Forget the Woman, Save the Baby

 

 

 

Slow drip

Because it's Wednesday, have a laugh with this cute punkin discovering dandelions.

Saving California water and saving the Colorado River.

Fascinating look into the lives of the Ku Klux Klan.

Eco-friendly stoves help save lives.

Flowers, Funerals, and Falderal

Ancient grave shows use of flowers to honor the dead.

 Exactly, what he said.  Horsey captures it in one cartoon.

What men can do to stop the harassment of women online.  One man who supports a woman's right to choose.

Sleepy baby turned into art.

Republicans want to control your lady parts... so how about controlling manly bits as well?

No More Mister Nice Blog thinks the Voting Rights Act will not be saved.  I hope he's wrong.

Kitty parade.

Iain Banks' obit and writing pointers.

From someone who has lived in a communist country:

Truth is, American conservatives have remarkably a lot in common with Russian communists: the same obsession with ideological purity, the same irrational intolerance towards loyal dissent, the same prioritizing of ideology over practicality, the same preparedness to sacrifice liberties, human dignity and lives for the sake of ideological totems, the same clash-of-civilizations thinking, the same pretensions at worldwide cultural and political hegemony. And of course, the modern American conservative and the Russian communist of the bygone era share a deep and abiding dislike of people having unauthorized sex in pursuit of “instant gratification”.

And so forth and so on...

Martian plate tectonics!  360 degree panorama!

She wasn't a fetus so the Republicans don't care.  But if there's a fetus involved: Kansas Doctor Under Attack For Not Forcing Ten Year Old Rape Victim To Give Birth

Ohio is afraid of letting people vote.

Good guy bank.

You can fool some of the people all of the time.  The Ryan plan, and what choosing Ryan didn't and did do for Romney.

Romney supports Tranquility Bay, a Mormon behavior reformation camp that tortures kids.... and more on this.

Mute button.

The starfish story.  Found on this thread of Reddit.

Mercury is delicious

The Republicans would like you to have more.

Hope and humor

An all electric car

Contentment.

Standing up for veggie gardening!



And, as always, Phila of Bouphonia's Friday hope blog.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Lion Tries To Eat Baby, Parents Oddly Okay With It

This fossil find makes me want to watch Jurassic Park again...

How ... odd. Forecast predicts biggest Gulf dead zone ever. I wonder if the oil companies and corn growers want to make the entire Gulf of Mexico dead so they can drill for oil and ignore fertilizer run off in peace....

Tell American Public Media: Report the facts, not anti-organic propaganda paid for by Monsanto

Sunspots are disappearing! Does that mean a little ice age is coming? On top of global warming? I'm so confused....

How to keep a baby from crying?

Get a dog.

You guys need a laugh

A really deep belly laugh....

Blog sprinkles

Instant anti-depressant from NTodd.

JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie has a fascinating argument going on her post about the nun in an Arizona hospital being automatically excommunicated for helping to save a woman's life... because the woman had a life threatening pregnancy.

Headline to gape at: Texas schools to teach kids that ’separation of church and state’ not in Constitution or how about this one? Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers

How to kill Social Security by ignorance explained by Gaius Publius of AmericaBlog.

Being skeptical about skeptics about global warming.

British bees are leaving their hives as well.

Steve Bates' laptop has been attacked by an 'interesting' virus. Can anyone identify it?

Karl Rove projects his own style of governmental 'control' on to the Obama administration.

And the oil meter still rolls on...

Making a master race

By denying health care to imperfect babies? Or ones they just don't like? This baby will get no health coverage because she's underweight. Remember the baby who was too heavy?

Apparently our health insurance companies are now involved in eugenics.... and that's okay with Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats?

WTF?

Example A:

"The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support." Governor Sarah Palin.

The first months of motherhood

I remember as exhausting, hormonal, and stressful... but I remember the joy as well:

...[S]cientists at the Baylor College of Medicine say there’s more to the baby buzz than just a rush of happy feelings. Turns out that seeing your own child smile actually activates the pleasure receptors in the brain typically associated with food, sex — and drug addiction.

“It may be that seeing your own baby’s face is like a ‘natural high,’ said Lane Strathearn, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor and and Texas Children's Hospital who studied the brain reactions of 28-first time moms.

Nice, to include drug addiction into the process of loving something like this:

"The relationship between mothers and infants is critical for child development," said Strathearn. "For whatever reason, in some cases, that relationship doesn't develop normally. Neglect and abuse can result, with devastating effects on a child's development."

To study this relationship, Strathearn and his colleagues asked 28 first-time mothers with infants aged 5 to 10 months to watch photos of their own babies and other infants while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The machine measures blood flow in the brain. In the scans, areas of increased blood flow "light up," giving researchers a clue as to where brain activity takes place.

In some of the photos, babies were smiling or happy. In others they were sad, and in some they had neutral expressions.

They found that when the mothers saw their own infants' faces, key areas of the brain associated with reward lit up during the scans.

Scientists are avoiding stating the obvious. For the sake of evolutionary survival, there had better be some rewards for losing sleep, sanity, and hair when you produce a small, smelly, irritating, noisy, insistent infant and need to take care of it 24/7. Love helps.

And for those who are unsure how to operate a baby:

Here. You guys need this.

Stolen shamelessly from Watertiger posting at Firedoglake.

It all comes down to this:

Getting between the need and the person, all because of greed.

Washington, DC (AHN) - A national campaign to help educate mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding was "toned down" to the point of futility in response to pressure from the formula industry, The Washington Post reported Friday.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, babies who are not exclusively breastfed for their first 6 months are more likely to develop a wide range of health problems, including ear infections, diarrhea and respiratory illnesses. They also show a 21% higher mortality rate. However, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who recently testified that the Bush administration let political considerations interfere with public health campaigns, says that only about one in four babies are breastfed long enough to receive the benefits.

That's why the federal Office on Women's Health developed a "Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding" in 2000 to help educate women about breastfeeding. The campaign included hard-hitting ads, such as one featuring an asthma puffers that looked like a bottle of formula, warning, "babies who aren't breastfed are up to 250% more likely to suffer respiratory diseases."

The formula industry fought the ads, brining in powerful lobbyists, such as Clayton Yeutter, who served as agriculture secretary during the administration of George H.W. Bush.

Carmona was removed from the campaign and political appointees were brought in to drop the ads in favor of toned down messages. "Babies are born to be breastfed," one ad states simply.

In 2004 letters obtained by the Post, Yeutter and other lobbyists thanked then-HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson for his staff's action to eliminate "the most egregious distortions" aimed at "scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding."

Meanwhile, breastfeeding rates have actually decreased.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the allegations of political meddling in public health concerns.

Did you know that lead is used as a stabilizer in recycled vinyl?

Doesn't excuse China though:

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - A California environmental group on issued warnings Wednesday against the use of vinyl baby bibs made in China and sold at Toys "R" Us stores after it was found they contain lead levels as high as three times the level allowed in paint in the bibs.

The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) in Oakland conducted safety tests on bibs with "Winnie the Pooh" characters and store-brand bibs sold under the Koala Baby and Especially for Baby labels. The bibs that were bought at San Francisco Bay-area Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Stores were found to have the concentration of lead well above federal safety limits for lead in paint.

Associated Press quotes Caroline Cox, the center's research director as saying, "I don't think we should be exposing children to this toxic metal unnecessarily."

Following the reports, CEH now issued warning against Toys "R" Us, the country's second-largest toy seller, to take legal action to get vinyl baby bibs off store shelves.

California is a state with especially strict rules on lead exposure. However, Cox also added that lead is sometimes used as a stabilizer in vinyl. It can also occur unintentionally when recycled vinyl used for other purposes becomes part of a new product.

The best laugh in the world

Don't know why I've got a baby theme going today....