Study at http://ij.org/licensetowork.

I always thought that EMT's studied at least 1 year, was surprised by the video in that respect.

We do need licensing for certain vital occupations, but perhaps not washing hair!

Government feels that it has to do something even if it doesn't make sense rather than leaving well enough alone.  Too much government is destroying this country's freedom.

Can't Help Ourselves

The above ad was on the web page (http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/nutrition/225985-iom-feds-should-prepare-to-intervene-on-childhood-nutrition-standards) which said:


Federal agencies should step in if industries that promote high-calorie foods to children do not implement common nutrition standards within two years, the influential Institute of Medicine (IOM) said Tuesday. 
The recommendation came as part of a 478-page IOM report on the U.S. obesity epidemic that outlined broad policy changes the panel says are necessary to stave off a healthcare crisis.
The changes are aimed at a complete overhaul of the United States's "obesogenic" environment, the panel wrote.
"People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese," panelist Shiriki Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania said.
"That advice will never be out of date. But when you see the increase in obesity you ask, what changed? And the answer is, the environment.
"The average person cannot maintain a healthy weight in this obesity-promoting environment," she said.
Strategies like a possible soda tax and new zoning laws to encourage walking and biking are designed to "reinforce one another's impact to speed our progress," said panel Chairman Dan Glickman, a former secretary of Agriculture.


(OBESOGENIC A strange-looking word, it comes from obese plus the ending -genic, something tending to generate or create. It refers to conditions that lead people to become excessively fat — a worrying trend in developed countries, especially among young people, who are eating too much of the wrong things and not taking enough exercise. The problem is variously put down to social causes (too many sedentary pursuits available; fear that the outdoors in cities is dangerous, leading to less cycling, walking and running about) or to the results of our consumer lifestyle (eating pre-prepared meals that contain excessive sugar and fats). The term seems to have appeared in the last decade (the first example I can find is from a British newspaper in 1996) and is not as yet mainstream, though it is increasingly turning up in newspapers and medical journals. Its opposite is not often called for, but if you need it, it’s leptogenic, leading to weight loss, from Greek leptos, thin, fine or delicate.)(http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-obe1.htm)


I actually believe that people can maintain a healthy weight in this environment.  But many people believe that only government can save us from ourselves!

Taxes on pop is another "great" way to "help" us, my personal pop consumption is about 12 ozs. a week on pizza day (another no-no, oh please help us Gov!).  Though I do believe in making it safer to walk and bike.

I know that I am old-fashioned in believing that people can do what is right without the government's help.

Protect Us Gov

The following is from Boston:


Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.
At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.
The Departments of Public Health and Education contend clearing tables of even whole milk and white bread is necessary to combat an obesity epidemic affecting a third of the state’s 1.5 million students. But parents argue crudites won’t cut it when the bills come due on athletic equipment and band trips.
...
State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, said the problem of overweight children has reached “crisis” proportions.
“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo said.
“But,” she added, “this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.” (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220507parents_rules_half-baked_states_junk_food_ban_could_take_bite_out_of_school_fundraisers/srvc=home&position=0)


I admit I always hated it when our kids had to sell candy or whatever to fund school or sports activities.  But it was necessary to raise the funds for their activities.

I wish parents would do what is necessary to keep their own kids from getting fat.  Our grandkids are active and don't overeat or eat extremely bad things for them (though they do get desserts sometimes).  Our kids are parents!

(I don't know what "crudites" are either! Must be Bostonian for something.)

May Showers

After a fairly dry April, the skies have opened up during May.  Driving home from a visit at a nursing home yesterday,  the rain came down extremely hard, hard enough for people to slow down to 30-35mph on a 55mph highway.

When ever it rains hard, our basement feels that a nice trickle or two of water is appropriate.  Fortunately, the temperature has increased downstairs so that the dehumidifier works.  I turn on a fan in the direction of the streams of water and turn on the dehumidifier.  Of course, the same boxes that don't have the sense to move out of the way of the water get wet again!

Since there was lightning this morning, I took the car into the Y.  Rain tends to break up my routine!

****

Gas has decreased $0.10 a gallon at the place I bought it on Thursday!

Gov Waste

Another compassionate government program that became bloated and out of control.  The idea was that to get a job, you need a means of communication. So the government (i.e., you and me), would give phones so people could be contacted and have an emergency means of communication.

It seems that the government can not run any program without immense waste.

Here is a link to the sponsor of a bill to "correct" the problem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQHEFuMzvj4&feature=relmfu).

Decisions

I can make quick decisions.  Many of my jobs required a quick decision especially in the military.

Unfortunately, not all of my decisions are correct.  My LW takes more time to make decisions, but she is almost always right.

One of my many faults is wanting others to make the decision right now!  I know I should not be frustrated but that doesn't help.  So often, I just go ahead and make the decision without input.  This is really not a good way to act!

What bought this on was my daughter's blog entry Making Choices and thinking on the dog walk about how I am not like that!

****

I bought some gas on Thursday (the day prices went up about $.30/gal).  I read that gas prices (per barrel) have decreased to less than $100/barrel; so it looks like my control is back yet again!

*****

New unemployment claims were up over 200,000 this past week and new jobs were 115000, but the unemployment rate decreased 0.1% to 8.1%.  It looks like PO is reducing the unemployment rate by getting people out of the job market instead of policies that increase employment.

Life of Julia

President Obama has a slide show of the cradle to grave government "care". (http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia).

Some interesting comments / articles on the subject (warning what follows is anti-PO, remember I am right winged):

Let's, for the purposes of this post, set aside the misleading generalizations regarding policy in the ad (no one is innocent on that account, obviously). What we are left with is a celebration of a how a woman can live her entire life by leaning on government intervention, dependency and other people's money rather than her own initiative or hard work. It is, I'd say, implicitly un-American, in the sense that it celebrates a mindset we have -- outwardly, at least -- shunned.
It is also a mindset that women should find offensively patronizing. When they're old enough, I hope my two daughters will find the notion that their success hinges on the president's views on college-loan interest rates preposterous. Yet, according to the "Life of Julia," women are helpless without the guiding hand of Barack Obama. (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=51265)



If they begin to make the culture of cool uneasy about Obama, and increasingly comfortable treating him (as it is inclined to treat everyone) as a self-important windbag, they could do serious damage to his standing with precisely the intended audience of the Life of Julia: young liberals, who must turn out in uncharacteristically large numbers if Obama is to have a decent chance of re-election. If those young liberals come to see the president not as a cool modern idealist in on the joke but as a bloviating panderer who buys his own shtick, he’s in big trouble. If you puncture Obama’s balloon, there is not much left of him, and he seems to be running the risk of puncturing that balloon himself.  
Above all, though, the Life of Julia is deeply telling of the view of American life underlying contemporary progressivism. Mitt Romney has taken to describing President Obama’s vision of America as one of a government-centered society. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect illustration of what he means than this. (

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/298914/life-julia-yuval-levin

)

Her life is framed to show that she gets more from President Barack Obama than from Republicans. The same contrast could be achieved differently. She could lose her web-design job and go on unemployment, which President Obama always wants to extend despite Republican objections. With her family’s income dropping, she could resort to the food-stamp program, which has expanded massively under President Obama despite Republicans’ inveighing against the trend. These examples don’t suit the campaign’s purposes, though. They show government to be a poor substitute for the robust recovery that President Obama hasn’t delivered even as he has endeavored to make Julia’s birth-control pills free.

The point of view of “The Life of Julia” is profoundly condescending. It assumes that giving people things will distract them from larger considerations of the public weal — the economy, debt, the health of the culture. This view’s infantilizing tendency is captured by Obamacare’s insistence that, for purposes of health insurance, young adults are children who belong on their parents’ policies until the age of 26. It devalues self-reliance and looks at us less as independent citizens than as drab Julias, bereft without the succor of our life partner and minder, the state. (

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/298936/nation-julias-rich-lowry)

And probably the best is another slideshow showing how life for this woman would actually be under PO.

(http://thelifeofjulia.com/)

Politician

Just some fun videos of a politician!  Every once in a while you find a politician who says what he believes and not just being politically correct.

Translate

Since I am trying to sing in Swedish, I love Google Translate.  You can put Swedish into it and have it translate to English (or Polish if you wish).  Then you can have it speak it to you!

This is great for us language challenged people.  So when I noticed that Blogger has a translate gadget, I added it to my blog.  Just think of the joy it can bring to people to see my blog in Swedish or Spanish or any of the 50 languages that are available!

Think of the millions of poor people who wanted to read my brillant thoughts but who were not able to due to the English language.  Of course, I hope that they can read the Translate label or at least figure it out!

I sure like google's products.  They have google drive which works on my mac even though most other cloud types need the next operating system (10.7 I'm running 10.6 right now).

Choices

I was thinking on the dog walk this morning about the choices I made and the consequences from them.  I applied to 2 colleges when I was getting ready to graduate from high school.  MSU and U of Mich, MSU offered me a tuition scholarship and a job (bus-boying) since I did not have much money I decided to go to MSU.

While I was at MSU, I met Vic and we became roommates.  One of the girls that Vic dated was my Lovely Wife.  We double dated to a movie ?Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round."  Later I asked her to marry me and she said yes (a couple of years later, not right after the movie, I don't remember who my date was).

Due to the decision to go to MSU & go on a double date, we had 3 children and 5 grandchildren.  Without those decisions, we probably would not have met and there would be many fewer people in the world.  I am glad that I did and she said yes!  We have been married for many years and I am a very lucky guy.