There’s an old expression used to convey the idea that what appears obvious is frequently the truth. The expression goes, “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck”. Well, this bit of folk wisdom is not to be trusted. Especially when it comes to the claims of, well,
quacks! That is, purveyors of bogus medical items. From phony H1N1 “swine flu” cures online, to aisles upon aisles of homeopathic “remedies”, unregulated by the FDA on shelves in pharmacies across the country, people are frequently taken in by sales pitches that seem completely plausible.
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This past Saturday night, the US House of Representatives worked all day and into the evening (it felt good to watch these people work on a weekend for once) and narrowly passed a bill aimed at reforming the broken healthcare system. In the process though, they were forced to insert an amendment (the Stupak amendment) which disallows women who would be enrolled in the public option plan from getting abortions. I am fed up with people inserting their religious preferences into legislation that effects all Americans, religious or otherwise. Continue reading… 
If you like curry dishes as much as I do (big fan of Indian and Thai food here) you will be interested to learn that recent studies show that Turmeric, the spice used to give curries their nice yellow hue, has been shown to kill cancerous cells. 
I don’t know about you, but I have never been a proponent of the annual flu vaccine. I have always felt that it was really only necessary for the very young and the very old/infirm. But I also know that influenza became pandemic on a faily predictable schedule about once every 30 years or so. And since it has been nearly 40 years since the last pandemic of “Hong Kong” Flu killed 1 million people in 1968-69, I am thinking this year, I ought to at least get my 4 year old innoculated. So I called my pediatrician and they said, “No we don’t have any H1N1 vaccine and no we don’t have any info on when any will be available”. Shocking! 
I have always been amazed by how far medical science and technology has advanced in the space of the last decades and wrote 
Back in July, before the screaming town hall silliness of Congress’s August recess and before the slow as molasses delivery of Max Baucus’s Senate Finance Committee health care bill, I wrote 
OK so I am DEFINITELY not the next Warren Buffett. However, I feel pretty smart for having liquidated some poorly performing mutual funds in my 401k account about 5 months ago and using the money ($400) to invest in some 25 shares of General Electric (when it was at $3.56 a share) as well as 100 shares of AIG (when it was 44 cents a share). I also bought 10 shares of a stem cell research company as I figured that was a sector sure to grow in the future. Today, my $400 investment into these stocks is worth almost $2000, five short months later. I bought these things at the bottom of the market when everyone had been selling furiously. And it got me thinking about where the next “big” investment sector would be found. I think green energy is it. 
Ok, I know I will likely raise the ire of readers here who are, by definition, likely multi-taskers. I mean, online students typically choose the online methodology for learning precisely because they’re too busy with jobs and family to devote so much time to on-campus classes. So while you’re here reading, toggling back and forth between this blog and your course work, feeding the baby, balancing the checkbook and getting your things together to go back to work tomorrow morning, let me tell you why such multi-tasking is bad for you. **Ducks and covers to avoid hurled projectiles** 
In an unforseeable turn of events, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace this morning. Not as surprising, folks on the left were proud and folks on the right were incensed. Jump to read my take and then leave your own comments behind to share with the rest of us.