Six weeks before leaving office, the Bush administration is giving up on an effort to ease restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants, a key plank of its original energy agenda and one that put the President at odds with environmentalists his entire eight years in the White House. (AP story at SFgate.com)
(Photo courtesy of Sun Star)
I was raised to be intolerant (this was an unconscious act of my ignorant but loveable parents). I was taught that everything was either good or bad and to look at everything in a moral way.
After just months away from home I could see the ineffectiveness of this baseline education on my human interactions. The orientation around moral judgments doesn’t allow for others to have spiritual beliefs or ethics different from my own.
(Photo by Tim Middleton – www.Timages.biz)
Through several years of formal education, informal study and work in both corporate and small business settings, I redesigned that pattern, which was affecting both my personal and work life, to produce more meaning in my life.
Now I am morphing into a more tolerant, blending person. I suspect I’ll get there by the time I’m dead.
Changing this moral orientation has had a huge effect on how I choose to think about which things to do and how to do them.
A Murfreesboro, Tenn. woman who recently found $100K in the bathroom of a local restaurant located the owner of the money and returned it. She even refused a $1,000 reward after hearing the woman’s story.
Read the USA Today report HERE
About four in 10 U.S. adults and one in nine children are turning to unconventional medical approaches for chronic pain and other health problems, health officials said on Wednesday. (Reuters News has the report)
Three Year old Kensley Penney has been a Good Girl this year. So good in fact that Santa, with some help from the Pentagon granted her wish to bring Daddy home for Christmas.
This is the video. Very Very heartwarming. There is nothing more sincere and real than a young child’s heartfelt emotion.
(Photo courtesy of Sun Star)
At Tufts University, Massachusetts scientists are pioneering a method of manipulating spider silk to genetically engineer new bone tissue, thus allowing them — in theory — to re-grow damaged bones and teeth… At Rush University, Indiana, meanwhile, a team of cardiologists are trialing a device made of Gore-Tex — the waterproof fabric used in much outdoor clothing — to help repair holes in the human heart. (Full Science-Health Report at CNN)
Israeli model and Leonardo Dicaprio’s girlfriend Bar Refaeli puts her face to a good cause. She is helping to raise awareness about protecting the world’s beaches.
Many people are in the midst of reinventing their lives in the coming months.
Perhaps you are dealing with a layoff. Maybe you are looking at retirement and wondering what changes might be in store. Maybe you have recently married or divorced.
Change, whether out of choice or circumstance, can bombard you with an overwhelming feeling of unhappiness and fear. It’s easy to spiral down and judge your current situation in a negative light.
You look for signs to let you know if you are on the right path and to make sense of your world. What does it mean when you feel afraid? Does the fear mean you are exactly on the right path or does it mean you need to retreat? Should you trust your upbringing even though the old beliefs no longer serve you?
Even if you get what you want, you can wind up feeling frustrated and confused. What does it all mean?
This is where my friend and mentor, Marlene Chism, comes in really handy. When I talk to her on the telephone during those moments in which I am wondering, ‘Where IS the success?’, it is like having someone drill a big hole in the dark foreboding sky — suddenly some light is shining through!
Today she is launching her new book, Success is a Given: Reading the Signs While Re-inventing Your Life. Owning this book will be like having that giant drill in your hands personally.
Surgical teams at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Hospital say they’ve created a five-way donor kidney “swap” involving 10 people, including a mom who lost her daughter to drugs and now wants to save someone else’s daughter. Afterward, medical staff expressed a desire to change a 26 year-old law that may prevent such deals.
For the past few years, Nawal Abdulla Hadi of Baghdad couldn’t travel to see her family for the Eid al-Adha, giving up the traditional reunion during the annual Muslim holiday because the roads weren’t safe. Today she is packing up the car with the kids and heading south.
A promising malaria vaccine gives babies and young children significant protection against the deadly disease, suggest two clinical trials to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. They delivered a 53 percent reduced rate of malaria. (CBC Canada has full story)
Footage from a traffic camera overlooking a busy freeway in Santiago, Chile captured a dog performing a heroic act — pulling an injured friend from oncoming traffic. The hero dog dodges out to drag the severely injured canine across lanes of traffic as cars swerve around it. Rescue workers arrive to help the dog in the end. . . A reminder that kindness extends beyond humans. (Video below)
A French scientist who shared this year’s Nobel Prize for medicine said on Saturday he believed the transmission of AIDS could be eliminated within years. “I hope to see in my lifetime the eradication of, not the AIDS epidemic, but at least the infection,” said Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention. “This could be achieved.”
Fiscal year 2008 was a banner year for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of pollution laws and resulted in a record $11.8 billion spent in projects to clean up the environment, the agency said on Thursday.
“After these pollution control activities are completed, EPA estimates record pollution reductions of 3.9 billion pounds per year,” said Granta Nakayama, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “This is nearly four times the level of pollution reduction achieved in fiscal year 2007.”
Notable accomplishments included cutting tons of air pollution from power plants, convicting environmental criminals, stopping the import of illegal engines, protecting the nation’s water from construction site runoff, and holding polluters accountable for hazardous waste cleanups.
Specific Environmental Protection Successes Include:
Does the bailout boogeyman have you hiding under the bed? Whether we live on Wall Street, Main Street, or Sesame Street we’re all affected by the financial pinch.
The following minor lifestyle adjustments not only ensure better health, they will ease your anxiety as well as your pocket book.
(Photo, right, by Sun Star)
Rockefeller CenterModern LED lights last ten times as long as other bulbs, and use75 to 90 percent less energy, saving you money on the electric bill.
With a little bit of effort you and your family can enjoy the holiday and help save the planet at the same time. Read the article below about more ways to enjoy a green holiday. (May take a couple seconds to load.)
Photo, right: Laura Bush gives tour of new energu-saving White House decorations.
More info about cities and public buildings using LED lights at USA Today.
A mother in suburban St. Louis was overcome by emotion when a woman approached her and handed her two $100 bills, that could help to get the heat turned back on in her family’s home. The words “secret Santa” were stamped on the money and the woman said, “The only condition is that you do something nice for someone. Pass it on.” (Read the USA Today report here)
The Bush administration’s “radical and liberal” national campaign against chronic homelessness has been successful in leading the nation in a 30 percent decline in U.S. chronic homelessness from 2005 to 2007. “Housing first,” it’s called… (Read good news reporter Frank Greve’s story in McClatchy News)
“I want to be like Harold Hamilton,” was the refrain on blogs and in dozens of comments following a news report on this 86-year-old hustler.
The retired Lutheran pastor shuffles along buys extra cases of anything on sale in the grocery stores and delivers them to any one of 8 charities in Lincoln Nebraska.
He is always on the move helping someone. And don’t forget his jokes: Q: According to the Bible, how long did Cain hate his brother? A: As long as he was abel.
UPDATE: The pastor died in 2013 and was remembered for helping the hungry, especially after his retirement, during which he involved his grandchildren in his charity work.
A company based in Chicago had a special surprise for its employees: huge holiday bonuses. Golden Parachutes were given to workers they often call “family”. One employee even got $100,000.
