when you're clearly not doing yours!

Who's at risk of damage from asteroids?

This new report seems to underline my point that it's in every nation's interest to set up a system for early detection and possible diversion of earthbound asteroids or comets:

China and the US are the countries most vulnerable to damage from future asteroid impacts, according to preliminary new research.
[...]
The team focused on smaller asteroids because they hit the Earth more frequently. An asteroid a few hundred metres across hits the planet about once every 10,000 years, on average, while those larger than 1 kilometre hit only every 100,000 years or so. Small asteroids are also harder to spot. "We're more likely to be hit by one without much warning," Bailey told New Scientist.

Using maps of population density, the researchers charted the places likely to suffer the most casualties. As might be expected, countries with large coastal populations turned out to be most vulnerable, with China, Indonesia, India, Japan and the US in the top five spots.
[...]
The US faced the worst potential losses, perhaps not surprisingly, since it has a lot of infrastructure on coastlines facing two different oceans. China was second, followed by Sweden, Canada, and Japan.
[...]
The researchers also produced maps showing the worst possible places on Earth for an impact to occur. The Pacific coast of Asia shows up as an especially bad place in terms of producing casualties. Impacts in the north Atlantic Ocean, which can send tsunamis to both Europe and North America, tend to produce particularly high infrastructure losses.

The biggest source of uncertainty for the results is the possibility that a single incoming asteroid might not make it to the ground intact, fragmenting in the atmosphere instead to produce multiple, smaller impacts – a scenario not considered in the model, Bailey says.

Can anyone tell me how this doesn't affect every country in the world?

And it's not just a matter of saving people's lives (not to mention whole species) but it's also an economic issue, as this report clearly shows. That should get the politicians' ears, shouldn't it?

We're spared for now

I posted about this issue previously, and I'm glad to see that, at least for now, we'll be spared the annoyance of strangers chatting away for hours into their cell phones while sitting next to us during a flight:

The Federal Communications Commission will give up on the idea of allowing cellphone use on airplanes, the chairman said, because it was not clear whether the network on the ground could handle the calls.

While the chairman, Kevin Martin, cited a technical reason on Thursday, thousands of air passengers have written to the FCC, urging rejection of the proposal because of the potential for irritating passengers.
[...]
The problem cited by Martin did not have to do with flight safety or the mood in the cabin, but a problem raised by the cellphone industry.

The system is designed for phones to communicate with a single cell tower at a time. But a cellphone that is several miles in the air can contact many towers at once, tying up circuits in all of them, the industry argued.

So they found a technical issue to reject the proposal, which is fine by me, as long as the end result is the same. Social concerns are, however, a known issue:

But he also alluded to the social problem. "From an in-flight perspective, there is some talk of, 'O.K., maybe cellphone conversations would drive people crazy,'" he said.

As for the old adage that if you use your cell phone during flight you might bring down the plane:

The issue for aviation safety is that planes navigate by way of faint radio signals from the ground and from satellites.

These are on frequencies different from the ones authorized for cellphone use, but safety experts worry that any electronic equipment might emit signals at a frequency that would drown out the navigation signals.

So there could be problems, but economics, followed by social considerations, are the basis for the current decision.

Airlines are gonna go ahead with implementing web services on board, but for now cell phones are still gonna be off-limits.

And that's good, if you ask me.

The Kids

This picture also was taken on November 25, 2006, during our yearly "Foliage Trip."

How much is too much?

Just read on Towleroad that David Beckham has decided to leave the soccer team he's playing for now, Real Madrid, and join the L.A. Galaxy in the US.

I don't follow soccer at all, or any sport for that matter, but this tidbit made my jaw drop (well, his picture too...):

The five-year deal is reportedly worth £128m (that's $248 million here across the pond).

How can anyone running after a ball be worth that much? Where's the outrage?

I wonder how much doctors and educators who decide to go work in Africa to help those poor people make. Or the doctors that have to work 20-hour-days, 3 times a week. Or teachers in inner city schools who have to deal with obnoxious teenagers everyday.

And forget that, I mean, that's half a BILLION dollars for this guy. How many people could be saved from starvation or given a better future, or an education, or health insurance for that kind of money?

Where are humanity's priorities?

Saddam is dead

Now what? Will his death change anything? It's unlikely it will make things better, since it's not like the Iraqis were just waiting for his execution to start loving each other, so if it will have any effect at all, it will be a negative one.

The question I have, however, is, Was it worth it? Was it worth all the US military personnel who are now dead, wounded, and scarred forever? Was it worth the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead or risking death any second of every day?

It does seem to me that Iraqis were better off with Saddam than they are now, especially women, who had certainly more freedoms before than they have now. I'm sure the Iraqis lived in fear before, but now it seems much worse.

And we were certainly better off before. Before having spent over 350 billion dollars, having lost some many men and women in the battlefields of Iraq, having lost our credibility worldwide, having alienated any willing ally we ever had, having helped spread terrorism instead of eliminating it.

And on and on.

What a waste of lives, money, time and goodwill.

Nice work George. Nice legacy.

Worst President Ever!

Dangerously annoying developments

This CNN article talks about a couple airlines worldwide that have decided to allow its passengers to use their cell phones in flight. I hope the decision doesn't spread too fast to other airlines:

In January, Emirates airline plans to launch mobile phone usage in its planes, making it the first airline to allow passengers to make cell phone calls on its flights.

And Australian carrier Qantas plans to start evaluating technology that lets fliers use their cell phones and PDAs during flight early next year.

There's nothing more annoying than a stranger sitting next to you, loudly yapping his nonsense into a cell phone. At least, however, on a train or bus, you can switch seat, or the ride might end soon enough. On an airplane? Not so lucky. You're stuck next to the bastard for the entire length of the flight, from 3 to 11 or more hours.

I met one of those assholes on my last flight back from Ohio. He was sitting in front of me and was screaming so loudly in his phone before take off that I wanted to scream. I had to do breathing exercises to keep my blood pressure from blowing an artery. If I had to sit next to him for a 9 hour flight to Italy, I could very likely have murdered the sicko.

I seriously regret this decision by airlines. Surfing the web is one thing, since it can be done in silence, but no activity that disturbs your neighbor should be allowed. Airlines even started equipping individual seats with headphones first and small monitors next to avoid disturbing travelers with a show or movie they didn't like, and now they want to allow people to call their aunt in New Mexico to tell her to feed the cat, do the laundry or tape a show for them?

That's just crazy, and I'm not the only one who thinks so:

A majority of business travelers (61 percent) oppose the idea of being able to use their phones in the sky, according to a global survey conducted by travel management company Carlson Wagonlit Travel early this year.

But if the technology is there, the service will eventually make its way to the skies, said Chris McGinnis, editor of Expedia Travel Trendwatch.

"Whether people like it or not, in-flight cell phone use is going to become a reality," he said.

Is it worth the price?

So the total number of US military casualties in Bush's oil/vengeance-war with Iraq is now 2,978, five more than the number of people who perished in the 9/11 attacks on the US.

There is no end in sight, and the total will soon pass the 3 thousand mark. Was is really worth it? Or rather, is it really worth it, since the carnage is, unfortunately, ongoing?

This morning I heard 3 different news on the radio:

• One was about the fact that today people will scour stores looking for bargains after Christmas, this after having already spent $8 billion the day before Christmas.
• One was about the total number of American deaths in Iraq surpassing those of 9/11.
• One was about the death of music icon James Brown.

Thankfully, James Brown's death, newsworthy as it may be, came in last, but sadly, the troops' deaths didn't make top billing. That honor went to the more closely guarded American consumer-spending index for Jesus' birthday, clearly this being much more important than the deaths of their countrymen.

How sad.

Voting by mail

That's such a smart idea. Imagine not having to drive to the polls, stay in line waiting for your turn, maybe with your kids in tow, being late for dinner or work or whatever, possibly in bad weather.

Who needs that? Especially when you can just receive a card in the mail, make your picks, and send it back with other regular mail? It's so easy, and apparently cheaper, you'd think we'd be doing it already, right?

Since Oregon adopted Vote by Mail as its sole voting option in 1998, the state's turnout has increased, concerns about fraud have decreased, a complete paper trail exists for every election, recounts are non-controvertible and both major political parties have gained voters. Moreover, in doing away with voting machines, polling booths, precinct captains and election workers, the state estimates that it saves up to 40 percent over the cost of a traditional election.

Vote by Mail could offer real advantages if it were adopted nationwide. Voters would not need to take time off from work, find transportation, find the right polling station, get babysitters or rush through reading complicated ballot initiatives.
[...]
Perhaps most important, given the concerns about voting machine security, mail ballots cannot be hacked. Tampering or interfering with mail is a federal crime, and the United States Postal Service has its own law enforcement arm, which works closely with a variety of enforcement authorities including the F.B.I. Trained election clerks can take the time to check signatures without delaying or discouraging voters. And the advantages of a paper trail outshine the glitter of black box electronic gadgetry.
[...]
Public confidence in the accuracy of vote counting is at an all-time low. The Election Assistance Commission estimated that as many as 850,000 votes were not counted in the 2004 elections, and a recent report warned that electronic voting machines cannot be made secure. Fortunately, a remarkably sophisticated and effective technology exists for solving these problems, and it is ''old-fashioned'' mail.

Hard to argue with that. I hope the current Congress will take this matter seriously and act on it swiftly. Certainly, electronic voting machine's makers will spend millions in lobbying efforts to keep widening the spread of their faulty product, but hopefully reason will prevail.

In the end, all that really matters in a democracy is the right of everyone to vote. If you doubt your vote counts, you won't vote, and that's the end of democracy, because an ever decreasing number of people end up electing, and therefore making decisions, for the rest of the population.

The US already has a very low turnout at the polls, especially for midterm elections, so striving to better the system by making it more user-friendly should be a priority of every politicians.

A carrot for those African leaders too eager to use the stick

An Egyptian businessman has set up a prize for African leaders who promote democracy in their countries and relinquish their power peacefully at the end of their tenure, instead of becoming dictators and brutalize the population in order not to lose their grip on money and power:

A $5m prize for Africa's most effective head of state is being launched by one of the continent's top businessmen.

UK-based mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim - who was born in Egypt - is behind the plan to rate governance in 53 African countries each year.

The contest, launched in London, will award winning leaders $5m (£2.7m) over 10 years when they leave office, plus $200,000 (£107,000) a year for life.

"We need to remove corruption and improve governance," Mr Ibrahim said.
[...]
The award will go to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents.

In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Mr Ibrahim, 60, said leaders had no life after office.

"Suddenly all the mansions, cars, food, wine is withdrawn. Some find it difficult to rent a house in the capital. That incites corruption; it incites people to cling to power.

"The prize will offer essentially good people, who may be wavering, the chance to opt for the good life after office," said Mr Ibrahim.
[...]
It will be available only to a president who democratically transfers power to his successor.

Harvard University will assess how well the president has served his or her people while in office.

I think this is a really smart idea. I never realized how gloomy an outlook on their future these African leaders must have. These guys get to live cushy lives in countries where everyone else struggles to make ends meet, so how inclined can they be to leave mansions, food, and money and join their countrymen on the other side of the golden gates? Very little I guess.

And if you think about it, it's not that different from any other democracy in the world. In Italy, for instance, former Presidents becomes Senators for Life, a position that allows them to still live a lifestyle they're accustomed to. In the US, the President (like anyone ever elected to Congress, and this is shocking) gets a pension for the rest of his life and gets to keep his security detail and even his clearance, allowing him to receive daily CIA briefings. In the comfort of his home.

I hope Mr. Ibrahim is successful and the situation gets better in Africa. They need it more than any other continent in the world, that's for sure.

The worthless media

This morning I was listening to NPR and heard the news that yesterday 65 bodies were found in Baghdad, Iraq, and the reporter referred to the deaths as "sectarian violence."

Sectarian violence my ass, that's civil war, why not call it what it is? How many bodies do they have to find before it qualifies as civil war? 100 per day? 1,000?

The Bush administration refuses to define the current situation as 'civil war' because it doesn't sound good, and they can't afford their poll numbers to dip further or they'll end up in the negative, but, last time I checked, the media is still free to say what they want. There's still freedom of the press in America, although maybe not for long thanks to the Republicans.

Why won't the media call it what it is? Who cares if the administration calls it something else, if the media were to tell the truth, the administration would be hard pressed to keep hiding the truth from us. This way, the media is doing us a total disservice: instead of keeping us abreast of what's going on in the world, they just become appendices and mouthpieces of the administration.

But obviously, silly me, there are politics at work here. NPR belongs to the government, really, so they have control over its content. And even the media that is privately owned has to respond to its shareholders and owners, who cannot afford to piss Bush off or they'll lose contracts somewhere else along the way, maybe for other companies that belong to the same big conglomerate.

The media has been losing ground in the way the public sees and trusts it for a while now, and it will only get worse.

They're just a bunch of patsies.

Kids are not China dolls

The movement to treat kids with velvet gloves and shield them from any possible disappointment is growing in this county at an alarming pace.

I think it's completely ridiculous not to allow kids to experience some kind of letdown, frustration, or failure. The latter word has virtually been banned by schools across the country, for fear that kids hearing it might think of themselves as failures and get depressed or feel crushed.

Just consider the ridiculousness of this article:

Gone are the days when a kindergartner dropped a handful of party invites in the classroom cubbyholes of their closest buddies. Today, if anyone is excluded the invitations can't be handed out at school.

The idea that protecting kids from rejection is crucial to safeguarding their self-esteem has gained momentum in recent years.

Take Valentine's Day: At some schools, a second-grader can't offer paper valentines or heart-shaped candies to a short list of pals and secret crushes anymore. They give cards to everyone or no one at all.

Or sports: In many towns, scorekeeping no longer happens at soccer or softball games played by kids under 8 or 9. Win or lose, every player in the league gets a trophy at the season's end.

That's so wrong. And on so many levels. Why can't they invite only the people they like to their party? Why do they have to invite everyone or no one? Yes, they can hand out the invitations outside the school setting, but that's where the kids see each other every day. They can't just "hook up later" or something.

And what's the benefit of giving a medal or trophy to anyone participating in a sport event? All that does is diminish the importance of the reward itself. Kids are not stupid. They might not think much of it at first, but once they realize that everyone is getting the same prize, that prize will lose its luster. They will see that the kid who didn't work hard at all got treated the same way as the one who worked the hardest. The net result will not be to spur the lazy one to work harder. It will be to induce the hardest working kid to loosen up and do less. After all, why bother?

Here's someone who agrees with me:

"You try and do things gently when they're little because it is still hard," says Grossman, who is raising two teenagers while teaching preschool. "But I think this is a problem, and it's a growing one, because kids grow up and have this inflated sense of self-worth. Whether they earn anything, it's always a trophy. They have no sense that you have to work hard for some things."

And here's someone who doesn't:

"When we went to school, people were bullied. Now we know kids have a much greater instance of suicide and depression when they've been bullied," she says.

The fact is, kids are still going to be bullied, whether they are shielded from disappointments or not at an early age, and all this smothering just worsens the effect of the bullying that they might endure later on.

Here's an expert's take:

Rather than imparting self-esteem, some experts believe this gives kids an unhealthy sense of entitlement.

"Self-esteem comes from those feelings you have about yourself for a job well done, for when you have achieved something," says Dr. Georgette Constantinou, administrative director of pediatric psychiatry at Akron Children's Hospital in Ohio. "It's not something you pour into your children."

She feels that many parents aren't equipping their kids to manage basic challenges.

"How do you expect them to handle life's big bumps if they haven't experienced the little ones?" she asks.
[...]
Critics of the trend worry about a generation of kids who haven't experienced rejection or failure -- especially compared with countries such as China and Japan, where a focus on competition defines the lives of many children.

Learning to compete, says Nichols, is vital. "It sets them up for real life things like a job," she says. "It helps people develop their skills."

I so agree with that statement. Ray and I enrolled the kids in basically the best daycare center in our town and are very pleased with the curriculum and the teachers. Recently, however, we realized that the school has no policy on disciplining kids beyond talking to them when they do something wrong and just asking them not to do it again.

Now, I certainly don't want a teacher to resort to physical punishment, but not even a time out? C'mon, what child has ever suffered lifelong scars from having been in time out? It's ridiculous.

Just yesterday we got a note saying that our son was throwing CDs. The note said he was told FIVE TIMES to stop, at which he'd just laugh. Eventually, they removed him from the area and made him sit quietly alone. But this only after we insisted with the school to take such measures whenever one of our kids misbehaves. Unfortunately, the "drastic" action came too late, in my opinion, since it should have been taken after the first CD was thrown, not the sixth.

And this one takes the cake: a teacher actually asked us to start calling "time out" quiet time or something like that at home, so as to keep it consistent with how they call it in school, since they're not allowed to call it "time out" at all!!

Pathetic. If a child misbehaves and is simply told not to, good luck with getting results. It might work for a while, or for some kids, but not for the vast majority. I can't believe those teachers just stand such behaviors from their young students all day long.

My Son is a SOLDIER

That's the sticker I saw this morning on the back of the car in front of me. I was listening to my audio book, and suddenly, I read that and I had to pause it.

I thought of the woman in the car in front, probably going to work, like me, on a regular day, no biggie. Meanwhile, her son is probably on the other side of the world, fighting a war for oil based on lies, risking his life every minute of the day.

How does that knowledge impact her day? Where does she find the strength to keep going. How?

It just hit me how we don't really feel the fact that we are at war at all. Every day flows by like the other, and if we didn't watch or read the news, we wouldn't even know there are people dying at this very moment.

It was just so sad. I tried to imagine how she must feel when she gets up in the morning. How she must feel going to work all day, and then going back home. All the while knowing her son could be gone at any moment.

I can't imagine how she does it. And like her, the thousands of parents, husbands, wives, and children across the country.

How do you go by your daily life when your loved ones' lives are constantly on the line?

It was just so sad.

Only capable drivers should be allowed to get behind the wheel

I read this article a couple weeks ago and saved it to post about it because I believe it makes a very good point: anyone who reaches a certain age should be recertified often for driving and their license renewed only if they can pass strict vision and reflex/response tests.

Driver recertification and road testing should be required for those age 65 and older.
[...]
But the driver who hit me has scarcely been inconvenienced. He was charged with failure to yield and issued a $128 fine. He is permitted to drive without restrictions and without any assessment of his competence. In all probability, he has had no legally mandated driver training since he received his driver's license more than half a century ago.
[...]
Someone can get behind the wheel of a potentially lethal automobile without having had his basic competence tested in decades. Most drivers receive their last exposure to driver education and testing in their mid-teens.

This makes no sense. Given their great, and frequently proven, capacity to do harm, drivers should be required to take a continuing driver education course every 10 years.

Special emphasis should be placed on elderly drivers.
[...]
Accordingly, it makes sense to recertify drivers at age 65 and require subsequent recertification, based on road testing, every five years thereafter. Yet only two states, Illinois and New Hampshire, require road tests for older drivers -- and those only after age 75. Some states actually reduce requirements; in Tennessee, licenses issued to drivers over 65 do not expire.
[...]
We should require continuing education for all drivers, and licensing recertification and mandatory road testing for drivers age 65 and older. It would make the roads safer for all.

I couldn't agree more. Coming from Italy, where you're presented with a huge rules book to study for the exam and the test isn't easy at all, I was aghast when I saw how easy it was to get a driver's license in the US. The book to study for the test is more like a pamphlet, and the test's questions could be aced by a drunken skunk. The eye visit is simple and Ray told me the driving lessons are more a formality than a real learning environment (he told me he once was able to park the car without touching the brakes at all, because the instructor was doing it all for him with his set of pedals; how beneficial is that exactly?!)

The reason the rules book is so big in Italy is that new signals are occasionally introduced to account for new necessities, and, unless you're trying to get a driver's license (or get it renewed,) you'd never have a chance to learn about them. The end result would be that you're on the road, see a new signal, and have no idea whatsoever how to behave. Our book actually grew exponentially in size when the European Union came into being, because people could drive across borders more freely now, and their knowledge of other nation's road signals became a necessity to avoid accidents and fines.

Our driver's license lasts 10 years, after which you can easily get it renewed, but only up to a certain age (I guess 60 or 65, I'm not sure), after which you have to get it renewed much more frequently (I think it's every 5 years at first and then every year once you pass another age limit).

Sure, getting your license renewed can be a pain. You have to make time to go get it done, can be stressful, and if you don't pass, you have to take more in-depth tests, but so what? We'd all be safer on the road. So, not to inconvenience the elderly and force them to get tested thoroughly and often in order to be able to keep driving, we let them drive without checks at all? Is that a smarter policy?

I mean look at Tennessee: if you're older than 65, here's your driver's license and don't bother coming back to get checked ever again. You did your duty, now you're all set for life. And we don't really care if you get glaucoma or macular degeneration, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, dementia or any other debilitating disease. Go right ahead, nothing bad can happen. We're confident you'll be careful and watch out for the pedestrians that dare cross the same road you're driving on.

Are they insane? I know everyone thinks they're great drivers and everyone else stinks, but with my current commute of an hour each way, mostly on secondary roads that cut across the countryside, I've had my share of encounters with older drivers (and younger ones too) who might definitely benefit from a checkup of their driving abilities.

I certainly would feel safer if they had to go get checked in order to keep driving.

Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity

I'm glad that the jury returned this verdict in the latest trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her 5 kids when suffering from postpartum depression.

In my opinion, the woman has always been guilty only of getting pregnant over and over again in spite of her doctor's warnings that every pregnancy would increase her mental depression.

As is often the case, religion played a role in the whole ordeal. I don't recall their faith specifically, but I remember, at the time, reading that despite the warnings, the Yates would not use birth control because their faith expressly forbad it.

And so she kept getting pregnant and having babies, feeling more and more depressed until tragedy struck. It was inevitable.

Yates will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released. If convicted, she would have faced life in prison.

Now the woman will spend the rest of her life regretting her actions, and I'm sure that's punishment enough for what she's done. She certainly did not deserve the death penalty (which she got at the end of her first trial) for doing something she had mentally no control over.

I guess I'll have to try to be more flexible

I'm quite firm with my kids, but reading this article made me realize that maybe, sometimes, I should be more flexible. For their own good:

Strict mothers were nearly five times more likely to raise tubby first-graders than mothers who treated their children with flexibility and respect while also setting clear rules.

But while the children of flexible rule-setting moms avoided obesity, the children of neglectful mothers and permissive mothers were twice as likely to get fat.
...
Rhee speculated that parents who show respect and warmth within a framework of rules may help their children learn to make good decisions about food and exercise. Or it could be that strict parents create a stressful household where overeating becomes a comfort and escape, she said.

Other studies have shown the flexible parenting style, also called authoritative, has other good results for children such as higher achievement in school and lower incidence of depression, said John Lavigne, chief psychologist at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
...
In homes where parents are firm but flexible, "the rules can be bent a little or modified a little to accommodate the situation. But ultimately there are rules," Rhee said.

After reading this article, I can proudly say that I've tried to be more flexible already.

Doing what's best for your kids, even if it's not easiest for you...

Parents have used television sets to "babysit" their kids ever since TV was invented. It's very effective and can keep kids occupied for a long time, virtually silenced.

The question is, Is TV good for kids? The answer seems to depend on the age of the child. TV is very bad for kids under 2, some TV is ok between 2 and 4, and after that the right programs can even help the child's development.

You can therefore imagine my surprise and shock when I read this CNN article:

One-third of the nation's youngest children -- babies through age 6 -- live in homes where the television is on almost all the time, says a study that highlights the immense disconnect between what pediatricians advise and what parents allow.

TV in the bedroom is not even that rare for the youngest children anymore. Almost one child in five under 2 has a set, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against any TV watching at that age.

Eight in 10 children younger than 6 watch TV, play video games or use the computer on a typical day. They average about two hours of screen time, compared with 48 minutes when they are being read to, the Kaiser Family Foundation concludes in a study released Wednesday.

Am I the only one who sees a problem here? KIDS YOUNGER THAN 2 WITH A TV IN THEIR BEDROOM?! And the TV on ALL THE TIME?!!

Ray and I both agree the kids will not have a TV set in their bedroom just as he and I didn't have it growing up, let alone putting one in there now!! Why? Because television hinders communication and socialization. You want your kids to interact with you or other people? Don't put a TV in their bedroom, or they'll never come out of there, and you'll have no clue whatsoever what it is they're watching, and not everything is appropriate for their age. Period.

Same goes for a computer, if not more. At least on TV they don't show porn during the day and nobody can sexually harass kids from a TV screen.

It's incredible, and it's the parents who are to blame without any shade of doubt:

A generation of parents raised on TV is largely encouraging the early use of television, video games and computers by their own children, often starting in infancy.

These parents say TV teaches how to share and the ABCs when they do not have the time. Television provides time for parents to cook or take a shower. They use screen time as a reward or, paradoxically, to help kids wind down at bedtime.
[...]
Where some parents limited scary shows or video games, others found youngsters unfazed. "It's something gory, but it doesn't seem to bother her," said a California mother whose toddler joined her on the couch for "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

Despite studies that link bedroom TVs to kids' sleep problems, the most common reason cited for giving children their own set was that it freed up other TVs so parents or their other children could watch shows of their choice.

These people should take some parenting classes, or not be parents at all. Encouraging infants to watch TV so you have more free time to take a shower? No limitations on the types of shows the kids watch? Give them their TV so we can all watch what we want in separate rooms, like total strangers do in hotel rooms? I can't even imagine the damage done to the psyche of those kids.

And this is why I know I'm right:

The pediatrics group recommends no TV or other electronic media for kids younger than 2 -- advice that just 26 percent of parents followed, Kaiser found -- and no more than two hours of total "screen time" daily for older children.

The organization is not anti-TV, said Dr. Daniel Broughton of the Mayo Clinic, an academy member who co-wrote the recommendations. But before age 2 is time of the brain's most rapid development, and interaction -- the live give-and-take that TV cannot provide -- is crucial during that period, he said.

Some studies also link TV watching at younger ages to youngsters' attention disorders.

After a child reaches 2, the idea is to balance a little TV with riding bikes, playing with friends, household chores and the other activities of childhood, Broughton said.

Amen.

Save your $$$, at least for now

Great New York Times article on why you should hold off on buying one of those brand new Hi-Def DVD players just put on the market by Toshiba (besides the price tag, obviously).

Basically, there is a war going on between two giant electronic makers, Toshiba and Sony, each making its own version of hi-def DVD media, hoping to see it establish itself as the market leader.

It's our generation version of the VHS vs. Betamax war from what feels like eons ago, and it's not yet clear who will emerge as the winner. After all, all agree that Betamax was a better media, but VHS in the end prevailed, so it's anyone's guess at this point which format will become dominant.

Both brands have lined up big Hollywood movie studios, whose stakes are huge, since their products will eventually end up on the winning format, but I read that the deciding factor might hinge on a different movie industry, just as busy and powerful. The porn industry, which releases far more titles each year and whose budget for each picture is far less than the average Hollywood production.

At any rate, no sense wasting your money buying an expensive DVD player format that might not be usable at all in a couple years and that will eventually be cheaper and better once the technology has improved anyway.

I can't say I don't want one. We just bought a 61" flat screen DLP TV and are now enjoying all sorts of programs in high definition. It certainly is a totally different viewing experience. Whenever we have to watch a show that isn't on a high-def channel we are reminded of how cool high-def is.

Anyhow, I guess that for now we'll have to hold off on a high-def DVD and enjoy high-def TV. Regular DVDs render greatly in their current format anyway.

A neutral Net

A debate is currently under way in the US about whether the Internet should stay as is, a leveled playing field in which multinational companies' websites are just as accessible to anyone as the blog journal you're reading now, or if the cable and telephone companies that provide the Internet service (its infrastructure if you will) should be allowed to charge a premium fee that would allow those who pay it to have their websites' information travel faster and be delivered more readily on the digital highways than that of a regular guy's personal website.

Naturally, my position is that the Internet should remain neutral and free, as is now, so that we can all express our opinions and, when necessary, take on the big guys without being faced with insurmountable obstacles that the Internet service providers now say would never be put in place, but that we all now will rise up as roadblocks all over the webosphere.

Just imagine. A company screws you over with lousy service or defective merchandise. You want to make sure they don't screw other people, so you set up a web page where you tell everything about it. However, as soon as the company sees your website, they pay off you provider to slow down access to your website, make it particularly hard to navigate, or outright refuse you service, since the carriers also want the power to block access to sites they don't like or approve of.

That's just wrong and should never come to pass. Especially in a world where even democracies like the one here in the States can be hijacked by a corrupt administration bent on world domination, it is of utmost importance that the individual retain a space where he can express his views and opinions without impediments.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered Internet, in which Web sites that pay them large fees would get priority over everything else. Opponents of these plans are supporting Net-neutrality legislation, which would require all Web sites to be treated equally.

One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

That would be a financial windfall for Internet service providers, but a disaster for users, who could find their Web browsing influenced by whichever sites paid their service provider the most money.