Mother of 6 gives birth to 8 more

A mother of six kids sought fertility treatment to have more kids. Does anyone else have an issue with this?

(CNN) -- The mother of a woman who gave birth on Monday to octuplets said her daughter already has six children at home and was undergoing fertility treatment.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that Angela Suleman said her daughter had the embryos implanted last year, resulting in the eight births.

"They all happened to take," Suleman told the Times. "I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful."

The woman declined to have the number of embryos reduced when she discovered she was carrying multiples, the Times reported. The six older siblings range from ages 7 to 2, according to the newspaper.

Suleman said she was concerned about her daughter's homecoming because her husband, a contract worker, is due to return to Iraq.

I am no great environmentalist, but, we are becoming an ever-more crowded planet facing issues because of our presence. And, in this bailout age, who is going to be paying for these kids? Does her contractor husband in Iraq pull down the income to support the six, not to mention 14 kids? So, more than likely, resources will be required from friends, family, community, commerce and government to support this brood. If so, this is a tad selfish and irresponsible on the part of this family.

HFCS, "you know what they say"...

High Fructose Corn Syrup is a cheap alternative to traditional table sugar also known as sucrose. Sucrose is made of equal parts of glucose and fructose. HFCS is, as you might suspect from the name, proportionately higher in fructose, usually around 55% fructose to glucose 45%.

So why the hub-bub over HFCS. The commercials, paid for by the Corn Refiners Association, tell us, "you know what they say"...and leave it at that, only filling in the blanks with hollow and disingenuous phrases like HFCS is "nutritionally the same as sugar". While the statement may be accurate, sugar is not nutritious in the least. Take a look at the USDA nutrition database for sugar. There is NO nutrition, save calories, in sugar.

The issues associated with HFCS and, at least in my opinion with sugar, are:

"...fructose is absorbed differently than other sugars, which may have nutritional consequences. When glucose is consumed, it increases production of insulin, which enables sugar in the blood to be transported into cells where it can be used for energy. It also increases production of leptin, a hormone that helps regulate appetite and fat storage, and suppresses production of ghrelin, a hormone made by the stomach that helps regulate food intake. Because of this reaction, it has been suggested that after eating glucose, hunger declines.

Fructose, however, doesn't stimulate insulin secretion or increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. Therefore, researchers suggest that consuming a lot of fructose, similar to consuming a lot of fat, may contribute to weight gain.

Additionally, fructose is converted into the chemical backbone of trigylcerides more efficiently than glucose, and elevated levels of trigylcerides are linked to an increased risk of heart disease. One study found that fructose produced significantly higher blood levels of triglycerides in men, although not in women, leading researchers to say that diets high in fructose may be undesirable, especially for men.

Further, fructose may alter the magnesium balance in the body, leading to an acceleration of bone loss, according to a USDA study.

Researchers have also examined evidence from multiple studies and concluded that large quantities of fructose from a variety of sources, such as table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, induce insulin resistance, impair glucose tolerance, produce high levels of insulin, boost a dangerous type of fat in the blood and cause high blood pressure in animals."

The above being from this link.

And now you do know what they say.

Does anyone else get the feeling....

...that President Obama is using the cover of "economic stimulus" to ram through some agenda items, much as Dubya used 9/11 to wage a war on Iraq?

I mean, we all know now that Dubya and neocon Chaney had preconceptions to invade Iraq even before 9/11...that is fact. They just got an easy cover story with 9/11 and an easier sell to the public because of the terrorist attacks. Who didn't loathe Saddam Hussein at the time?

Now, Obama seems to be getting some long standing liberal agenda items brought to the forefront and quite probably rammed through as economic stimulus that have very little right being called economic stimulus. Currently in his package he is touting ..."huge increases in federal spending on education, aid to states for Medicaid costs, [and] temporary increases in unemployment benefits".

So, how are those items an economic stimulus other than being, as considered by Keynesian economists, huge government expenditures? They are only line item increases that the Democrats have sought all along anyway and that will have little, if any, effect on reviving our economy.

I fully understand that the issues of Bush using 9/11 and Obama using the economic downturn are morally night and day apart, but the tactics are definitely similar, eh?

Barack H. Obama

I wonder how many words will be written about yesterday's M.L.K. celebrations and today's inauguration of Obama. They are historic days for the USA, for sure. My hopes though, are that after today I no longer hear about what color President Obama is or isn't, or any other race comments toward him or anyone else for that matter. I can understand the pride of black Americans today, and that commentators are grabbing the sensationalism of the moment and capitalizing upon it, but, after today is over lets prove we matured a little as a country and forget the race issue.

Good luck President Obama, given the current state of affairs and the high expectations thrust upon you, you will need it.

Bigger is not better

Given the recent economic and credit crises I am leaning to the thought that bigger is certainly not better in corporate America.

Commercial banks and other financial firms grew through mergers, acquisitions and expansion to the point of "Too Big To Fail" status. But, by news reports of their accounting practices and financial well-being, they were never what we thought they were. They produced huge incomes for a select few at the top of the ladder, but left many exposed to their unsound business practices...both customers and debt and equity holders, the later of which include pension funds and charitable interests.

And, on an operations level these behemoth companies were cold and impersonal. My own experience includes having multiple banks bought out by larger rivals. More than once at the banks that I originally opened accounts I had a personal level relationships, sometimes even being known by name by the management. At BigFinance Bank, I was just a body walking in the door. Most times services were cut even as commercials on the TeeVee told me my new big bank gave me tons of no fee services and great rates.

And "Too Big To Fail" automakers, and too big retailers, and too big oil companies and others. Big cold, sterile corporations filled with employees that turn over much more often than in times gone by, and by management and employees that may or may not be dedicated to anything but themselves.

Maybe this age of larger Banking, Automaker, Oil and the like is just a part of the grand business cycle and smaller institutions are around the corner. Maybe personalized service and management and employees that care about their jobs and companies they work for is going to make a comeback. Maybe locally owned companies can make a comeback. I can dream that anyway...

Our Victory Garden

My wife and I have started a more sincere effort at growing a good bit of our own food over the last couple of years in general, but in these tough economic times specifically, we have increased our efforts. We live in a rural area with plenty of room and have the space to expand our gardens even more. Faced with the economy the way it is, it just seems fitting to roll up the sleeves and get more dirt under the fingernails to ride out this mess by helping out ourselves....

...the only thing is, growing cheap homegrown food is pretty expensive. In our area we have a very rocky soil, and calling it soil is being nice. What we really have is rock with some limey clay around it. So, we took our garden efforts up above ground level into raised beds. The beds are nice, built of mortared stone - certainly not the cheapest way to build a bed. And, they are filled with a purchased mixture of sand and compost, hauled in by hired dump trucks. Again, not the cheapest way to grow a tomato.

Of course every good gardener needs a place to store their tools. So, we built a nice garden shed that more or less matches the appearance of our house, doing much of the work ourselves, but still adding to the cost of each little pepper grown.

Did I mention the greenhouse? If you are going to make an effort to supply your appetites with homegrown veggies and such you have to be able to get plants going early in the year, and extend the harvest throughout the winter...so a greenhouse found its way into the mix. Price a greenhouse (though we built it ourselves) and see how many sprigs of overwintered basil you need to pluck to make it cost worthy.

All told we may never realize a "profit" from growing our own foodstuffs, but it's satisfaction and reward enough watching the plants grow knowing we did it, and that we know where they came from and that no chemicals have been applied to them. And it is a downright tasty reward, too.

Economic Recovery

What I am hearing and reading about proposals to save us from our current economic meltdown sounds to me like revived enthusiasm for MORE GOVERNMENT. Apparently no one stand on their own anymore. We have, as a whole, thrown up our hands and look only to government as savior.

The growth model economy has to have down times. There are no up-forever economies. Recessions are as much a part of economic history as losing big games is a part of the Cowboy's recent franchise history. This time, we are told, is different. We can't just ride out this recession and let things take there natural course. It is different because previous government meddling has created a bigger disaster. Loose monetary policy, artificially low interest rates, etc., created a monster in the credit markets. Too Big To Fail Enterprises have to be bailed out or we will all lose.

The Obama Administration is proposing stimulus packages that could total over one trillion dollars, and is talking of running deficits of over one trillion dollars out as far as the eye can see. Stimulus including tax breaks, jobs programs and spending on medical technology upgrades and more. Many experts aren't buying that this will lead to an economic recovery anytime soon.

Government failure only leads to more and bigger government. I say, get used to more government, because they are destined to fail again. We are in this recession not until Too Big To Fail makes profits again, but until the private citizens balance sheet is placed into order again, and when we start feeling like spending.

One Big Happy Fraud

Churchill is credited with saying, "Capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others". Whether it is an accurate quote, or even Churchill's, is debatable. Our capitalistic model is certainly flawed though. We are: One Big Happy Fraud.

Bernard Madoff recently exposed himself as a fraud. A runner of a Ponzi Scheme, relying on growth through a continual pool of new investors to keep the machine oiled and running. Tough economic times outed his scheme though, and exposed the man to us, and we were dismayed as to how something like this can happen. Many banks, GSE's and other financial institutions have likewise been exposed as fraud....cooked books, over-leveraged and holding assets that were not readily quanitifiable.

And when we look into our own mirror, we are likely face to face with someone living beyond our means, hoping a paycheck isn't missed or that unforseen financial contengencies don't derail our highlife. We are in a house that is too big and expensive, driving cars that fit out neighborhoods status level, and carry maxed-out credit cards. We too, as a citizen of this Capitalistic democracy, are mostly frauds.

We are living the Growth Model Ponzi scheme.

From local governments seeking to attract more businesses or populace, to the state level and on to the Federal level, we are only in "good times" when we have economic growth. Economic growth is largely and ultimately tied to population growth. You can have pockets of growth without population growth - from increased productivity and taking business away from someone else - but these are not sustainable and mean that somewhere, or someone, else isn't growing. The "good times" have rolled in the south and on the coasts due to population growth. See Michigan as the alternate model and what circumstances they find themselves in.

And, we can't grow population forever, it is an endgame that is destructive to us as a species and to the planet that we inhabit. We have to find "good times" that don't tie into a GDP number that is consequetively positive. We have to find sustainable economics....and for that I think we need to look backwards in time in order to move forwards. Making local economies more self-sufficient, locally produced food and products, higher utilization of local labor and talent...go backwards to the good old days knowing the Ponzi Scheme we are living is ultimately destined to fail.