'If' is a might big word

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  LIFE'S OUTTAKES   By Daris HowardGazette Contributor              I was tucking my pants down into my work boots before we started the job ahead of us.            “Why are you doing that?” Butch asked.
            “Well,” I answered, “when we load the bales off of the ground, they almost always have mice under them, and I don’t want any of them running inside my pant leg.”
            Buster didn’t like the sound of that, and he started tucking his pants inside his boots too.
            Butch and Buster, brothers, had come over to give me a hand loading hay. It was spring time and we were getting down to the final layers of last year’s crop. During the winter, the mice like to tunnel under the bales to keep warm. There they would have huge families, and when we loaded the last of the bales, mice would scatter everywhere.
            The wild cats, that called our farm home, would hang around the edges to see if they could pick up dinner while we worked. The mice, trying to keep away from the cats, looked for any hiding place they could find. I had already had the unpleasant experience of having them find that hiding place up my pant leg, and I didn’t relish the thought of it happening again.
            As Buster and I continued to tuck our pants into our boots, Butch started to mock us.
            “Oh, you two are a couple of big sissies. Why, I wouldn’t be afraid of no itty, bitty mouse. Besides, if you were as fast on your feet as I am, no mouse would have a chance to go up your pant leg.”
            He then went on to expound to us how, when he was a boy growing up in the mountains of West Virginia, he had hunted mountain lions and all sorts of really frightening creatures.
            The truth was, Butch and Buster had moved out here when they were about eight and nine years old, and though we were only about twelve, I still doubted Butch had done half of the things he claimed.
            We started loading the truck with the old bales. The ones on the outer edge didn’t show many signs of mice, but as we worked farther toward the center, we started seeing more and more tunnels. Then came the moment we expected. We turned a bale and a mouse dashed under the bale closest to it. As we continued removing bales, more and more mice would be there, and would race to the closest tunnel.
            Then came the time when, like musical chairs, there were more mice than tunnel entrances. One huge, fat mouse, about the size of a Chihuahua, turned and saw the dark opening of Butch’s open trouser leg. As it entered, Butch let out a yelp and started to dance like he was discoing to acid rock. But the more he tried to shake the mouse out, the farther up the tunnel it sought safety.
            When it reached the top of his leg, it climbed to safety where the pant legs joined. When it lodged itself in there at that very critical, private juncture, Butch started to holler as if he would die. He screamed for someone to “... Kill it! Kill it quick!”
            Now, Butch and Buster weren’t necessarily known for thinking clearly under pressure. At Butch’s screams, Buster reached for a handy, nearby shovel. He wound up like a baseball player planning to knock a ball out of the park. He swung so hard he took Butch’s feet right out from under him. When Butch came down, his head hit the ground first, but it wasn’t his head he was holding as he curled up in the fetal position and groaned.
            “Hey Butch, did I kill it?” Buster asked. “Did I? Did I?” 
            “I don’t know,” Butch groaned. “But if you did, that’s not the only thing that’s going to die today when I get so I can walk again.”
            Buster realized Butch was talking about him, and mockingly rolled his eyes. “You mean if you get so you can walk again. And ‘if’ is a mighty big word, Butch.”

 (Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)

Teens on the Road: The Process to Getting a Driver's License - Part One

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Having a teenager begin to drive can be stressful enough; add in trying to understand the process to get them their first driver's license, and the experience can be downright frustrating.  In this three part series we are going to discuss the process, the steps you need to take, and the documents you will need along the way. 
The first thing you need to know is that it is a three stage process referred to as the New Mexico Graduated Licensing System.
Stage One: Instructional Permit
To get an Instructional Permit, a teen must be at least 15 years old, enrolled in Driver’s Education and go into a MVD Express office with the following documents: 
·         Driver Education Referral Card·        Original State Issued Birth Certificate·         Original Social Security Card·         One Proof of New Mexico Residency·         A Parent/Legal Guardian must accompany new teen driver
Once the permit has been received it must be held for a minimum of six months.  The Driver will be issued a maximum of two Instructional Permits.  The Driver must drive with an adult 21 or older who has been licensed for a minimum of three years.  The Driver must also complete a detailed log of at least 50 hours of supervised driving practice, in which 10 of these hours must be at night.  A parent or guardian must certify in writing that these hours have been completed.  The Driver will need to maintain a clean driving record for the 90 days preceding the application of stage two - the provisional license. 
Effective June 17, Senate Bill 9, enacted by the 2011 Legislature, amends Sections 66-5-8 and 66-5-9 NMSA 1978 to provide that:The six-month minimum period for which an individual is required to hold an instruction permit before obtaining a provisional license is extended by 30 days for each traffic violation, committed during the time the individual was driving with the instruction permit, for which the individual was convicted or adjudicated delinquent.

Teens on the Road: The Process to Getting a Driver's License - Part Two

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In Part One of “Teens on the Road” we discussed the process of obtaining an Instructional Permit.  Today we will discuss stage two of the New Mexico Graduated Licensing System, the Provisional License.
Stage Two: The Provisional License
To obtain a Provisional License the teen driver must be at least 15 ½ years old, fully completed Stage One of the Graduated Licensing System, held a clean driving record for 90 days preceding the application of the Provisional License, and go into an MVD Express office with the following documents:

• Expired Instructional Permit
• 50 Hour Driving Log (must include a minimum of 10 hours of night driving)
• Certificate of Completion (from a driving school such as McGinnis School of Driving)
• Parent/Legal Guardian

In addition to the above items, if the teen driver does not hold a State issued Instructional Permit they must also bring in the following documents:

• Original State Issued Birth Certificate
• Original Social Security Card
• One Proof of New Mexico Residency

Once the Provisional License has been received it will need to be held for a minimum of one year or until the teen reaches the age of 18.  The teen driver may not have more than one passenger in the car under the age of 21 who is not an immediate family member.  The teen driver may not operate the car between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. unless accompanied by a licensed driver who is 21 years or older.  Exceptions are permitted for school, employment, family and medical need, or religious functions.  During times of these exceptions the teen driver must carry a statement from the appropriate school, employer, Doctor, Religious Official or Parent/Legal Guardian.


Effective June 17, Senate Bill 9, enacted by the 2011 Legislature, amends Sections 66-5-8 and 66-5-9 NMSA 1978 to provide that:


The 12-month minimum period for which an individual is required to hold a provisional license before obtaining a regular driver's license is also extended by 30 days for each traffic violation, committed during the time the individual was driving with the provisional license, for which the individual was convicted or adjudicated delinquent.

Driver's License Suspension vs. Revocation

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Driver's License Suspension vs. Revocation in Arizona

In Arizona is there a difference between your driver’s license being suspended vs. revoked? What is the difference between a driver’s license suspension and a revocation?

In Arizona, it is important to understand that driving is a privilege governed by the State through the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) Motor Vehicles Division (MVD). Driving is not a right. Arizona courts hear both civil and criminal matters involving crimes and violations that may affect your driving record. Your driving record in turn may then affect the status of your license leading to suspension or revocation.

Suspension
In Arizona, a driver’s license suspension is the temporary removal of your license or privilege to drive. This is an action taken by Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) Motor Vehicles Division (MVD) after a review of your driving record also referred to as your Motor Vehicle Record (MVR). If your license is suspended, then it must be reinstated before you can legally drive. A driver’s license suspension will remain in effect until the prescribed time period of the suspension is served and you make an application for reinstatement and pay the applicable reinstatement fee.

Revocation
Re-establishing your ability to drive after a revocation is more difficult than a suspension. In Arizona, a driver’s license revocation is the complete removal of your license or privilege to drive. Your license will remain revoked until you apply for a new license. As part of the application for a new license, you must submit and pass an investigation into your driving record. All outstanding obligations must be satisfied in order to qualify for re-instatement of your privilege to drive.

Suspension vs. Revocation
A license suspension is for a definite period of time. With a suspension, once the suspension period has elapsed, your license is eligible for re-instatement. During your suspension period you may be eligible for restricted privileges. A license revocation on the other hand is the complete removal of your license. After a revocation, you must apply for a new license and during the revocation you are not eligible for restricted privileges.


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FAQ's About Document Management

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When it comes to Document Management, our clients have asked a lot of questions.  With over 12 years of experience answering them, here are just a few:   

Why is document management important?

Today, 80% of all mission-critical data is unstructured, 7.5% of all documents get lost, and 3% of the remainder are misfiled. Organizations are quickly realizing that document management is becoming necessary in order to be more successful. Organizing documents and information through the use of technology ultimately leads to higher productivity, greater efficiency, and improved performance. With an electronic document management system in place, your organization will be able to spend its efforts on the more important and core aspects of your business.

What types of records are being imaged?

It runs the gamut: everything from student and personnel records to board minutes and engineering plans. Many of these records have retention requirements. For others, imaging helps streamline specific business processes.

What are some of the advantages of scanning records, as opposed to just storing them in boxes or filing cabinets?

There are numerous advantages to scanning records. Imaging critical documents results in significant savings in both time and money because information is organized. Once imaged, you can instantly access any record from your desktop computer. This can reduce storage space by as much as 80% or more. Document search time is also greatly expedited.  Requests for documents can be streamlined, completely processed, and printed, faxed, or emailed to the requestor in a matter of seconds.  In addition, organizing imaged documents in a database can help with security, by granting access to only authorized users.

How do I access information after it has been scanned?

Each record type can be setup with key searchable fields, such as date, first name, last name, APN number, etc.  In addition, optical character recognition (OCR) makes electronic documents searchable by every word, so that they can be mined for specific information.

How much does document conversion cost?

Price varies depending on size and volume of the documents. On average, scanning typically costs the same as a photocopy (a standard storage box measuring 10"x12"x16" holds approximately 2,500 pages).

What format is used for scanning files?

The standard format in the industry for scanned files is TIFF. However, records are also commonly scanned as PDF, PDF/A, and JPG, among others.
For more frequently asked questions, check out our website:  http://www.sytechsolutions.com/faq.htm

 

Fayhee on Destroying Other People's Cairns

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Mountain Gazette editor M. John Fayhee on the benefits of going off-route, getting lost, and not marking your path.

Then, one day, I saw some orange peels, eggshells and a candy bar wrapper next to one of the glacial tarns. And I lashed out: I destroyed every single one of those goddamned cairns. I mean to say, I obliterated the motherfuckers. This was no subtle carnage. I made no effort to aesthetically replace the rocks used to construct those cairns to their natural environment. As I kicked those cairns, I cursed the people who had built them.

With regards to Pilgrim Gulch, I was likely too late. I ought to have disassembled the very first cairns I saw. I vowed then and there to never again make such a mistake.

And thus began what to this day remains a love/hate relationship with cairns and all they represent, both literally and figuratively.

Is this where I admit to building an occasional cairn—never more than two or three rocks stacked—the way I learned in Boy Scouts? There is one in the photo, two rocks stacked on a boulder, that used to guide me to Camera Trap Spring before the forest fire made everything visible.

'Maybe Teens Aren't Interested in Nature Because We're Selling Them Too Much Freedom to Consume'

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Ryan Jordan of Backpacking Light, who is also a Scout leader in Montana, narrates a brief video on "boys in the wild."

In the film, and in a short article he speculates about why some boys are energized by wilderness backpacking while others are discouraged "that the mountain is so steep."

ᔥ Facebook's Colorado Mountain Men group.

Meanwhile, I am looking at their gear and thinking how much lighter and better it is than when I was 14 going on multi-night backpack trips with Troop 97, Fort Collins.

Bats, Birds, Bighorns: Colorado's Wildlife Festivals

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Mallards in the San Luis Valley, from Crane Festival website.

I remember how when the Monte Vista Crane Festival started in the 1980s I thought it was good to have a festival keyed to the natural year rather than another variation on "Pioneer Days."

Now there are many more such events: Colorado Parks & Wildlife provides a comprehensive list for 2013, including such wonders as Grand Mesa Moose Day. (Here is the 2012 announcement for Moose Day, for background.)

This is a 'Bark-Up' Household

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And that means that fifty percent of Norwegians would agree with me, while the other half would not.

The success of a Norwegian television program on firewood (when will the Discovery Channel copy it?) resonates with those of us who do heat with wood. If I could, I might watch it.

It excites passions among Norwegians:

“I couldn’t go to bed because I was so excited,” a viewer called niesa36 said on the Dagbladet newspaper Web site. “When will they add new logs? Just before I managed to tear myself away, they must have opened the flue a little, because just then the flames shot a little higher. 
“I’m not being ironic,” the viewer continued. “For some reason, this broadcast was very calming and very exciting at the same time.” 
To be fair, the program was not universally acclaimed. On Twitter, a viewer named Andre Ulveseter said, “Went to throw a log on the fire, got mixed up, and smashed it right into the TV.”

At one particular Northern California commune I remember, sitting and staring silently into the wood-burning stove at night was referred to as "watching Channel 47."  Forty-seven seemed like an impossibly high number back then.

The Prepper Paradox

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Commenting on the image of "survivalists" and FEMA's own advice for short-term survival, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds comments, "I think it’s funny that if you do what the government recommends — have several weeks of emergency supplies on hand — you’re a crazy anti-government extremist."

The fact is, "preppers" are a very diverse group. 

You won't learn that from the mainstream media, though.

As far as the mass media are concerned, America's preeminentpreppers are the Alabama kidnapper Jimmy Lee Dykes; Nancy Lanza,whose son raided her gun collection before he carried out the SandyHook massacre; and the people who appear on the National GeographicTV show Doomsday Preppers, who might charitably be described as"colorful." Dykes "is described by neighbors as 'very paranoid,'anti-government and possibly a 'Doomsday prepper,'" the New YorkDaily News reported. 

YOYO
YOYO. Remember that acronym. It stands for "You're on your own." I learned it a couple of weeks ago from a woman who works with animal rescuing and sheltering during disasters such as hurricanes and forest fires.

But I had already figured it out. Even when government works, you're on your own for a time. Looking at recent disasters, I would estimate  it takes 24 hours for local government agencies to deploy when they function at peak efficiency. It takes a week or more for the feds to get rolling, and we know what lumbering beasts those agencies are.

Meanwhile, you're on your own.

You want food and water? Store some. You want electricity? Have a generator or maybe solar panels if they will work for you. (I have one solar-powered lantern, that's all.) Have alternate ways to cook, bathe, shit, etc.

And get to know your neighbors.

Jesse Walker, writer of "Stop Demonizing Preppers," writes how his "liberal and feminist" Vermont friend Ceredwyn Alexander joined the volunteer fire department because preparedness requires "learning skills and communityinvolvement . . . not freeze-dried food and razor wire."

Not a bad idea! Want to find an organized, service-oriented, group of people who know how stuff works, who lives where, and have the radios to communicate? If you can handle the job, join the volunteer fire department. (Something like 70 percent of American firefighters are volunteers.) Most departments have some auxiliary roles beyond fire-fighting too.

I cannot speak for all departments, but I suspect that my fellow vollies here are well-armed for the zombie apocalypse as well.

UA cameras click jaguar, ocelot photos

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Automated trail cameras set up by a UA research team have snapped pictures of a male jaguar and a male ocelot roaming the rugged Southern Arizona landscape.
Automatic wildlife cameras snapped this photo of a male jaguar on a nightly walk in the Santa Rita Mountains on Oct 25. (Photo: USFWS/UA/DHS)  When a trail camera detects the movement of a passing animal, it snaps a picture. Images are stored and later retrieved by wildlife biologists. (Photo: USFWS/UA/DHS)  Researchers can identify individual jaguars by their unique rosette pattern. (Photo: USFWS/UA/DHS)  This male ocelot was photographed by automatic wildlife cameras in the Huachuca Mountains on Oct 8. (Photo: USFWS/UA/DHS)  University Communications | February, 2013  An adult male jaguar and an adult male ocelot have been photographed in two separate Southern Arizona mountain ranges by automated wildlife monitoring cameras. The images were collected as part of the Jaguar Survey and Monitoring Project led by the University of Arizona. Both animals appear to be in good health.    In late November, the UA project team downloaded photos from wildlife cameras set up as part of the research project and found new pictures of a jaguar in the Santa Rita Mountains. A total of 10 jaguar photos were taken by three UA cameras and one Arizona Game and Fish Department camera. The cat’s unique spot pattern matched that of a male jaguar photographed by a hunter in the Whetstone Mountains in the fall of 2011, providing clear evidence that the big cats travel between Southern Arizona’s “sky island” mountain ranges.    “We are very pleased about these photos,” said Lisa Haynes, who manages the research project and coordinates the Wild Cat Conservation and Research Center project. “I am proud of our field team and their incredible knowledge and capacity to place these cameras in the best locations to detect jaguar and ocelot movement.”   In September, a photo showing a jaguar tail was reported by the Arizona Game and Fish Department from a hunter’s automated wildlife monitoring camera in the Santa Rita Mountains.    “None of the UA photos can be matched to this ‘tail photo’ because, in the new photos, the tail is obscured or the opposite side of the jaguar was photographed,” Haynes explained. “However, we believe the jaguar is most likely the same individual.”   In addition, a new ocelot photo was taken in the Huachuca Mountains west of Sierra Vista by one of the UA project cameras. Again, comparisons of the spot patterns revealed this to be the same male ocelot that has been reported by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and photographed in the Huachucas several times in 2011 and 2012. However, the UA photo was taken about 4 miles away from the previous photos, demonstrating that even the smaller cats move across the rugged Arizona landscape.   The purpose of the UA research project is to establish a non-invasive, hands-off system for detecting and monitoring jaguars and ocelots. The project is using motion-sensor-activated “trail” cameras placed in areas where the spotted cats are most likely to be detected. Once fully operational, up to 240 paired cameras will be in place throughout the project area to capture images of both sides of detected animals.   Very little is known about these cats in the northern part of their range. The primary distribution of jaguars and ocelots, both known as Neotropical cats, ranges across Central and South America and Mexico. Both species occurred historically and recently in the southwestern United States, although in few numbers. Every new data point will add to the science and body of knowledge about their distribution and ecology in the southwestern U.S., which is why this project is so important.   The UA is conducting this large-scale project to detect and monitor jaguars and ocelots along the northern boundary of the U.S.-Mexico international border, from the Baboquivari Mountains in Arizona to the southwestern “boot heel” of New Mexico.   The researchers also are employing a specially-trained scat detection dog to assist the team in collecting potential jaguar and ocelot scat in the areas where a jaguar or ocelot has been detected by camera. The UA Conservation Genetics lab, under the leadership of Melanie Culver, U.S. Geological Survey geneticist in the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment, will conduct genetic testing of the scat to verify species and possibly identify the individual cats.    Culver, who is the project’s principal investigator, said: “What is exciting about this research project is the combination of techniques and skills, from the deep knowledge of our field people of how wild cats move around the landscape to cutting edge molecular-genetic analysis of the scats. We are particularly enthused about the potential information we may retrieve from the project’s trained scat detection dog that will certainly advance our understanding of these two wild cat species.”   In addition to obtaining the photos of jaguars and ocelots, the team will be assembling the most comprehensive photo data set of other wildlife in this region that has ever been done. With a photo processing system and computer program developed by one of the members, the researchers will gain an unprecedented understanding of the distribution, diversity and activity patterns of other species of wildlife, providing insight into jaguar and ocelot ecology and habits.    “We are looking forward to closely analyzing these new photos with respect to other wildlife in the area,” Haynes said.   The three-year study will be accomplished under a contract with funds provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The purpose of these funds is to address and mitigate environmental impacts of border-related enforcement activities.      The ocelot has been protected in the U.S. as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1982. The jaguar was listed as endangered in the U.S. in 1997.

GOP losing Sequester blame game

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By Terrance Heath | February 21, 2013ourfuture.org 

The “sequester” is a terrible idea. It will do terrible things to the economy and the lives of millions of Americans. It was a terrible idea from the beginning, when it was born of an ugly deal on the “fiscal cliff.” It will be disastrous for the country, and cost up to 1 million American jobs — in the middle of an ongoing jobs crisis. But it’s not inevitable. The sequester is a crisis manufactured by Congress. Congress can and should simply repeal it.

But for the moment, it’s looking like that’s not going to happen. Republicans are running out the clock, either out of plain ol’ meanness and anger, or because of some misguided gamble that obstruction will work this time, that Americans will blame the president for bringing the economy to a screeching halt, and the GOP will finally make Barack Obama a one-term president. The sequester is turning out to be a losing bet for the GOP.

Republicans would bear more of the blame for a failure to reach a deal on the looming federal spending cuts known as the sequester, but most Americans are tuned out of the debate and many don’t oppose allowing the cuts to go into effect.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center and USA Today — the first wide-ranging poll to look at the issue of the sequester — shows a failure to reach a deal would lead 49 percent of Americans to blame congressional Republicans and 31 percent to blame President Obama.

This isn’t all that surprising. As we noted Wednesday, Obama is much more popular than both Congress and the Republican Party, which means he’s likely to come out on top in the blame game.

As we also noted Wednesday, a big reason for that is that, while Washington is in a tizzy about the sequester, the vast majority of Americans haven’t paid much attention. Just 27 percent of Americans say they have heard “a lot” about the cuts, while 43 percent have heard “a little” and 29 percent have heard “nothing at all.” Because Americans aren’t paying attention, they revert to their overall impressions of the two sides.

It’s not as if Republicans haven’t been warned. Conservatives like David Frum and former Virginia governor and Republican National Committee chairman Jim Gilmore have told Republican leadership, “You’re going to lose this.”

“That’s the biggest problem with the Republicans” on Capitol Hill, Gilmore, a former Virginia governor, said this morning over coffee and a ham-and-egg biscuit in Alexandria. “They think spending is the most important thing. It’s not.”

He says he has urged GOP leaders to back down and compromise to prevent the so-called sequester spending cuts from going through – “I keep telling them, you’re going to lose this” – and he has strong words for congressional leaders’ focus on deficit reduction as their primary economy goal.

“Above all things,” he says, “they shouldn’t be talking about debt and deficits. Because the left’s got an answer for them.”

If the sequester happens, it is going to be next to impossible for Republicans to distance themselves from its disastrous results. First of all, prominent Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have been almost gleefully predicting that the sequester will happen. It was probably all Eric Cantor could do not to greedily rub his hands together when he layered out the GOP strategy on the sequester.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says he hates the sequester:

I don’t want to live with the sequester. I want reductions in spending that make sense. These indiscriminate reductions do not make sense.

But he doesn’t hate it enough to repeal it or replace it with something Democrats and Republicans can agree on. As a result, he says, Republicans will move forward with the sequester.

And we’re going to hurt a lot of people. And it’s up to the president, really, to act now.

But Cantor voted for the sequester. And for all John Boehner’s claims that the sequester “threatens U.S. national security, thousands of jobs and more,” he boasted that he got 98 percent of what he wanted out of the deal that produced it.

That’s why President Obama is still talking about the supposedly “inevitable” sequester. The president is even more popular now than he was in 2009, when he was was still fresh from his historic White House victory. On the issues, Americans are more aligned with President Obama than the GOP.

On the other hand, Americans want Republicans to “knock it off,” already. But the GOP remains haunted by what E.J. Dionne called “the ghost of the tea party,” and driven by a base too blinded by anger at President Obama to allow the Republican party to do what it’s been doing.

Maybe that’s why the GOP is doing what it’s been doing a lot of lately, where the “sequester blame game” is concerned: losing.

STUDY: Most BPA-free plastics aren't

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More than 70% of containers tested released estrogen-like chemicals. (photo: unknown)

By Elizabeth Renter, NaturalSociety22 February 13readersupportednews.org hen the industry found consumers getting hip to BPA and its hormone disrupting qualities, they started looking at alternatives. While that was nice and all, the alternatives aren’t much better. In fact, some research found that mot plastics, even those that are BPA-free, still leach hormone-mimicking chemicals when exposed to normal conditions. While the research took play a couple years ago, it reminds us to think twice when using and purchasing plastics.

Despite that the industry would like you to think "BPA-Free" labels make foods safe from hormone disrupters, researchers say that simply isn't the case. They tested more than 450 different plastic containers from stores like Walmart and Whole Foods. More than 70% of them released estrogen-like chemicals.
The containers they tested included those most likely to come in contact with food. Plastic bags, baby bottles, deli containers, and reusable plastic food containers were all tested. Because they knew BPA-containers would emit hormone-disrupters, they focused on those plastics that claimed to be "BPA-free".
When exposed to saltwater and alcohol, the majority of the plastics released hormone disrupting chemicals. The number increased when they were put in the dishwasher, exposed to sunlight, or used in the microwave. These exposures are just the type that these plastics would undergo if used in your home.
"Then, you greatly increase the probability that you're going to get chemicals having estrogenic activity released," said Professor of Biology George Bittner, adding that they increased the number of containers emitting hormone disrupters to 90%.
The study didn't focus on health effects as much as the chemicals that the containers produced. Some scientists would argue that these disrupters aren't proven to do any damage to humans, only mice and rats. Others say Bittner's research isn't completely reliable. But iIf a chemical causes infertility and cancer in rats, I don't want to touch it.

However, those that have questioned BPA-effects before are welcoming the study.
"This is really helpful because they took a look at very common products," says Sonya Lunder of the Environmental Working Group.
It seems when the scientific world is presented with studies like this, we are encouraged to continue on with business as usual until they know, without a doubt, that something is 100% likely to cause cancer, illness, death, or the like. While they may be convinced our retail habits are more important than our health, I'd like to think our informed readers know otherwise.

Time for Boomers to march again

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By Dave Lindorff
This Can't Be Happening / Op-Ednationofchange.org  I’m fed up with the trashing of the Baby Boom generation.

Sure you can find plenty of scoundrels, freeloaders, charlatans and thugs who were born between 1946 and 1964, but you can find bad and lazy people in every generation. In fact, the so called “Greatest Generation” who preceded the Boomers abounds in them. That doesn’t prove anything.

What has me ticked, as someone who was born in 1949, is that the right wing has for decades been attacking my generation in particular, and has succeeded, pretty much, in portraying us Baby Boomers as self-centered, spoiled and entitled. The right has then cleverly used that deceptive image to go on and attack important programs like Social Security, Medicare, college loans, etc., by trying to divide the generations against each other, claiming that we Baby Boomers are intent on abusing, even bankrupting, those programs.

The truth is something else entirely.

The generation born after World War II in fact has been admirable and almost unique in its altruism. While our parents were either overt racists and sexists or turned a blind eye to those twin evils, and for the most part uncritically accepted the imperialist policies of the post-war US government, our generation challenged the idea of imperial war, supported the struggle of African-Americans to win voting rights and to end legal segregation and, after a struggle in our own ranks, fought for equal rights for women -- with many of the men of our age cohort joining in that struggle.

My generation did more in our personal lives and lifestyles, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on through the decades, to break down walls of religious and racial bigotry, than any before us, and we have raised children who have continued that legacy.

As for Social Security, it was our generation that has had to pay more into the system to anticipate our greater longevity and our greater numbers, paying vastly higher Social Security payroll taxes than our parents ever did. We also strongly supported the creation of Medicare in 1965, at a time when we were still more than 40 years from being able to make use of it.

We did it for the generation before us, not for ourselves. Back in 1964, when the last Boomer was being born, our parents were only paying 3.625% of their pay in FICA taxes. When my father was 60, and only a few years from retirement, he began paying 5.4%. We Boomers, meanwhile, have been paying over 6% of our income into Social Security since 1988, which means that for those of us now nearing retirement age, the 30-35 years of our working lives when we were earning our greatest amount of annual income, we were paying over 6%. into the Trust Fund. Since employers match those amounts, we were actually paying over 5% per year more of income during our working lives than our parents paid in theirs.

And the right wing -- and even some conservative Democrats -- call us selfish and entitled!

We also, far from being selfish, raised families in the face of a prolonged and deliberate corporate assault on working people that saw our unions broken, our pensions terminated, our health insurance benefits slashed, college costs for our kids inflated, and job opportunities for both ourselves and our children lost. We saw our home values crashed by greedy bankers. We are new facing a crisis and a threat as we near retirement age, not because we were self-indulgent and lazy, but because we are the victims of a colossal corporate rip-off, one supported by a corrupt right-wing political movement. This campaign has gutted the programs that several generations of labor activists and workers, including we ourselves, fought to create.

If there is anything critical that can be said about the generation born after 1946, it would be that we got so caught up in our struggles of the moment, and then in raising our families in the face of these challenges, that we have not maintained our “fuck you!” attitude towards authority, and our sense of solidarity with one another and with those who are on the outside of the society and the economy.

My sense is that most of us in the Baby Boom generation still have our basic values. We want a better, fairer, more peaceful world--a world free of imperialism, racism and sexism -- but we have lost the sense of militancy that is needed to get there.

That makes me hopeful that as our children move off onto their own, and as we get ever closer to the point that we are depending on programs like Social Security and Medicare for our survival, that we will recover that sense of urgent militancy and that “fuck you” attitude that carried us through the years of the Indochina War, of President Nixon’s Cointelpro repression, and of the Reagan-era assault on the New Deal legacy.

It is time for the Baby Boom Generation to return to its roots. For the sake of ourselves and our friends and demographic compatriots, for the sake of our children and their children, we need to recover that distrust and rejection of authority that is embedded in our generation’s DNA. We need to recall and recreate that exciting sense of community that came with standing shoulder to shoulder against the uniformed enforcers of the Establishment.

It is time to gather up our canes, our walkers and our hearing aids, to ignore our aching joints, and to again start marching and shouting: “Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers!” and “Hell No! We Won’t Go!” (peacefully and quietly into old age, that is).

Earth's date with an asteroid

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By Daniel Stolte, University Communications | February 12, 2013

The UA has held a long-standing love for asteroids, from pioneering the search for potentially hazardous space rocks before NASA did to sending a spacecraft to one to scoop up a sample. 
Artist's impression of asteroid 2012 DA14 as it whizzes past Earth the day after Valentine's Day. (Illustration: NASA)
Scientists at the University of Arizona have had a long love with rocks whizzing through space, and the record-setting asteroid that hurtled toward the Earth before veering off into space on Feb. 15 is no different.

 No asteroid of this size – half a football field across – has been known to make such a close pass since record-keeping observations began in the 1990s, according to Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth-Object Observation Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The stony asteroid, 2012 DA14, likely originated in the solar system’s asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It will pass Earth at a distance of about 17,200 miles or 27,680 kilometers, closer than geostationary satellite orbit, although experts consider a crash extremely unlikely.

"As we keep getting better at finding these things, we discover that such close approaches happens more frequently than you might think," said Ed Beshore, deputy principal investigator of the UA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which will send a spacecraft to an asteroid, scoop up a sample and bring it back to Earth for study.

Although the "Valentine asteroid" definitely won't impact our planet this time, it serves as a reminder that such Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs, have slammed into the Earth in the past and will do so in the future. Yeomans said an object the size of DA14 streaks down from the sky about every 1,200 years on average.

"NEOs are obviously special because they are hazards to Earth," Beshore said. "Over the long term, NEOs either collide with the sun or a planet, or get thrown out of the solar system by a close gravitational approach."

"Something is responsible for resupplying the solar system with these objects, and this is the subject of much study," he added. "Collision threat aside, NEOs are scientifically interesting – their close approaches to Earth afford excellent opportunities to study them in detail."

Observing campaigns will study the asteroid with various instruments including NASA’s Goldstone radio telescope in California. From these observations, scientists will learn more about its orbit, rotation and physical characteristics.

"It's not often that we get to observe such a small asteroid at close range," said Carl Hergenrother, OSIRIS-REx Science Team member and coordinator of the Target Asteroids! citizen science program. "This object is small and fast but relatively bright – it offers professionals and amateurs a great chance to collect data and test their observing skills. I will be on the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope the night of the close approach obtaining light curve and color observations."

"Right now, we have about a 100-year window of certainty of not getting hit by any NEO we have discovered to date," Beshore said. "Beyond that, we can’t say what the long-term future holds for these objects. It is in everybody’s interest to improve our ability to predict their behavior."

Through repeated and concerted observations, professional and amateur astronomers alike are continually refining the orbits of asteroids, he said.

"One of the best things we can do is get radar images," he added. "They allow us to measure an asteroid's distance to within a few tens of feet, which is not possible to do with optical instruments. Radar images also allow us to map these rocks, giving us an idea of what they look like. What shape are they? Is their surface smooth or covered with boulders? How fast are they rotating?"

"The goal is to lengthen that window out farther into the future."

An important piece in this effort is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, led by the UA, even long before it embarks on its journey to its target asteroid, 1999 RQ36. While the major scientific objective of the mission is to bring back a sample of the asteroid for study here on Earth, OSIRIS-REx scientists are also working to understand a phenomenon that applies to all asteroids, large or small, called the Yarkovsky effect.

As an asteroid travels along its orbit, it absorbs light and heat from the sun. As it rotates, it radiates some of that energy back into space. Over time, this re-radiated energy nudges the object off its trajectory ever so slightly, making its course more difficult to predict, especially over long timespans into the future.

"By observing asteroid RQ36 from Earth, we have already obtained a much better understanding of the Yarkovsky effect. We hope to refine our measurements as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission and improve our orbital predictions, even for asteroids that are slightly different in size or composition," Beshore explained. "With the data, we expect to refine our computer simulations and make them more accurate."

A close encounter like that of DA14 puts observers in a prime seat to follow the space rock as it interacts with Earth. As the asteroid races toward Earth from the south and streaks high across the Indian Ocean, the Earth’s gravitational field grabs it and flings it off into space in a so-called gravitational slingshot.

According to Beshore, objects larger than about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) are still being discovered, even though much less frequently than only seven or eight years ago.

"NASA is developing concepts to improve our sensitivity so we can detect objects that are smaller, further away, or both."

Scientists at the UA started looking for asteroids before NASA did. SPACEWATCH and Catalina Sky Survey are two research programs at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory dedicated to the study of small objects like asteroids and comets. 
Founded in 1980 by the late Tom Gehrels and Robert McMillan, who is now its principal investigator, SPACEWATCH aims to find objects that might pose a hazard to Earth and gain a better understanding of how the solar system came to be.

The Catalina Sky Survey, begun and led by LPL senior staff scientist Steve Larson, is a NASA-supported project to discover and catalog Earth-approaching and potentially hazardous asteroids.

"In more recent years, the UA’s Catalina Sky Survey has taken a leading role in discovering these objects, and now we're sending a spacecraft under the OSIRIS-REx mission," said Beshore, who directed the survey from 2009 to early 2012.

DA14 is about one-tenth the size of asteroid 1999 RQ36, which the OSIRIS-REx mission will visit in 2018 and from which it will return a sample to Earth in 2023. 

Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission, believes 1999 RQ36 may hold important clues to the formation of the solar system.

"We think 1999 RQ36 is a primitive object, relatively unchanged since the beginning of the solar system. The chance to examine a sample in laboratories here on Earth may lend important clues to the source of organic materials and water – both critical to our understanding of how life arose on Earth, and the prospects for finding it elsewhere."

Furthermore, OSIRIS-REx will be a pathfinder mission, Lauretta said, helping us understand the techniques and technologies needed to navigate and work in an asteroid’s microgravity environment – important preparation for dealing with a future hazard or preparing for a manned expedition to an asteroid some day.  

More snow in forecast for Rim Country today

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URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF AZ 450 AM MST WED FEB 20 2013
YAVAPAI COUNTY MOUNTAINS-NORTHERN GILA COUNTY-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...PRESCOTT...PAYSON 450 AM MST WED FEB 20 2013
...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM MST THIS EVENING... * SNOW ACCUMULATION...EXPECT STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 10   INCHES ABOVE 6000 FEET AND 4 TO 8 INCHES ABOVE 4000 FEET. LOWER ELEVATIONS FROM 3000 TO 4000 FEET WILL SEE LESS THAN AN INCH TO AS MUCH AS 3 INCHES...PRIMARILY DURING THE DAY. LOCALIZED AMOUNTS OF 12 TO 15 INCHES WILL BE POSSIBLE NORTH OF PAYSON...JUST ALONG THE SOUTHERN EDGE OF THE MOGOLLON RIM. * OTHER IMPACTS...SOUTHWEST WINDS OF 15 TO 25 MPH WILL CAUSE AREAS OF BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW...AS WELL AS SEVERELY REDUCED VISIBILITIES.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING...DUE TO SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW AND STRONG WINDS PRODUCING LIMITED VISIBILITIES. DRIVING WILL BE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS DURING THIS STORM. IF POSSIBLE...POSTPONE TRAVELING IN THE WARNING AREA UNTIL THIS STORM PASSES. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL TAKE EMERGENCY SUPPLIES THAT INCLUDE WINTER CLOTHING...FOOD...WATER AND A FLASHLIGHT.
TELL FAMILY AND FRIENDS YOUR TRAVEL ROUTE...THE PLANNED ARRIVAL TIME AT YOUR DESTINATION...AND THE TYPE AND COLOR OF VEHICLE YOU ARE DRIVING IN CASE YOU GET STRANDED.
FOR THE LATEST ROAD CONDITIONS AND CLOSURES...CALL THE ADOT FREEWAY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AT 1 888 411 7623 OR VISIT THEIR WEB SITE AT WWW.AZ511.COM.
ADDITIONAL WEATHER INFORMATION IS ON THE WEB AT WWW.WEATHER.GOV/FLAGSTAFF.
&&  

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PHOENIX AZ 349 AM MST WED FEB 20 2013
.A STRONG STORM SYSTEM WILL MOVE ACROSS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA TODAY WITH SNOW LEVELS FALLING RAPIDLY AFFECTING HIGHER TERRAIN AREAS SUCH AS JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK...TONTO NATIONAL FOREST...AND SOUTHERN GILA COUNTY. SNOWFALL MAY BE BRIEFLY HEAVY WITH STRONG WINDS LEADING TO BLOWING SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES.
SOUTHERN GILA COUNTY/TONTO NATIONAL FOREST FOOTHILLS- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...GLOBE...MIAMI...TOP-OF-THE-WORLD 349 AM MST WED FEB 20 2013
...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM MST THIS EVENING ABOVE 3500 FEET... * SNOW ACCUMULATIONS...2 TO 5 INCHES BETWEEN 3500 AND 5000 FEET. 5 TO 9 INCHES ABOVE 5000 FEET. * SNOW LEVELS...FALLING AS LOW AS 2500 FEET...WITH ACCUMULATIONS MOSTLY LIMITED TO ABOVE 3500 FEET. * TIMING...SNOW BEGINNING EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING BEFORE SUNRISE AT HIGHEST ELEVATIONS EXPANDING TO RELATIVELY LOWER ELEVATIONS DURING THE MORNING. MOST PERSISTENT AND HEAVIEST SNOWFALL BETWEEN SUNRISE AND EARLY AFTERNOON WEDNESDAY. * AFFECTED AREA...ELEVATIONS ABOVE 3500 FEET...INCLUDING LOCATIONS AROUND GLOBE/MIAMI AND THE SAN CARLOS RESERVATION...AND HIGHWAYS 60 AND 77 THROUGH SOUTHERN GILA COUNTY. * MAIN IMPACT...ROADS WILL BECOME SLICK AND HAZARDOUS WITH ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL WEDNESDAY MORNING. * OTHER IMPACTS...STRONG AND GUSTY WEST WINDS WILL LEAD TO BLOWING SNOW AND SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED VISIBILITIES.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING.  SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS AT HIGHER ELEVATIONS SUCH AS TOP OF THE WORLD...PINAL PASS...AND HIGHWAY 60 NORTH OF GLOBE. ONLY TRAVEL THOSE AREAS IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT... FOOD...AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.